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posted by martyb on Tuesday June 01 2021, @09:17PM   Printer-friendly
from the logistics++ dept.

The US military is starting to get really interested in Starship:

As part of last week's federal budget rollout, a process during which the White House proposes funding levels for fiscal year 2022, the US Air Force released its "justification book" to compare its current request to past budget data. The 462-page book contains a lot of information about how the Air Force spends its approximately $200 billion budget.

For those tracking the development of SpaceX's ambitious Starship vehicle, there is an interesting tidbit tucked away on page 305, under the heading of "Rocket Cargo" (see .pdf). The Air Force plans to invest $47.9 million into this project in the coming fiscal year, which begins October 1.

"The Department of the Air Force seeks to leverage the current multi-billion dollar commercial investment to develop the largest rockets ever, and with full reusability to develop and test the capability to leverage a commercial rocket to deliver AF cargo anywhere on the Earth in less than one hour, with a 100-ton capacity," the document states.

Starship, more than just an expensive ride. Quick military equipment delivery en route.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Catalyst on Tuesday June 01 2021, @11:15PM (1 child)

    by Catalyst (7542) on Tuesday June 01 2021, @11:15PM (#1140883)

    Why not keep a handful in orbit? Would work well for relief supplies, but it's fairly costly to do that. The military might pay for in orbit ammo and supply packs though. This also completely overlooks the fact that starship is finally gonna make it cheap enough to put kinetic kill devices in orbit - all the destructive power of a nuke and none of that pesky radiation left behind.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 02 2021, @04:16PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 02 2021, @04:16PM (#1141096)

    Even sitting in a hangar on the ground a Starship can be anywhere in the world in under two hours, but one already in orbit would spend an average of six hours waiting for a landing window. One in orbit is also committed as to what supplies it is carrying and it can't carry troops or relief workers. Parking in orbit also means long term radiation exposure for whatever you are carrying. Keeping a few near existing supply bases is much simpler.

    KKVs have been affordable since Falcon 9 was first introduced if not earlier. The reason nobody has any is because of international treaties banning them.