[lukan]

There was another group of people famous for building innovative rockets, but are otherwise not associated with human progress.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_flying_bomb

So it is about the big picture. (And about small pictures like that of Elon making a salut like the other group).

So yes, currently his rockets do not transport explosives. But that can change anytime and I expect it will very soon.

[lmz]

I thought American space flight etc was directly indebted to the people behind the V bombs? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

[WalterBright]

The Saturn V was simply a scaled up V2. The critical components were all there:

1. boundary layer cooling

2. pre-heating fuel and cooling the nozzle by pushing the fuel through tubes in the nozzle

3. baffles to prevent pogo-ing

4. turbo fuel pumps

5. supersonic airframe

6. guidance system (although primitive)

The V2 was an ineffective military weapon that did little damage - because its guidance system was too primitive to be able to hit a target. Hitler also poured enormous resources into the V2 program, shifted away from producing weapons that were effective.

[Verdex]

Elon rockets are only interesting because they can be reused.

What use is a reusable rocket with respect to explosives?

[WalterBright]

A car can be used to take people to the hospital, or it can be used to transport explosives.

[lukan]

They can bring explosives to space, loitering space ammunition.

[Spooky23]

Pretty easy. The only limits are your imagination and depravity. You launch the rocket, drop an orbital vehicle behind, and land. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

That vehicle could deorbit and drop a tungsten penetrator, smallpox, a nuclear device or any number of things.

All funded by a combination of government spending and defrauding the public via the Tesla Ponzi scheme.

[NetMageSCW]

Dropping a tungsten penetrator from orbit is an idea only science fiction can justify. In the real world the economics never close.

[lukan]

Huh?

In the real world we so far just managed to keep space free of military weapons not because they are expensive, but because of treaties. I just don't expect those to last much longer.

And frankly I never looked into the concept, but why do you think, a space base tungsten penetrator would be way more expensive, than a nuke on a missile?

[Spooky23]

The idea as proposed in various places is a very large multi-ton vehicle. He chose to focus on trivia. Pretty common for Elon fans.

Humans are pretty clever at devising ways to kill each other. The Russians put a garbage can of concrete on a ersatz ballistic missile on a terror strike against Ukraine. Like you said, these things don’t exist because of treaties.