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ICBM rocket shopping: Elon Musk did it in Russia, so why not do it in the United States?
The ultimate goal of launching rockets is to get us exploring and building in space, not picking winners and losers. Simply put, if you can’t compete with the mousetraps on the market, you haven’t actually built a better mousetrap. Repurposed ICBM motors for rocket engines are not the problem.
Gemini 10 launches on a modified Titan ICBM motor. Credit: NASA on The Commons.
A Disagreement Among Star Travelers
There’s a debate going on among the government “powers that be” and commercial space companies over the use of excess intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) motors to launch rockets. Currently, these motors are banned from being used for commercial purposes, although military and civil launches are okay.
One side argues that the ban should be lifted because
- the missile parts provide a reliable, cost-effective means for space access; and
- it benefits taxpayers through recouped monies from private sales.
The other side wants the ban maintained because
- flooding the market with cheaper, “off-the-shelf” rocket parts could hinder the innovation and development of new rocket technologies by lowering demand for them; and
- larger companies will take away their market share through easy access to cheaper motors.
This same debate created the ban in the 1990s, and it should be mentioned that the main proponent of lifting the ban was a big part of passing it in the first place. It is also only fair to mention that this main proponent is a very large, established rocket company while the opponents are mostly smaller competitors.
Putting It All Into Perspective
First, it’s important to consider a reality-based context before taking a position on this. Absent another world war, globalization is here to stay, meaning that if a company in the United States cannot offer launch services at a 
competitive price point, their potential customers will go elsewhere. Since these customers are not exclusively American companies, U.S. lawmakers cannot simply make the problem go away through legislation by restricting the nationality of launch providers.
Second, it’s important to frame this issue using marketplace case studies relevant to the situation found here. Old technology is constantly giving way to updated and new technology, demonstrating that innovation is driven by a variety of factors, not just the pure need for a technology to exist.
Finally, it’s important to fully understand the motives of all parties involved. The commercial space industry is, by definition, business-oriented. At a fundamental level, all parties involved are concerned primarily with their own best interest, i.e., their ability to make a profit.
Space Access Should Be More Affordable
In my opinion, the ban should be lifted, as my position on issues like this will always tend towards expanding access rather than restricting it. Achieving democratized space travel will require affordable accessibility to space, and one of the best ways to drive costs down is to not spend valuable resources “reinventing the wheel” if existing resources work well for current needs. This isn’t to say that innovation isn’t necessary, but rather that different 
missions have different needs, and the existence of one option doesn’t preclude the need for other options.
The car industry is a good case study to compare to. The fact that older cars
exist does not prevent newer, generally improved cars from being developed and sold each year. Gasoline is a proven standard to fuel vehicles, but the demand for electric vehicles is getting louder. It’s the demand for better technology that moves this process of innovation forward.
The companies involved in this debate are profit-driven. What would motivate a company to keep inexpensive, proven technology out of a market they were competing in? In my opinion, the question itself contains the answer. Competition is a proven way to drive development, and the argument that a market flooded with competition would hurt competition has somewhat circular logic.
I do think it is fair to be concerned that the nature of competing against government for a product undermines the concept of a fair market; however, the global nature of launch services and the expanding need for more innovative solutions, i.e., more powerful rocket engines for the upcoming long-distance space missions, mitigate this concern.
In the current environment, American launch providers are losing business to non-American launch providers, most of which are either heavily subsidized by their governments or are the governments themselves. In order for American launch providers to afford the costs of innovation and development, they need to be able to fairly compete in the global market for a customer base. It is also important to note that the rocket motor is only one part of the process of providing launch services. In that light, opening the ICBM market to American launch providers doesn’t make the American government the competitor as much as it is a retailer selling certain parts which make up a whole rocket product.
Elon Musk, Russians, and ICBM Engines (Oh, my!)
To frame this debate in another light, recall that Elon Musk’s initial space dreams involved purchasing ICBM motors from Russia to send dehydrated plant seeds to Mars. He wanted to accomplish something inspirational without diving head first into the business of building rockets. Fortunately for us, SpaceX was born through that process; however, 
imagine a future, space-inspired millionaire looking to make a similar contribution except the purpose would ultimately be commercial. Why deny the option of a rocket built with “off-the-shelf” parts? There aren’t many Elon Musk types out there willing to invest most of their own personal fortune for a ten percent chance of success at building a rocket engine from scratch, but every time technology is sent into space, it moves us forward.
Elon Musk’s ICBM story isn’t the only thing worth noting in this debate. Unfortunately for supporters of the ban, SpaceX essentially renders their argument moot because SpaceX’s innovation and resulting lower launch price tag are what’s making Russian space authorities somewhat cranky about the business they’re usurping from them. Clearly, innovation is still possible even with other ICBM-based rockets on the market.
In Summary
The ultimate goal of launching rockets is to get us exploring and building in space, and this is hindered when the regulatory environment has the effect of hand picking winners and losers. Restricting ICBM motors from being on the commercial market does exactly that. This doesn’t advance the long term goals of space exploration. It only interferes with getting technology into orbit and beyond by restricting the capital available to develop better technology.
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The argument that innovation is hurt by a market full of ICBM motors is one based on a desire to control market forces in an unfair way. Simply put, if you can’t compete with the mousetraps on the market, you haven’t actually built a better mousetrap, and there’s nothing to prevent you from selling existing mousetraps in service packages while you develop better ones.
Granted, as Elon Musk has reminded us in several interviews, rockets are hard, making the business of rockets even harder. Imagine, however, if the government banned access to all major highways, an existing tax-funded resource, because there was a need for a surface material that was resistant to pot holes and existing asphalt mixes hindered its development. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what a bad idea that would be and what type of impact it would have on those needing the highways to conduct their business, especially while other countries still had their road systems up and running.
Autobahn, anyone?
Elon Musk
The Boring Company’s newest tunnel vehicle runs on Tesla parts and no one is driving it
The Boring Company’s new tunnel vehicle runs on Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units.
The Boring Company just introduced a new piece of hardware, and it runs on parts pulled straight from a Tesla showroom. Liner Truck 3, unveiled in a post from the tunneling company’s official X account, is an all electric vehicle built around Tesla Model 3 battery packs and drive units, purpose built to move concrete tunnel segments to the boring machine face without a single person underground.
Introducing Liner Truck 3 — our latest fully electric tunnel vehicle.
– Tesla Model 3 battery and drive units
– Transports 22,000+ lb of concrete segments to the boring machine
– 28 miles of range
– 12 mph max operating speed
– Remotely piloted from Global OCC in Texas, with… pic.twitter.com/XB7FgSXnpy— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) August 7, 2026
The job itself is unglamorous but critical. Each precast segment run weighs more than 22,000 pounds, roughly the load of a full cement mixer, and Liner Truck 3 hauls that weight repeatedly between the surface staging area and wherever the Prufrock machine happens to be cutting.
The Boring Company said Liner Truck 3 is piloted remotely out of its Global Operations Control Center in Texas, extending the Zero-People-In-Tunnel approach the company has spent years building toward. An earlier version of a ZPIT liner truck was already tested at the company’s Bastrop, Texas research tunnels, and a factory tour released last month showed an employee flying a fully loaded liner truck with a PlayStation controller. Liner Truck 3 looks like the production version of that same idea, cleaned up and pushed into daily use.
The timing lines up with a company digging in more places than it ever has before. The Boring Company now has multiple Prufrock machines active or arriving in Nashville, where Music City Loop construction has been accelerating since February, and its Vegas Loop network keeps adding tunnel mileage on a near monthly basis. Every one of those projects depends on getting concrete segments to the cutting face fast enough to keep the boring machine from idling, which is exactly the bottleneck Liner Truck 3 is designed to remove.
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It also reinforces something Tesla owners have watched happen gradually across Musk’s companies: passenger car hardware finding a second life in heavy equipment. Model 3 drive units already move people through the Vegas Loop, and now the same components are hauling concrete underground in Nashville and wherever The Boring Company digs next. Whether that kind of component reuse extends further into TBC’s equipment lineup, or into other Musk owned industrial hardware, is the next thing worth watching.
SpaceX stock did the opposite of what most of Wall Street expected this week, when the day designed to be its most dangerous turned into a rally, and the rally kept going.
Thursday marked the first major lockup expiration since SpaceX’s June IPO, making roughly 911.5 million insider held shares eligible to trade for the first time, more than doubling the company’s public float. Analysts and short sellers had spent weeks bracing for a flood of selling, especially after the stock fell 13 percent following its first earnings report as a public company on Tuesday. Instead, shares rose 6.1 percent Thursday to close at $114.92, and by Friday they were trading near $129, up more than another 12 percent on the day.
SpaceX shorts get warned by Musk ally, echoing Tesla’s early struggles
The setup made the outcome notable. Short interest had climbed to roughly 34 percent of the float heading into earnings, among the highest of any large cap stock, with about 95 percent of available shares to borrow already on loan. CEO Elon Musk warned short sellers twice in the weeks before the lockup, writing on X that “the survival probability of firms who maintain a significant short position in SpaceX over time is very low,” then following up on the morning of earnings with “I try to warn them, but they just double down.”
When the newly unlocked shares hit the market and the selloff never showed up, some of that short position appears to have started unwinding. TipRanks reported that options activity shifted toward bullish strategies like put selling and risk reversals following the rally, with roughly $600 million in options premium trading Thursday alone. Retail buyers also stepped in during the earnings dip, according to Vanda Research.
The fundamentals behind the stock have not changed much in a week. SpaceX’s revenue nearly doubled year over year to $7.8 billion, with Starlink subscribers doubling to 12 million and the company’s AI segment growing 247 percent. What spooked investors on Tuesday was the spending side. Capital expenditures jumped to more than $18 billion for the quarter, up from $2.8 billion a year earlier, with AI investment alone rising from $749 million to $15.8 billion. Wall Street remains split on whether that spending is building infrastructure SpaceX needs or outrunning what the business can currently support, a debate Teslarati has tracked since shares first came under pressure.
None of that resolves the bigger question hanging over the stock. Thursday’s release was only the first of nine staggered lockup tranches, with roughly $800 billion worth of additional shares scheduled to become eligible through October, and Musk’s own stake stays locked until next June. If this week is any indication, the market is treating that supply as something it can absorb rather than something to fear, at least for now.
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News
The Boring Company’s newest Vegas Station has a permit quietly waiting behind it
Sahara Las Vegas opened a new Vegas Loop station, joining an exclusive two resort transit club.
Sahara Las Vegas opened a new Vegas Loop station Thursday, giving The Boring Company’s underground transit system its northernmost stop yet on the Strip. The station sits at Sahara’s Paradise Road entrance, on the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Sahara Avenue, and connects riders to the Las Vegas Convention Center, other Strip resorts on the network and, eventually, Harry Reid International Airport.
The addition makes Sahara the second resort, after Fontainebleau opened its own station in January, to get a stop built at street level rather than tucked into the property itself. Sahara now joins Westgate as the only two Strip resorts offering both a Vegas Loop station and a stop on the Las Vegas Monorail, giving guests two separate ways to get around without leaving the property.
The Boring Company just doubled its tunneling power in Nashville
The bigger news buried in Thursday’s announcement is what comes next. Boring Company has already secured its first permit to tunnel north of Sahara Avenue, extending the network beyond where it currently ends, even though permits to push the Loop toward downtown Las Vegas still haven’t been granted. Crews are also working on a two mile dual tunnel line running from Westgate to a planned station at 4744 Paradise Road, just north of Tropicana Avenue, that Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority CEO Steve Hill has said the company hopes to open in time for November’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Ridership has grown alongside the buildout. The Loop moved roughly 82,000 passengers during CONEXPO in early March, a total the company highlighted on its own X account at the time, and the system has now carried more than 4 million passengers through 11 open stations since it began running in 2021. The airport connector tunnels, meant to give the Loop a direct link to Harry Reid, have slipped past their original first quarter target and remain under construction, with Boring Company director Mike Baier saying that a full opening is still a few months out.
For Sahara, the calculation is straightforward. Convention traffic drives a large share of Loop ridership, and a station at the property’s front door gives conventiongoers one more reason to book rooms on the Strip’s north end instead of closer to the convention center itself.
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The Boring Company’s newest tunnel vehicle runs on Tesla parts and no one is driving it
Elon Musk and SpaceX shrugs off the trading day Wall Street feared most
