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American ballistic missiles are all solid fuel, which avoids the need to babysit liquid fuel. For liquid, you either need to keep cryogenic propellant and/or ox
by Sanzig 3y ago
American ballistic missiles are all solid fuel, which avoids the need to babysit liquid fuel. For liquid, you either need to keep cryogenic propellant and/or oxidizer constantly topped up, or use a hypergolic fuel (which are almost universally quite nasty). Solid just sits in the silo until you push the doomsday button. Falcon is a liquid fueled rocket with a cryogenic oxidizer (liquid oxygen), so it'd make for a poor ICBM.
- hollerith 3y agoIn fact, the US miltary doesn't have any liquid-fueled rocket engines of any type unless perhaps you count the very small engines that refine the trajectory of a MIRV bus after the end of the boost phase of an ICBM or SLBM. And liquid-fueled rockets are all SpaceX knows.