You might think about rockets as powerful vehicles that blast astronaut crews and robotic missions off into space. But what if they could be used to send cargo from one side of the Earth to the other, in a fraction of the time it would take a plane? The company SpaceX recently announced a project that aims to use its rockets to do just that.
Most goods, at scale, don't be be need to shipped across the globe quickly. Things spoil. Some time-sensitive specialty production inputs. That's about it. Those that do have plenty of plane-based freight options that can get from airport to airport in under 24 hours.
We have a large number of airports in close proximity to population. We are unlikely to have a large number of launchpads. Even as a niche product, even if it works it doesn't actually work unless your time sensitive goods can get to and from the departure/arrival points quickly.
Space cargo transport likely will not replace conventional transportation methods, such as sea shipping or air freight. Instead, it offers a new option: ultrafast emergency transport. This type of transport could deliver critical medical products, deploy emergency disaster relief, or supply urgent defense support within a few hours.
The only way to have broad launch coverage is if it operates at scale. If you don't have a launchpad near you, it isn't fast.
Sure we might have 25th century technology eventually, but rockets as we currently have them are not going to provide useful freight transport.
[oops typos fixed]