JoeSchmuckatelli

Which means someone programmed that into the code. Although - for an AI to consider 'acceptable casualties' (from the AI as a self-interested actor standpoint) - the only possible purpose in limiting casualties is it needs people (ala Trucks / Maximum Overdrive) for work, or fuel (ala Matrix). Until and unless your AI is self-interested, all you have is a tool. Not an entity.

Grumble - I fear every time this pops up. For good reason, apparently. Few missions have had my interest, longer.

Well - if that's all they're wearing to run around on regolith, they'll look a bit more like Chad. Far better to go with this - if you want to achieve surprise

The horror!

Dropping one tank does not equate to 'mass' in the military sense. Until and unless Musk and crew are launching 3 per day, SS will not be a tactical asset - or much of a strategic one. Currently it takes approximately 1 month to ship a fleet from San Diego to the Middle East. It's one of the reasons the US maintains the forward bases @SpaceFace545described. That fleet arrives with thousands of troops and a tonnage of cargo likely in the 100s of thousands. Even at 3 per day - SX as a milcontractor can't match one ships worth of cargo - what they can offer is speed. Again - not a replacement for capabilities, but perhaps an enhancer

There is a certain appeal to this. However a single ship measures cargo in the 10s of thousands of tons - not the hundreds. Where a dedicated SS retriever launcher ship would be beneficial is in keeping the fleet supplied in very out of the way places with less traffic /satellite coverage - presuming you could bring in 1-2 a week. This would add a little strategic depth to the logistics game. I think the thing to recognize, however, is that much of what we are discussing revolves around the current force structure, where the US does not /has not engaged directly with peer combatants and enjoys virtually untouchable control over the sea. Should the US and China both be stupider than the US and USSR were - by allowing competition to become kinetic - the non-nuclear, non-diplomatic resolution will resemble a modern version of 41-45 and the world won't recover for a while afterwards. Thus I both presume and hope that wiser heads will prevail. [snip]

This is certainly a good thing for all to recognize. I remember being alarmed when I learned that CN had discovered how to make DU penetrators and since then I've been watching the development of their amphibious ability with interest. The old caution vis CN is that they have both more military aged men and more English speakers than the US has people. They are no joke - and with the modernization, cannot be ignored.

Yeah - but can we print 'NAVY' on the side? It's kind of galling to have to see anything USAF on the carrier deck.

This If you look at a simple point interaction - say an AI controlled fighter jet vs human in fighter jet where both have been trained? AI is looking to win that. I think the real question is what happens over time in a conflict of human vs AI where neither can outright defeat the other. Does Machine learning and specificity beat human learning and adaptability? I'm going to say humans win - because otherwise your story is just depressing

Mundane. You want to get a generation of people to love you? In the middle of the crisis you land a freaking ROCKET full of food and water and medicine?!? A SPACESHIP!!! "ZOMG - the Americans are soooo awesome!" (p.s. We can use a little more of that, these days)

Let me go back a moment - b/c I think you all glossed over a very real possibility of using SS to support US overseas ambitions - and that's in the area of humanitarian lift. (It's always more fun to talk about 1st world vs 1st world military capability) The US Military (esp. Navy and Marines) are very often the 'first responders' to friendly nations experiencing natural or political /humanitarian disaster (notwithstanding the past administration's conduct). This 'habit' and capability really pays dividends in soft power currency. Where SS could be used is to enhance this by allowing the Navy /MC team to get established and then ask for need specific rapid resupply. In this scenario - SS can be recovered on site, or perhaps retain just enough propellant to launch again and ditch in the local waters for recovery at sea if the site is chaotic and kinetic

What I wrote above, aside - the RU and CN strategic planners have had decades to watch us and analyze our critical vulnerabilities. Their missile tech (and in the case of RU, artillery) is no joke. They have what they think are ways to disrupt our command and control. They're trying for tech parity in the form of planes and tanks but they are actually behind. Same with the blue water navy capability. Massive caveat - CN has probably the second most capable Maritime force, and one particularly suitable for their local seaways (and neighborhood). If you really want to get your local congressmember worked up about something we need to spend on - it's our Navy and Marine Corps capabilities, not airforce. Our ability to project power is greatly reduced in the South Asia Sea region

And - SX pays some former hard-ahem- tailed fellows with specialized training to fly into the danger zone, pack up the engines and ship out. You make part of the 'commercial contract' to support Military and Humanitarian missions 'assistance with retrieval and extraction of assets and personnel'. Easy peasy.

Much too much effort for either - unless you need to emergency supply a Regiment. OTOH -- rapid response to a disaster zone? Yeah - that wins brownie points all around. Helicopters are great - when you have absolute air superiority and the opponent is not being supplied with manpad SAMs from the RU or CN. The amount of gear carried by SS is too great for tactical resupply. Our current lift capacity is sufficient to effectively 'bomb' our friendlies with fly-by supplies; no need for SS for that.

The feature you are forgetting is 'Strategic Surprise'. (The difference between 'Strategic' and 'Tactical' surprise is easy: Tactical is when you try sneaking into the house late at night, only to discover your girlfriend is waiting up asking, 'Where have you been all night?' - Strategic is where she gets Maury Povitch to film you secretly for three days and confronts you on national television. Until recently, the US possessed Strategic Surprise via the USNavy / Marine Corps and the fact that very few adversaries had access to the level of info available to us. We could lurk over the horizon and show up at the place and time of our choosing. The Navy is now vulnerable to commercial, on-demand satellite observation (which was formerly reserved only for top tier nation-state players in the game). Further, drone tech alone has advanced to the point where cheap off-the-shelf solutions can be effective against slow moving craft. So what this boondoggle feature could achieve is the AF being able to offer the Army a way to show up in an unexpected place with sufficient numbers to do something significant. Or freak out potential adversaries and cause them to spend money on countering a capability we'd never actually use.

The only way I would want to deploy in that would be if I could jump out @ 15,000 feet. I'd even accept a SSTrooper egg-pod deployment scheme...after the reentry plasma and the craft is traveling less than 400mph

My early testing tell me that: It's really good at pushing stuff into the corners, and As soon as it is 1/3 done with the mission you assigned, it decides to go wander around doing God knows what

It's almost like they're waiting for someone else to pay them to finish it

The chorus agrees.

Interesting that the picture implies that it's okay to have two girls.

@SunlitZelkova Torn between Everyone loves cake And The cake is a lie

Progress is always dangerous to humans - it upsets the status quo. ... Upset humans always seem to be doing something dangerous to gain or maintain status.

Snark - during the Cold War, the Rooskies targeted the US military industrial complex, including all the private companies that benefited from our fascination with the USSR. When it comes to a war of mutual destruction - you don't have to be practical, you just need to make sure that you don't miss something important.

Technically - soil has organics in it, IIRC. From what I recall - you can smelt iron out of basement tailings - pretty much any soil has been used for bog iron.

Apparently smelting requires quite a bit of O2 as well as heat. Started looking into this (cursorily) after that post - and there's some pretty interesting features to all of this of which I was unaware: Caveman to Chemist Projects: Metals (cavemanchemistry.com) Roasting was something else I learned about: Smelting and Roasting Ores to recover gold, silver and other metals (nevada-outback-gems.com) (I used to think all you needed was heat and gravity / centrifuge to separate ores from slag) Getting at the rarer materials really does require a lot of chemistry as @kerbiloid wrote - way more than one might think