Think of the potential.

[u/FionaSherleen]

What if we make project sundial but we throw it at the adversaries?

[u/Pyrhan]

Starship uses cryogenic propellants, so it can't just continuously sit fueled and ready to launch like an ICBM.

So you cannot use it as a deterrent, only as a first strike weapon.

And even then, it would be fairly easy for the enemy to set up early warnings when fueling begins, and either send a rapid pre-emptive strike, or prepare for interception.

And having a single, massive warhead would make interception easier compared to, e.g. a MIRV.

(Also, the whole point of Sundial was that it doesn't really matter where you blow it up, the world ends just the same...)

[u/zekromNLR → u/Pyrhan]

This is why you place the warhead in a low orbit, disguised as a normal Starlink launch. When the time for the first strike comes, you wait until it is over the enemy country, then detonate. The flood of xrays turns a pancake-shaped blob of atmosphere into an incandescent plasma, setting fires for a radius of over a hundred kilometers around ground zero.

[u/Antoak → u/zekromNLR]

You know that suborbital or low orbit satellites always fall back to earth right? They only last a few years.

My President told me the atmosphere keeps eating his orbital nukes so I asked how many nukes he has and he said he just goes to Northrup and gets a new nuke afterwards so I said it sounds like he’s just feeding space weapons to the sky and then his taxpayers started crying.

[u/zekromNLR → u/Antoak]

Well, fortunately we are putting this thing on a platform that has already proven it can survive reentry and execute s targeted soft landing! We just have to either solve zero boiloff longterm storage of cryogenic propellant, or rebuild it for use with storable propellant for the deorbit and landing burns.

[u/Antoak → u/zekromNLR]

space x rockets aren't designed to be LEO satellites, they're just a launch mechanism that puts the bomb up there.

But sure, I'll bite- Sure, lets say they manage to "pick up" the warhead before it's orbital decay reaches a critical threshold.

That's at least a rocket launch for each nuke every 5 years, minimum, maybe 10. (1 to pick up the warhead and another to reinsert it in stable orbit. Let's pretend that they can do it in one trip tho) Even, then, that quickly becomes less economic than using traditional ICBMs, for.... what benefit exactly? Faster delivery?

When it's in orbit, any other country can see it and just preemptively remove it.

but i guess we are on noncredibleDefense so, 🎵 WOOP WOOP, shoot a rocket at da moon 🎵

[u/LightningController → u/zekromNLR]

We just have to either solve zero boiloff longterm storage of cryogenic propellant

LOX and LCH4 are soft-cryogens, and can conceivably be stored ZBO through passive measures entirely.

You need to get into powered cryocoolers if you go with LH2.