The SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket (above) and Blue Origin’s planned New Glenn heavy lifter should prove that big, new rockets are no longer the sole province of government.

SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk said late Dec. 1 that he has selected the payload that will fly on the first launch of the company’s long-delayed Falcon Heavy rocket in January: a Tesla sports car.

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Jeff Foust has more than a decade of experience writing about space policy, entrepreneurial ventures and regulatory affairs. In 2001, he established spacetoday.net to aggregate and summarize the day's space-related news stories. In 2003, he started The...