Falcon Heavy is a vehicle that uses a heavily modified Falcon 9 first stage in the middle, and has two more-or-less standard Falcon 9 first stages as strap-on boosters. (These first stages are sometimes called "cores".)

The side cores for this flight are reused Falcon 9 first stages, while the center core is new. Falcon Heavy center cores are structurally reinforced, and hence are different enough from Falcon 9 that you can't reuse one as the other; whereas converting between Falcon 9 first stage and Falcon Heavy side booster just involves moving around some external hardware.

The government has done good work on this issue - it's bootstrapped a market for launches using its purchasing power in military launches and ISS resupply contracts, while actively working to preserve a competitive environment and avoid monopolies. It also provides essential services like range safety and airspace management; what's getting in SpaceX's way is the lack of government.

> Government is normally getting in the way or at least slowing down the process of innovation.

Citation needed, especially as I'll just note we're using a website, many innovative technical elements of which were government funded.

The government built and runs the range on which they're testing. SpaceX is free to finish building their launch site in Texas and launch from there in the future. Sometimes government slows down innovation but in terms of both public and commercial space NASA has mostly been a force for speeding up and enabling innovation.

The downvotes may be because people see this comment as playing into the narrative that government is inherently dysfunctional.

Here's an opinion piece from WaPo this morning on the subject: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dont-buy-the-spin-go...

tl;dr: Shutting down the government gives credence to those who base part of their political programme on "government is evil lol", when really they just want less regulation on behalf of wealthy donors -- a fundamentally corrupt bargain.

Government is a big reason SpaceX is where it is in the first place. They used government facilities on Kwajalein to launch their first five rockets, and have used government facilities in Florida and California to launch all the ones since. NASA’s CRS contract paid for a substantial part of the development of Falcon 9 and Dragon.

If SpaceX had built their own launch facilities instead of using the government’s, they wouldn’t be beholden to the shutdown like this.

This is the first launch of their heavy rocket according to the article so nothing to recycle yet. The government is one of spacex’s biggest customers.

Er, 2/3 of the first stages are reused, and the unusual thing about SpaceX is that they have a lot more non-government business than any US launch provider ever.

Not for this one. This is the first launch of the Falcon Heavy vehicle.

Correct me, if I am wrong, but I thought the outer two cores are recycled ones?

They are indeed.