Suborbital strike! The use of commercial suborbital spacecraft for strike missions

This article reviews a concept for the use of commercial suborbital spacecraft for military purposes, allowing the Air Force once again to enhance survivability via altitude and airspeed. By utilizing commercial technology, suborbital spacecraft will be able to reach the battlefield faster than aircraft generated by the traditional procurement process, just as the Liberty program rapidly fielded effective combat aircraft. Higher altitude and airspeeds will give legacy ordnance greater capabilities and permit the use of kinetic-only weapons such as hypervelocity rod bundles. Finally, suborbital spacecraft will reset the clock for antiaircraft defense by flying and striking from outside the weapon engagement zone of current systems, thus negating most antiaccess, area-denial strategies. This action will force potential adversaries to spread out their limited research and procurement dollars into new weapon systems, either reducing the number of current systems they can support or leaving glaring, fatal holes in their defense posture.