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nikisweeting
Personally I'm not keen on seeing SpaceX doing more military work :/
andymoe
Though it’s a nice way to get their dev costs covered for a thing they wanted to build anyway.
sunstone
That and it's not good strategy to poke the king in the eye when he comes asking for a favour. Let's call it 'win win'.
[dead] redis_mlc
China and the US have been in an undeclared war for 40 years.

We are the closest to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile crisis.

Be glad that SpaceX can help our side.

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DeonPenny
I'm pretty sure most of there work is US military work. Whether its putting up GPS or other sats
garmaine
Most is commercial. Even if you count NRO and GPS as military, most launches are for commercial customers or themselves (Starlink).

They do get paid a heck of a lot more for the “military” launches though, so I don’t know how it plays out if you calculate revenue.

aphextron
SpaceX operates entirely at the behest of the US government and military. Elon has lofty goals and speaks aspirationally, but they are a defense contractor no different than Lockheed or Boeing.
avmich
> SpaceX operates entirely at the behest of the US government and military.

Wrong. Correct would be "SpaceX uses US government and military to pursue its goals".

> they are a defense contractor no different than Lockheed or Boeing.

Wrong. Lockheed or Boeing don't have goals other than profits.

Don't you understand Musk's mindset? For a Silicon Valley type he's very understandable.

louwhopley
Sounds like a new form of ICBMs - reusable ICBMs.

I wonder what technology like this would mean for the US’ nuclear arsenal and the cost and complexity of maintenance thereof?

garmaine
Why would you ever need a reusable ICBM?

Edit: also note that this isn’t an ICBM as the term is usually understood. A missile needs to be able to be launched at a moment’s notice by a small group of airmen. They use storable propellants, or quick fueling technology to launch within minutes of getting the order in any weather conditions, from one of many secret or mobile locations. A Falcon 9 on the other hand requires a mini army of engineers, hundreds of millions of dollars of range equipment, and good weather to launch.

klathzazt
This is exactly what I'm concerned about. Do we really want anyone launching ICBMs? I doubt any adversary would take too kindly to these types of launches- and considering their trajectories, they may appear to be attacks.
garmaine
Makes sense. Basically their point-to-point cargo delivery use case, but to war zones. The military and intelligence agencies undoubtedly have need for quick delivery of assets to remote areas, and the money to pay.