Air Force Will Soon Test Shipping Cargo Via SpaceX Rockets

The U.S. Air Force announced on Monday that it intends to build two landing pads on a remote island in the Pacific. It wants to land rockets there as part of a test of the Rocket Cargo Vanguard program, which involves shooting rockets into space loaded down with supplies to ship stuff around the planet faster. The pitch for Rocket Cargo Vanguard is that it could allow the U.S. military to deliver anything anywhere on the planet in “90 minutes or less.” How? By shooting a rocket (presumably a reusable SpaceX one) loaded down with supplies into space and then bringing them back down to Earth. The military is pretty good at firing rockets, both into space and through the air, it’s less good at making sure those things land safely. Enter Johnston Island, a small land mass in unincorporated U.S. territory that’s about 700 nautical miles off the cost of Hawaii. As first noticed by Stars and Stripes, the Air Force uploaded a notice to the Federal Register on March 3 that signaled its intent ... Read full article.