[LeroyRaz]

How is a starship in anyway like an ICBM?

ICBMs are weapons, and are dangerous because you target them at specific targets and they explode.

How is starship coming down significantly more dangerous than a plane? If they can demonstrate similar levels or reliability (a huge ask), then I don't see a problem.

[lazide]

ICBM’s take a payload (warhead) and deliver it from the launch point to somewhere on the earth very far away (on another continent).

If you don’t see how earth to earth starship use couldn’t be construed as a type of ICBM, I suspect you’re thinking branding means a lot more than capability.

[mulmen]

The B-2 famously bombed Afghanistan from Missouri. That doesn’t make the 747 a weapon.

[lazide]

If you don’t think a 747 should be considered a potential weapon, then…. 9/11. Literally.

Same as trucks/cars and carbombs.

For the same reason, anything like we’re discussing will also be considered a potential weapon by any country paying attention at all. And counter measures and restrictions will be installed.

[mulmen]

> If you don’t think a 747 should be considered a potential weapon, then…. 9/11. Literally.

Yet we still have airplanes, boats, cars, sports equipment, lawn tools, and kitchen utensils. Nothing about Starship makes it more likely to be weaponized than anything else we already account for in our daily lives.

> For the same reason, anything like we’re discussing will also be considered a potential weapon by any country paying attention at all. And counter measures and restrictions will be installed.

Is “potential weapon” really the way countries view vehicles crossing borders? I have never gotten that impression. Border crossings maintain some healthy skepticism but not because a Camry is similar to an M1 Abrams if you squint really hard.

[lazide]

I’m honestly not sure what relation your comment has to what I wrote or this part of the thread.

ICBMs and M1 Abrams also exist? They also are used carefully and heavily regulated.

Heavy aircraft are also heavily regulated, and their presence near occupied areas is heavily controlled - including with fighter jets and AA installations on standby in many areas.

Car bombs are a huge issue in many parts of the world, and approaching some facilities in a car in those places without going through exactly the right procedures will get you shot before you can get too close.

I’m not saying it shouldn’t be built, rather that if you expect it to be able to be allowed to go anywhere and do anything without significant security measures and/or even bans, that isn’t how this works. Because it wouldn’t be hard for it to be defacto a ICBM, just like it wasn’t hard to turn those planes on 9/11 into massive cruise missiles.

You can’t really turn a car into an ICBM the same way, correct?

[mulmen]

> I’m not saying it shouldn’t be built, rather that if you expect it to be able to be allowed to go anywhere and do anything without significant security measures and/or even bans, that isn’t how this works.

Why would I expect this? Did I say something to make you think I believe this? Clearly rocket travel would be regulated, is that not obvious?

ICBMs are scary because of their payloads. A weaponized Starship wouldn’t do anywhere near the damage of an ICBM’s nuclear payload.

[samatman]

Two paratroopers and some electronics can turn a passenger jet into a bomb carrying many kilotons of conventional explosive.

Trucks have blown up buildings. Anything is a weapon if you arm it.

Conversely...

[mulmen]

> Two paratroopers and some electronics can turn a passenger jet into a bomb carrying many kilotons of conventional explosive.

A fully fueled 747 only carries about 190 tons of fuel and 140 tons of cargo. How do electronics turn that into kilotons of explosives?

[samatman]

Centitons of explosive then. Much like a Starship.

[mulmen]

I don’t think jet fuel is as explosive as TNT so these two paratroopers would have to fill the cargo hold with tens of tons of explosives.

[lazide]

Jet fuel has significantly more total energy per unit of mass than TNT. 46 MJ/kg for Kerosene [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_of_combustion], and 14.5 MJ/KG for TNT [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT].

Kerosene can be used to make a thermobaric bomb in the right conditions. It’s just just trickier to actually do than detonating TNT. Notably, TNT can certainly help accomplish making a thermobaric bomb.

Either way, the cargo capacity by weight for a 747 is still the same.