timeline planning
"Musk is known to have bad timeline planning"
An easily accepted claim, but is it actually true?
Falcon Heavy was delayed by about 5 years. But Falcon 9's thrust and payload capacity increased massively over those years, allowing SpaceX to take customers to orbit using Falcon 9 instead of Falcon Heavy. It would make no sense to fly a Falcon Heavy based on the old, impossible-to-land, expensive-to-refurbish Falcon 9 boosters from years ago.
Falcon 9 was supposed to send crew to the ISS by now as part of the Commercial Crew Program. That will probably end up at least 2 years late. But ULA's Atlas V is also in the running, and has seen the same delays. This could be chalked up to unrealistic NASA standards rather than poor planning on Musk's part. The same kinds of standards that end up delaying the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope for over a decade, but will somehow allow the Space Launch System to carry live human crew on its second flight because it's based on proven designs or something.
BFR has to potential to reach lower launch costs than Falcon 9, so it is slated to replace both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. It is a top priority for the company and the spaceship part is now under construction. It seems like they can get testing underway from 2019-2021, possibly with real launches as soon as 2022.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
