The US began to ‘burn money’ on delivery missiles

Although it only exists in the form of an idea, the US program to use rockets to deliver goods to every corner of the Earth has begun to pump money.
In the budget for the fiscal year 2022 just approved, the US decided to initially spend $ 48 million for the rocket program to deliver goods to anywhere on Earth.

“Based on the progress of the program, the budget will likely continue to be replenished. And the $48 million is just the initial investment,” the source from the US Air Force said. The US program to use rockets to deliver cargo on Earth was judged to be unfeasible. According to General Stephen R. Lyons – Commander of the US Transport Command (US TransCom), the use of missiles to transport goods has many advantages compared to the traditional way of using transport aircraft. Using rockets without a chain of aerial refueling aircraft to support the mission; Safe and secret, the opponent has very little chance of shooting down, not having to notify the host country when flying over like how with transport aircraft. The commander of US TransCom confirmed that this is a potential program and that the US Army is working with a team of experts from billionaire Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to research and build a rocket that can fly. deliver weapons, military equipment to any place on Earth in less than 1 hour. According to the plan, the initial tests to test the principle will be carried out as soon as 2021. SpaceX has previously demonstrated the ability to land vertically and reuse boosters for its Falcon 9 system on mobile landing sites at sea. But the aerospace technology company has never landed a full payload rocket, and the proposed new rocket will carry four times as much cargo as these rocket flights have tested. There are two possible modes of transport that will be explored – cargo originating from a space base on the US mainland to overseas, or pre-sourcing on a spacecraft operating in orbit. and cargo can quickly leave orbit and land when needed. In partnership with industry, the U.S. Army could develop a prototype of such a space vehicle within the next 5-10 years, which could be used by TransCom to supplement air-to-air logistics operations. sea ​​and on land, including humanitarian assistance somewhere around the globe. TransCom will also have to deal with doctrinal, diplomatic, regulatory and organizational issues to facilitate the standardization of high-frequency launches. If successful, the US will revolutionize the transportation of goods. However, as soon as the US announced the program, the military community of this country pointed out a series of insurmountable difficulties. In terms of technical factors, rockets can only be launched when the weather conditions are relatively good; Poor weather can cause delays lasting up to a week. So a trip that is counted as lasting less than an hour will require significantly longer preparation time. The next problem is cost. According to calculations, a SpaceX Falcon 9 spacecraft with a capacity of 25 tons has a launch cost of $ 28 million. While the 12-hour flight from California to Japan on a C-17 Globemaster III costs $312,000, the cost doubles if the plane flies home to buy more equipment. By best estimates, it costs four times more to ship by rocket than to send the same amount of cargo by plane. However, cost is not everything, especially when hostilities are raging.