I feel like there's some common misconceptions here... probably the biggest is that this isn't the beginning of the privatization of space-- before Falcon Heavy, the most powerful rocket in the world still in use was the Delta IV Heavy, developed by the Boeing Company and operated today by the United Launch Alliance, both private companies. (Early Delta rockets were government-designed but the Delta IV has basically nothing in common with them)

Also, it's not uncommon for companies to launch dummy payloads on the first launch of a new rocket; they're very failure-prone, NASA would never launch a scientific payload on the first launch-- those things are way more expensive than a Tesla Roadster. (In fact, SpaceX has an air force launch lined up specifically on the requirement that the Falcon Heavy have one success beforehand; that's probably a common clause in their launch contracts)

In the end, it's cool in the sense of "haha he put a car in space", but it doesn't really change the "big picture" of aerospace as much as people seem to like to say.

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Tuesday is always the worst day of the week for me... no end in sight x.x

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