A STARCRUISER FOR SPACE FORCE: THINKING THROUGH THE IMMINENT TRANSFORMATION OF SPACEPOWER

This massive increase in surplus maneuver capacity across the Space Force orbital fleet can allow for more flexible, secure, and expansive space operations throughout cislunar space and beyond. SpaceX plans to use Starship’s unparalleled capabilities for a wide range of applications, from enabling a sustainable colony on Mars to, more prosaically, launching as many as 400 of its Starlink satellites at a time as it builds out its full constellation of 30,000 individual satellites. The U.S. Space Force could leverage this capability to quickly build out its own massive constellations or to develop and deploy entirely new, highly capable spacecraft of its own to conduct emerging missions to geosynchronous orbit and to lunar distances and beyond. Because Starship/Superheavy will be able to place some 21 tons into much-higher and highly strategic geosynchronous Earth orbit, Space Force can dramatically increase its ability to operate in this location where the X-37B cannot reach.


A Starcruiser for a Spacefaring Nation



The X-37B represents the first fitful steps toward a true space-going U.S. Space Force. Currently, U.S. operations in space remain heavily constrained by relatively scarce delta-v and a similarly cramped and constrained view of what space operations can truly be. This limitation is baked into current space thinking.

In a world in which Starship-class vehicles exist, and exist in great numbers, new and very different kinds of space operations become feasible and practical. With space threats multiplying and the military, scientific, economic, and industrial importance of space set to explode, the U.S. Space Force will need spacecraft capable of keeping pace with the state-of-the-art spacefaring capabilities the commercial sector is very close to deploying.


The scale of economic activity that space adds to the terrestrial economy is already worth almost $500 billion per year. Based on old rocket technology alone, it is set to grow into a potential trillion-dollar industry including communications technology, tourism, mineral wealth, and cheap, environmentally friendly sources of renewable energy for the benefit of everyone on Earth. Starship-type vehicles will supercharge this economic activity and make space development a critical aspect of many nations’ aggregate strategic power. History also suggests that conflict and war will also follow us into space and that strategic rivalry, competition, and war both in and about space are more than likely inevitable.


In this vastly expanded competitive domain, the U.S. Space Force should work closely with SpaceX and other, similar launch providers to take advantage of the cost-effective, sustained access to space that new rockets like Starship will provide. It should focus on launching large reserves of fuel into orbit and the capacity to transfer fuel to all space assets in orbit to support continual maneuver across the orbital fleet. Starship and the growing space-mindedness these types of space vessels will encourage suggest a future battlespace dwarfing the 1,000 to 2,000-mile ranges that are typical of modern ballistic and cruise missiles and A2/AD bubbles that define much modern thinking about future war.


The vast majority of U.S. strategic and military thinkers have not conceptually adapted to a battlespace that stretches across the entire Earth-Moon system and the fluid maneuvers among orbits that could occur. To operate across this vast area, we should change our working analogy from the air domain to the sustained actions that occur over the maritime environment. In naval terms, a cruiser is a “large warship built for high speed and great cruising radius, capable of not only defending its own fleet and coastlines, but also threatening those of the enemy.” A Starship-based vehicle — call it a “starcruiser” — represents a new class of space operations vehicle that would be built for sustained manned and unmanned operations in space and provide high delta-v, capable not only of defending itself and its orbital patrol area but also of credibly threatening the orbital assets and operations of the enemy.



A force capable of operating starcruisers across these vast spaces will be far more than an auxiliary support to forces on Earth. It will be a force with its own and often independent deterrent and coercive capabilities. Recognizing and seizing the opportunity today mean the difference between leadership and even military dominance in orbit. Today, military space strategy has not yet assimilated the implications of heavy, reusable rocket technology. While this technology is still some way off, the strategic implications for the Space Force are so significant that analysts should already be thinking through its consequences for spacepower and U.S. national security. The explosive pace of technological change coming from private space companies — in particular, SpaceX and its unparalleled achievements in lowering the cost of reaching orbit and maneuvering once there — points to the need for a more expansive vision for the U.S. Space Force, one that takes it far beyond the current force of low delta-v satellites and tiny, expensive orbital spaceplanes.