broadsword
Brigadier
Then Congress should bankroll the concept.
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- Thread starter tphuang
- Start date
Then Congress should bankroll the concept.
Don't consider it as an ICBM. The mission preparation time is high and the launch sites are limited.
Musk's launch systems basically allow:
- cheaper payloads to orbit. so you can have large satellite constellations cheaper.
- huge satellites on orbit for cheap with Falcon 9 Heavy or Starship. like recon satellites.
- launching a payload to any point on the surface of the Earth quickly. but the rocket lander won't have the fuel to get back all the way to the launch site.
These technologies have a lot of applications. Just look at Starlink as an example. You could also use it to place an on-orbit radar network, or even some kind of anti-ballistic missile satellite network.
You could also use it to air supply troops bogged down in the middle of nowhere or to remotely insert troops somewhere. But good luck getting those troops back. It might be possible for the rocket to make a short hop back to, say, a coastal place where they can be picked up by the US Navy, but it won't be able to get back to the original launch site. Current technology limitations make it impossible.
Sure but the C-17 can fly back to the launch site while the SpaceX craft will not.
I would like to see what they have in mind. Is it a pod from orbit? Is partial load of a Starship so it can take off to land somewhere friendly afterwards? or...?
My bet would be a pod - think oversized dragon - that comes down wherever they want. However, a C-17 payload would be significantly less than the starship is /supposedly/ going to do to orbit. That's what makes this possible they might be doing something else.
A demo in 2021 would mean it would be soon and we can tell what they have in mind.
That said, I think this is an overly expensive idea that is would potentially kill soldiers all over the place: ABM defenses would eat this design up.
IMO, this is Musk getting the gov to pay for what he wants:
No kidding. This is a really expensive way to transport anything to anywhere.
I think it will be a partial load of Starship. A pod from orbit implies you have some sort of space station you can use as a supply or troop stationing point. That would be expensive an problematic. You would need to supply the space station and for the case of in orbit troops you would have to face issues like bone and muscle degeneration while stationed in zero gravity. So it's impractical.
It will just be a point to point transport.
Currently and for the foreseeable future, completely true.
You could launch and place the pod in orbit in an on-demand manner and it is dropped from there. You don't need to have stay time. The starship stays up and then returns to landing point.
Quite probably. If you do that though, you end up with - as you noted - what to do with the Starship once it has landed.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Sometimes DARPA plays to much HALO.
This is a study not a procurement. Ideas like it have been kicked around for decades and with the launch of the Space Force the Crazy idea gates have opened and anything seems possible.
The SF it’s self is being spoken of by some as a political stunt, others as a long overdue consolidation of multiple redundant space programs or as fighting the PLARF in orbit with space battleships and starship troopers.
So is this likely probably not. That said some aspects might transition to practical.
This is a study not a procurement. Ideas like it have been kicked around for decades and with the launch of the Space Force the Crazy idea gates have opened and anything seems possible.
The SF it’s self is being spoken of by some as a political stunt, others as a long overdue consolidation of multiple redundant space programs or as fighting the PLARF in orbit with space battleships and starship troopers.
So is this likely probably not. That said some aspects might transition to practical.