Astro Hawk (Ian Kluft) ✅🚀🛰️"With Starfall, SpaceX eyes an edge in global cargo delivery from orbit" by @arstechnica / Stephen Clark - #SpaceX #Falcon9 launch today had a surprise experimental payload called "Starfall", announced just before launch to be a re-entry pod for #cargo delivery on suborbital flight or re-entry from orbit, landing by parachute wherever a probably-military cargo needs to go. Most details so far are from a public environmental statement for FAA. https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/06/with-starfall-spacex-eyes-an-edge-in-global-cargo-delivery-from-orbit/ #NewSpace #space #business
Prof. Sam Lawler@AstroHawk @arstechnica I've already seen SpaceX's cargo delivery service from orbit. It sucks!
RalfMaximus@sundogplanets @AstroHawk @arstechnica
Snort.
But yeah, part of SpaceX's allure to the military, the way he sold it, is "instant orbital delivery to anywhere on earth" and he's not referring to Doordashing delicious snacks.
CyAllure to the stupid military maybe. "This amazing device can deliver weapons to shoot your enemies with over like 10 times the distance of just trucks delivering it, for extremely light payloads hope you don't like bullets. gibbe mone plox"
The last space thing that helped the military was GPS.
The last space thing that helped the military was GPS.
David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)There’s also the the reason countries abandoned space-based weaponry:
The satellites are in predictable locations. Anything deployed from them follows a predictable path for a long time.
This is basically the ideal case for interceptors. About the only thing that makes sense as a space-deployed weapon is a kinetic lance (basically, a big blob of aerodynamic metal that hits the ground with enormous force) because it’s hard to intercept. But it doesn’t make much sense because it’s very expensive to launch and it’s sitting there where someone can destroy its thrusters at the start of a conflict.
In any war where this might be useful, the first strike will destroy the deployment platforms.