SpaceX thinks the U.S. Army could use its Starship rockets to transport troops, supplies across the planet in minutes.



The company also has high hopes for its Starlink satellite internet program as a military communications hub.

While the Army might find space-based internet useful, starship rockets for cargo are probably a bridge too far—for now.

SpaceX, a company specializing in providing access to space through its line of rocket ships, is offering its Starship rocket to the U.S. Army as a means of quickly transporting men and material overseas. The company also believes its globe-spanning Starlink internet provider service could also serve the Army. While the prospect of cheap wireless internet for the Army is intriguing, it’s probably too early to send soldiers hurtling into space—unless their destination is space.

SpaceX president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell appeared on a panel discussion at the 2019 Association of the U.S. Army conference in Washington D.C. Shotwell, according to Space News , stated that the company was “new” to the U.S. Army and that it was in the business of building “reliable and low-cost” transportation systems. After the discussion, Shotwell said the Army was a potential customer for its Starship superheavy rocket and Starlink broadband internet constellation.

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The Starship is SpaceX’s largest and most ambitious project to date . Starship is the combination of the company’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket. The spacecraft/rocket combo can lift 110 tons of cargo into low earth orbit . That’s more tonnage than the U.S. Air Force’s C-17 Globemaster III transport . SpaceX believes the rocket, in addition to sending cargo into space, could serve in the “point-to-point” space transport role, transporting people and cargo between any two points on Earth.



Point-to-point starship would pretty much act like a ballistic missile: once launched, it would accelerate into low-earth orbit and then rocket towards a faraway landing pad. Starship would be much faster than any existing transportation system, at approximately 18,000 miles an hour. The Starship spacecraft would de-orbit over its destination, like a nuclear warhead, but land safely using its rocket engines. A trip from Nebraska to the United Arab Emirates would take about half an hour, accounting for acceleration and deceleration on both ends.

U.S. Air Force personnel loading a M-1 Abrams tank onto a C-17 Globemaster III transport. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Johnathan Hoover

The U.S. Army could use Starship to transfer urgently needed personnel and supplies from the continental U.S. to a far flung base abroad. Starship can carry up to 100 people, or about an infantry company, plus weapons. Theoretically it could carry something as heavy as an M1A2 Abrams tank, ammunition, crew, and fuel. How practical that is remains to be seen.

The Army won’t be the first customer for point-to-point space transport. Space travel is still extremely dangerous— as Forbes points out , the Space Shuttle had a safety record of 1.5 percent. That is unacceptable, and Starship will need to demonstrate a much better record before the Army would even consider it. SpaceX must also make point-to-point affordable. While it’s true that flying a rocket from Nebraska to the UAE shaves about 12 hours off transportation time, air travel is both cheap and reliable.

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The Starlink Internet satellite system is more likely to capture the Army’s attention. Starlink plans to launch 12,000 satellites into low-earth orbit to provide global broadband Internet. That’s an attractive proposition for any organization operating globally, particularly the U.S. Army. A single network providing such communications could be very advantageous.

It could also be a disaster. A constellation 12,000 satellites would also provide 12,000 access points for hackers to breach the network. If a global network—especially one carrying secret U.S. Army data—is hacked it could place the lives of American soldiers in danger.

According to The Washington Post , as of May 2019 SpaceX, “has shared virtually no information about its cybersecurity efforts or plans.” SpaceX would have to practice extremely high security across the entire network or the U.S. Army would have to curtail what kind of data was shared, limiting it to non-classified data.

An arrangement between commercial space and the military is inevitable, particularly one that goes past merely providing satellite launch services. It’s much too early for the Army to sign contracts for a fleet of olive drab Starships, but it’s not too early for the Army to signal to companies like SpaceX what it wants.

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