The Arc spacecraft: designed to deliver cargo anywhere in an hour

arstechnica.com

4 points·WastedCucumber··7 comments

What can spend years in space and still be useful? I'd have though a rocket the launches from earth to land anywhere would be more useful than an orbiting vehicle that can land on demand.

It does, but it's also more expensive and might take longer to prep and launch. This splits launch and delivery in two separate steps.

I confess I'm struggling to find a payload that can remain in space for weeks or months and still be delivered by a highly visible fireball (for most of the trajectory) and an easily trackable lander to someone on the ground who would rather not have their precise position known. But that's just me.

Sounds a bit overengineered for civilian applications.

I also struggle to see any application. All I can think of is delivering emergency rations and cold weather clothing/gear to civilians stranded in remote mountains by a plane crash. But as far as I'm aware, nothing like that has happened since the 70's. Leaving aside the question of who would fund that.

Also, if you know well enough where they are, you can use an airplane or a helicopter to drop supplies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brilliant_Pebbles

Seems like another way to deliver nukes to targets...

Small ones anyway. W80 [1] W54 [2]. Most of them are over 500 lbs.

High altitude weather balloons on the other hand can carry up to 8000 lbs like the one from China the US let meander coast to coast over several military installations which could carry a B53 nuke after small modifications. Detonated at a high altitude could shut down the power grid coast to coast.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W80_(nuclear_warhead)

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W54

[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B53_nuclear_bomb

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