Also doubting the civilian use, but in the previous discussion somebody commented[0] that the main purpose might be military: > For military applications on th

Also doubting the civilian use, but in the previous discussion somebody commented[0] that the main purpose might be military: > For military applications on the other hand, it's close to perfect. You don't need orbital insertion, you can accelerate your payload silently without allowing for detection in the early phase of the attack, your projectile starts at essentially cruise speed and can only be detected by infrared emissions due to atmospheric heating for a few seconds until the launch ablative heatshields are ejected. It's a fantastic first strike weapon. I don't know if this is a more likely application, but we should at least consider that we don't know the whole story, for better or worse. It might very well be a military startup that tries to give itself some SpaceX marketing-sheen. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29209456 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29209456