SPEAKING OF ROD MARTIN: Given his Silicon Valley background, this shouldn’t come as a surprise, but he’s the first social media influencer I’ve seen to point out this hugely significant implication of Elon Musk’s retrievable Starship:
“There’s no need for rockets to go to space. Now that rockets can land, they can just as easily take off from one place and land at another. Airplanes do this. ICBMs do too, albeit one-way.
“What SpaceX is building is more than just a rocket. Starship is a strategic weapon, not as a one-off but as a fleet. A fully reusable heavy-lift system capable of hauling 200 tons per launch per rocket is not just an engineering marvel: it’s a military revolution.
“Why? Because a fleet of Starships could land an entire armored division anywhere on Earth in under an hour and keep it supplied in the field. Just as the speed of tanks revolutionized warfare between the World Wars, this development changes everything. Forget C-17s and cargo ships: you might as well use horses and wagons.
“A fleet of Starships is not just an incremental improvement in logistics: it’s a fundamental shift in the nature of warfare. The ability to almost instantaneously create and reinforce a whole combat theater anywhere on Earth will give the United States overwhelming power, unlike anything heretofore seen outside of science fiction.”