What Role will SpaceX's Falcon Heavy Play in U.S. Exploration? And... why is China Jealous of it?

China and Europe love SpaceX's new Falcon Heavy rocket. Does NASA?

When SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket debuted this month, China's aerospace community was mostly envious, noting that their equivalent rocket, the Long March 9, would not be ready for another decade. One story in state media observed that "to put it more bluntly, this time the Americans showed us Chinese with pure power why they are...

From article, (SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy was built to help realize Elon Musk’s dreams of a multi-planetary civilization. When deployed in its final form later this summer—perhaps in June, to launch some experimental hardware for the US Air Force and NASA—it is expected to be able to deliver some 70 tons to low-earth orbit, or less than 20 tons to Mars, while costing around $150 million per mission. According to Musk, the rocket cost somewhere north of $500 million to develop.

When SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket debuted this month, China’s aerospace community was mostly envious, noting that their equivalent rocket, the Long March 9, would not be ready for another decade. One story in state media observed that “to put it more bluntly, this time the Americans showed us Chinese with pure power why they are still the strongest country in the world.”

 The Trump administration has determined that the US should re-orient itself toward lunar exploration, and its first step will be funding the development of a piece of space hardware called the “power and propulsion element,” which will be placed in orbit around the moon in 2022 as the cornerstone of a human outpost, possibly by a privately owned rocket like the Falcon Heavy. Meanwhile, this year China plans to land a robotic mission, Chang’e-4, on the dark side of the moon—something no other space power has done.

It’s not clear what role the new Falcon Heavy will play in helping US space exploration in the near term; to be sure, it may take time for space project managers to work the long-delayed vehicle into their plans, if they are willing to do so. A meeting of the National Space Council on Feb. 21 —already fraught with jockeying between rival rocket-makers—may shed more light on NASA’s plans. The White House has asked for $150 million to fund public-private partnerships to send robotic explorers to the moon, and it is possible the Falcon Heavy will be a vehicle for some of these experiments.

When the rocket launched a Tesla roadster into a solar orbit earlier this month, the “marketing wheeze,” in Wörner’s words, was the biggest event in the space world for years. While the stunt attracted both criticism and applause, it was a shot across the bows of the space establishment: If a private company can put a car up there, what else can they do? One Chinese state newspaper put the argument in terms that might be echoed at NASA’s Marshall Space Center: “what our country has to desperately catch up with is actually a private U.S. enterprise.”)

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