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IPFS News Link • Military

SpaceX and US Military Will Build Hundreds of Mechazilla Launch Towers by 2030

• https://www.nextbigfuture.com, by Brian Wang

The US military is planning to get to thousands of SpaceX flights per year and this will mean that the US military will need hundreds of Mechazilla launch towers.

SpaceX, the US Air Force and the US Space Force discussions about military uses for Starship were partially revealed at a recent conference.

As of February 2023, SpaceX's Mechazilla launch towers are estimated to cost less than $100 million each. This cost did not go up that much with the water deluge system. The metal launch tower segments are not expensive, and the towers have robotic arms and the power to operate them. The US military is clearly eyeing thousands of flights per year using SpaceX Starship and hundreds of Mechazilla launch facilities. One hundred Mechazilla launch tower bases would cost about $10 billion.

The US military is worried about China building many more space launch facilities. The US military has about 700-850 military bases around the world. This definition of military base is based upon where US military presence is located.

Here is a github source of US troop deployments.

Many lists of US bases do not include places like Tower 22 in Jordan. Approximately 3,000 US troops are currently stationed in Jordan. The United States military has used the Tower 22 outpost, which was initially established as a Jordanian border outpost, since 2015 in an "advise and assist" mission, initially training rebels fighting the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and later aiding Kurds fighting the Islamic State.

US military base sites fall under two main categories:

Large bases or "Bases": Defined as military installations larger than 4 hectares (10 acres) or worth more than $10 million. These bases typically have in excess of 200 US military personnel. 439 or 60 percent of the US's foreign bases fall under this category.


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