SpaceX successfully launches 22 more Starlink satellites
SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 22 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage successfully completed its seventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. Note too the speed in which SpaceX was able to resume launches after Hurricane Idalia plowed across Florida. ULA’s canceled a launch earlier in the week, but it can’t move as fast to resume launches.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
60 SpaceX
38 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
In the national rankings, American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 69 to 38. It also leads the entire world combined, 69 to 61, while SpaceX by itself now trails the rest of the world (excluding American companies) only 60 to 61 in successful launches.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 22 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage successfully completed its seventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. Note too the speed in which SpaceX was able to resume launches after Hurricane Idalia plowed across Florida. ULA’s canceled a launch earlier in the week, but it can’t move as fast to resume launches.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
60 SpaceX
38 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
In the national rankings, American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 69 to 38. It also leads the entire world combined, 69 to 61, while SpaceX by itself now trails the rest of the world (excluding American companies) only 60 to 61 in successful launches.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
This could indicate exactly how fast they could ready and launch a prepped but stored rocket and payload.
Falcon 9’s could be loaded and stored for launch all over the US. Unlike the Chinese we could launch from close to inhabited areas and know we can land the first stage next to the launch platform.
Launch them off of a roll out strong back system like the Communists use for their larger missiles and smaller solid fuel rockets.
Not as fast as a solid fuel rocket but they could be launched from every US military base around the world. It would actually be less complex than manning a Patriot launch system. They already handle liquid O2 and Nitrogen, handling Hydrogen wouldn’t be a stretch.
Remember that this is for emergency nuclear war type scenarios so the whole set up could be designed for one launch then scrapped. Its just to replace ‘communications’ satellites in war. 2 or 3 million for the strong-back is nothing to the military.
Starship can land 100 marines and 100 tons of gear in any capitol city around the world in 90 minutes or less. Just sayin.
Maybe so, but wouldn’t it be a flying sitting duck on the way down?
Yes, they would be a sitting duck, if not on the way down, then as you tried to get 100 Marines out of the thing!
You don’t use a full Starship…an expendable bionic deal you can drive out of.
Manned version deploys paratroopers when subsonic.
All the enemy sees is an empty shell.
That’s the second one.
First one is a daisy cutter.
I was thinking about this.
The second stage could be used to deploy SF from a very high altitude and it would then either land close by with cargo or land as far away as possible,
Not so high they need a pressure suit but high enough to need a 15 minute air tank.
That way if the enemy sees them they will get something down intact for the mission.
Not all enemies have high altitude missiles. Or constantly running radars. even the rocket engines could be missed in bad weather or darkness.