US DOD Wants to Fully Own and Operate SpaceX Starships and Boosters for Military Missions

This makes complete sense simply because we now have a proven pkatform in space X and military applications do need to often sealed off.

Understand that we have a craft able to lift over one hundred tons in an arc over to the other side of our globe inside one hour and actually land it.  That has military application, even if it is only ammunition.

So yes, i understand that the military wants this.  It closes a real supply gap for power extension.

US DOD Wants to Fully Own and Operate SpaceX Starships and Boosters for Military Missions

February 2, 2024 by Brian Wang

The Pentagon wants to make some of the Starship upper stage and the two-stage super heavy booster and Starship into government-owned, government-operated assets instead of contracting the company every time the rocket is needed according to Aviation Week.

The Pentagon has funded a project to develop the capability and have a proof of concept demo for the single upper stage fully reusable SpaceX Starship to deliver cargo anywhere on Earth in under one hour. There were two fundings for total of about $150 million.

The new discussions are for an expanded effort. The first effort is like contracting a Boeing to prove it could use one 787 to make one delivery.

The initial new option could be for the military to take full operational control of SpaceX Starships while they performed a secret mission. The military would staff the operations to use the DOD owned reusable rockets for secret missions. If the Starship survived then it would be returned to SpaceX.

Another option could eventually be the full purchase of multiple SpaceX Starships and Booster The military would also need to have many Mechazilla launch towers built. The military would staff the operations to use the DOD owned reusable rockets for secret missions.

The Pentagon has approached SpaceX about potentially taking over Starship for sensitive and potentially dangerous missions as a government-owned, government-operated asset instead of contracting the company to launch payloads.

The company has been exploring its options in responding, Gary Henry, a senior adviser with SpaceX, told the audience at the Space Mobility Conference here Jan. 30.

SpaceX is already on contract for development of the Department of the Air Force’s Rocket Cargo mission, with the goal of delivering cargo point to point through space. But this is beyond that plan.

The pricing of expended SpaceX Falcon 9 versus reusable Falcon 9 missions would not apply to pricing for fully reusable Super Heavy Starships or fully reusable Starships. There have been about 20 reuses of the booster first stage of SpaceX Falcon 9. This will be increased to 40 reuses with a new maintenance and certification program. The expectation is that Falcon 9 boosters can be reused one hundred times or more. This gives confidence that Super Heavy boosters and Starship can be reused one hundred times or more as well.

Col. Eric Felt, director of space architecture for the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration, says there are certain concepts of operation that could be relevant for a government-owned, government-operated space vehicle.

“If we can buy the commercial service, that’s what we’re going to do, but there might be some use cases where there needs to be a government-owned, government-operated [vehicle] and that transfer can happen on the fly,” Felt says.

The Boeing C-17 Globemaster III is a military transport aircraft used to carry equipment, personnel and vehicles. C-17 costs about $326 million each and have a maximum payload of about 85 tons. It has a top speed of ~500 mph.

The SpaceX Starship with improved Raptor engines could transport 200 tons of reusable cargo at about 10-20 times the speed of sound.

The B-2 stealth bomber cost $2.1 billion. B-2 Spirit travels up to 628mph and has up to 20 tons of bombs. It costs $60 million every seven years for maintenance.

The new B-21 stealth bomber is expected to cost about $600-700 million each. It will also have a top speed of about 600 mph and a bomb payload of about 15 tons.

A SpaceX Starship would have more range than most airplanes. It could fly about 8000 miles. It could be converted into a reusable hypersonic bomber.

NASA funded a single use of the SpaceX Lunar Starship for $3.5 billion. The first ownership transaction for the SpaceX Military Cargo Starship would be priced to recover some of the $10 billion SpaceX has spent to develop the Starship and Super Heavy booster.

The price for the capability of SpaceX Starship justifies pricing in the $500 million to $2 billion price range per unit.

The SpaceX Starship is not a stealth rocket but its high speed makes it like a much faster bomber of the SR71 spy plane.

It is obvious that eventually the US military and Space Force will end up buying and owning hundreds of SpaceX Starships and dozens of boosters. They will build hundreds of mechazilla launch towers.

The US has 935 military cargo planes and there are 27000 commercial passenger jets and there are about 2270 freight cargo planes in the world. The US military could end up with 10-40% of the world inventory of reusable Starships and boosters if the ratio ends up similar to the ratio of US military planes vs regular commercial planes.