/sci/ - Science & Math

>>9458058
>Elon would not choose to develop it in hindsight
Mostly as a cost cutting measure. It's very clear Musk thinks having only one type of vehicle will be cheaper than having multiple different ones.

Musk has clearly stated that he thought the Falcon Heavy would be as easy "strapping 3 Falcon 9s together", but instead it required a bunch of extra hardware, essentially creating a completely different type of booster from the Falcon 9.

That's why the BFR is will replace both Falcon heavy and Falcon 9. He wants only one vehicle.
I think if he had the choice he would prefer the "strapping multiple small boosters together" over "one big fucking rocket", alas it's not possible.

He might lose out on some market share because of this though. While bigger rockets are more efficient, if your satellite is small (like a lot of new cubesats are), and you don't want to piggyback with someone else it might be cheaper to with a smaller rocket company like pic related.