US military eyes SpaceX Starship for 'sensitive and potentially dangerous missions': report

[Admin]

The U.S. Department of Defense has reached out to SpaceX to inquire about using Starship on its own, flying the massive rocket as a government-operated military vehicle.

US military eyes SpaceX Starship for 'sensitive and potentially dangerous missions': report : Read more

 

[fj.torres]

A first step.
If STARSHIP even approaches the cost and turn around times Musk dreams of, the Space Force will end up buying a handful of full stacks to run their operations. In times past, USAF Space Command tried to get its own independent space station and shuttle but the numbers never made sense. Soon they may.

The key point to remember is that while Musk is aiming for Mars (eventually) the first production version of Starship will operate primarily in cis Lunar space. And that is USSF's domain. After all, somebody has to be the law above 100.

 

[Atlan0001]

To twin it for two uses, public (private commercial) and governmental-military would be financially okay to both entities. To simply take it over, take total control of it, would be disastrous in every possible way there is to both!

The U. S. government, and Space Force, need to study and think in terms of the history of sea power! What made lasting sea powers! They may think Alfred Thayer Mahan's essays in his 'The Influence of Sea Power Upon History' are obsolete and not applicable, but they would be dead wrong! Quite possibly disastrously so! The "strategic view" in it is very applicable to space! Easily, and necessarily, transferrable from sea and sea power to space and space power!

Mahan emphasized the strategic -- and strategic financial -- basis and importance of the numbers in private sector sea power (thus space power), including "far flung" homeland's colonies and bases, throughout history, upon the reach (any magnitude at all) of governmental-military sea power (again, space power . . . there being no real strategic difference) and homeland defense!

 

[fj.torres]

To twin it for two uses, public (private commercial) and governmental-military would be financially okay to both entities. To simply take it over, take total control of it, would be disastrous in every possible way there is to both!

The U. S. government, and Space Force, need to study and think in terms of the history of sea power! What made lasting sea powers! They may think Alfred Thayer Mahan's essays in his 'The Influence of Sea Power Upon History' are obsolete and not applicable, but they would be dead wrong! Quite possibly disastrously so! The "strategic view" in it is very applicable to space! Easily, and necessarily, transferrable from sea and sea power to space and space power!

Mahan emphasized the strategic -- and strategic financial -- basis and importance of the numbers in private sector sea power (thus space power), including "far flung" homeland's colonies and bases, throughout history, upon the reach (any magnitude at all) of governmental-military sea power (again, space power . . . there being no real strategic difference) and homeland defense!

The plan announced is for a *temporary* takeover for the duration of a single mission, presumanly for operational security (mission tracking and control), legal issues, and precisely to keep at bay charges of SPACEX itself being militarized.

Unsaid but implied, USSF would gain institutional experience in operating Starship that would come in handy if/when they acquire their own vehicles. Thus, it would be a tentative first step towards independent space access.

 

[Aspire58]

Dumbest idea ever. A big old ginormous Starship that someone with even a shoulder fired missile or a $100 drone could and would easily shoot down while it slowly lands? Make it make sense. May as well paint a target on it while you're at it. People are so anxious to turn anything into a weapon and/or make a buck, they are not even thinking these stupid ideas through.

 

[Classical Motion]

From what I've seen I think not. It appears much quicker than a aircraft drop. No time to get a bearing to. And a lot less noise duration than aircraft. The first few missions will be completely surprising. After that diversions and decoys will do. By that time we will have materials to shield any size and shape from EM detection. And maybe even materials that can dispose of heat much more quickly. Or maybe hide it.

For quick injection it can't be beat.

 

[Stateoftheartist]

Classical motion NO.
A military halo drop, is out the back of a military jet doing 500mph in the middle of the night at 40,000 feet. It may be a shipping container with a bobcat and a hilux ute, with a special forces dude in a 4 point race harness, sitting in the ute, who's gotta bury the container by dawn. Or just a guy in an oxygen mask and superhero suit in a 500mlh straight down dive with a toolkit to fix a busted tank, about to be melted slag, that has valuable Intel personal on board and will not make it if he doesn't fix it in ten minutes.
Either way the parachutes are rigged to auto deploy ( if you are lucky) about 200feet before the payload augers into the dirt.
Just One sniper round, with a tungsten or du, armour piercing penetrator, or high explosive round, hitting any part of a landing spracex scarships fuel tank or rocket turbo pump plumbing, will turn it into one of those spectacular fireballs we are familiar with.
Great for false flag operations where you pretend its delivering relief supplies for civilian victims, and destroy a medium sized town and blame it on the locals yes.
Great for delivering nukes that are too heavy for existing missiles yes.
No other possible benefits exist.

 

[Classical Motion]

I would have thought that the fly over time plus the drop time(total detection time) would be much greater than the landing time of a starship. Assuming it lands like the boosters. It's a quick landing.

But I am certainly no expert on the rocket or military drills and procedures.

 

[Stateoftheartist]

I would have thought that the fly over time plus the drop time(total detection time) would be much greater than the landing time of a starship. Assuming it lands like the boosters. It's a quick landing.

But I am certainly no expert on the rocket or military drills and procedures.

Yeah, well. Though not a military special forces engineer myself, I am a world champion high performance engineer, and have many friends who are, or were. What I just described are just two of the missions that a very good friend of mine had to accomplish, and did, during the Soviet, Afghanistan war. The fixing the tanks Jimmy under heavy machine gun fire, was considered about a 2% chance of him succeeding. He had ten minutes notice before the plane took off, and 20min after that, he was sprinting, dodging bullets, to dive into the tank and up to his armpits in mud in the engine bay get that supercharged 2 stroke GM diesel fixed and started. There are very few scenarios where you need to get something "anywhere in the world in less than an hour". And A starship is no hypersonic low Altitude steerable glide missile like everyone but the yanks have today.
And that's the only thing that can get past any NATO, and has a small chance of getting past Brix block air defence systems that exist at this time.
They may want to use them to deploy robot hunter killers, on the moon to destroy any non US unmanned bases that China, Russia, India, Iran, North Korea, New Zealand, and a handful of others now have the capacity to put up there. But the USA does not.
That is all, I'm going to say on this matter.

 

[Classical Motion]

Well alrighty then. That's quite a story. I had no idea the military had such procedures or need, for repairing tanks during battle. Do all go thru that kind of training? That's real road service.

Lot's of change since I was in.