Launch costs and red herrings
One thing worth bearing in mind is that when it comes to deep space missions, launch costs are largely irrelevant. The total cost of the Mars Science Laboratory, including the laser tank El Reg is so fond of, is around $2.5 billion to date, with more to come if the rover and orbiter continue working. The cost of an Atlas V launch is around $200 million. A Falcon Heavy launch is around $100 million. Obviously reducing costs isn't a bad thing, but when you're dealing with programmes that cost billions, and overrun by billions (MSL cost over a billion more than it was supposed to), any savings on launch costs are little more than rounding errors.
This is not to knock Falcon and Musk, when it comes to the far more common and useful uses for such launch systems, getting some competition involved and bringing prices down is great. It's just that people always seem to start talking about missions to Mars and the like, and at that point any possible cost savings are just not relevant.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
