F9/D2 from Kourou

[Zed_Noir]

Cargo aircraft are now a thing for weapons delivery https://www.wpafb.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2198566/afrl-afsoc-launch-palletized-weapons-from-cargo-plane/ Point to Point Starship has more potential. I think it will be a thing very soon for multiple reasons.

Not relevant and there is no logic to your statement.  Still cheaper to use an ICBM.

The ICBMs don't delivered non-nuke payloads. And only usable for the big event.

Converting an area to moonscape by "conventional munitions" don't have the same political gravitas as a nuke strike. Even if the results are similar.

[alugobi]

Looks like this discussion is now confused between using a launch vehicle to blow up a place and using a launch vehicle to deliver hardware to a place. 

The original topic of launching from Kourou appears to have dropped off the scope. 

Must be a slow news day that makes this happen...


Edit:  sp

[woods170]

It is also because most sensible stuff about F9/D2 from Kourou has been said.

Summarizing: it is a non-starter of an idea. Period.

Time to lock this thread IMO.

[Jim]

Cargo aircraft are now a thing for weapons delivery https://www.wpafb.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2198566/afrl-afsoc-launch-palletized-weapons-from-cargo-plane/ Point to Point Starship has more potential. I think it will be a thing very soon for multiple reasons.

Not relevant and there is no logic to your statement.  Still cheaper to use an ICBM.

The ICBMs don't delivered non-nuke payloads. And only usable for the big event.

Converting an area to moonscape by "conventional munitions" don't have the same political gravitas as a nuke strike. Even if the results are similar.

Whether using a reusable launch vehicle or an expendable ICBM, the results and response are the same because the targeted country isn’t going to know if the warheads are nuke or conventional.

[Luc]

Once SpaceX has moved on from Falcon 9 and Dragon, perhaps they would consider licensing the technology to the EU.

ITAR restriction would still apply. So they can't. And you have to use the whole process. From QA to management. You simply can't do that in a way that EU would accept it.

I wondered about ITAR. How does the EU fit? Are they not an ally? Could a NATO country license it? Also, I understand that there’s an entire process, infrastructure, and team involved, but that can obviously be replicated if not sold as is. I don’t want to beat a dead horse, because it does seem obvious that it’d never happen; it was more a flight of fancy.

[Asteroza]

Once SpaceX has moved on from Falcon 9 and Dragon, perhaps they would consider licensing the technology to the EU.

ITAR restriction would still apply. So they can't. And you have to use the whole process. From QA to management. You simply can't do that in a way that EU would accept it.

I wondered about ITAR. How does the EU fit? Are they not an ally? Could a NATO country license it? Also, I understand that there’s an entire process, infrastructure, and team involved, but that can obviously be replicated if not sold as is. I don’t want to beat a dead horse, because it does seem obvious that it’d never happen; it was more a flight of fancy.

From an ITAR perspective, it might not be significantly different from launching from Alcântara in Brazil (which signed a a technology safeguard agreement with the US)

[baldusi]

Once SpaceX has moved on from Falcon 9 and Dragon, perhaps they would consider licensing the technology to the EU.

ITAR restriction would still apply. So they can't. And you have to use the whole process. From QA to management. You simply can't do that in a way that EU would accept it.

I wondered about ITAR. How does the EU fit? Are they not an ally? Could a NATO country license it? Also, I understand that there’s an entire process, infrastructure, and team involved, but that can obviously be replicated if not sold as is. I don’t want to beat a dead horse, because it does seem obvious that it’d never happen; it was more a flight of fancy.

From an ITAR perspective, it might not be significantly different from launching from Alcântara in Brazil (which signed a a technology safeguard agreement with the US)

Launching from, is one thing, licensing the design, process and technology is a completely different one. For launching from another country with an ITAR safeguard agreement, you basically have something like the Russians had on Kourou. There, it was like a diplomatic zone, where only Russians handled the equipment. Even the trucks that pulled the rockets and its drivers were Russian.
So for launching it would have to be a purely SpaceX operation, with DoD personnel guarding access and checking passports and IDs.
But for licensing the whole thing, you have to license not only the blueprints and specifications of the parts, but also the critical materials, software, all design documentation including finite elements analysis, formulas, design criteria, etc. You basically not only license the part but all the know how. This is all critical knowledge that is extremely sensitive and strategic. This is why you can't really license the whole thing.
Completely different issue is selling a thing like an engine, where they give you direct telemetry access and you build it and ship it with somebody trained on integration. Still an ITAR headache, but within the realm of feasibility.