The Pentagon is expected to deliver plans for a Golden Dome to Trump this week.
A scientific study published earlier this month detailed the scientific impossibility of the scheme.
America has tried to build a missile defense system since before Ronald Reagan was president.
An advanced medium range ballistic missile target is launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai, Hawaii, as part of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s Flight Test Aegis Weapon System-32 (FTM-32), held on March 28, 2024 in cooperation with the U.S. Navy.© Pentagon photo.
Reagan wanted to put satellites into space that would use lasers to blast Soviet nukes out of the sky.
What we built was somewhat more pedestrian.
It also probably wont work.
But defense contractors made a lot of money.
Under Trump, were going to do it again.
Moneymaker was clear-eyed about the challenges of building Golden Dome.
Israels Iron Dome has done a great job shooting down Hamas rockets and Iranian missiles.
The pitch of the Golden Dome is that it would keep the whole of the continental U.S. safe.
Thats like trying to shoot a bullet out of the sky with a bullet.
Trumps executive order is vague and covers a lot of potential threats.
Stopping a nuke is the primary promise of a missile system.
And if one of these systems cant stop a nuke then of what use is it?
The study isnt positive.
This is the most comprehensive, independent scientific study in decades on the feasibility of national ballistic missile defense.
Its findings may shock Americans who have not paid much attention to these programs, Joseph Cirincione told Gimzodo.
Cirincione is the retired president of the Ploughshares Fund and a former Congressional staffer.
He investigated missile defense systems and nukes for the House Armed Services Committee.
This is the mother of all scandals, he said.
The study looked at a few different methods for knocking a North Korean nuke out of the sky.
During the boost-phase, the nuke is building up speed and getting into the air.
Boost-phase intercept of ICBMs launched from even a small country like North Korea is challenging, the study said.
And we would need a lot of them.
But what about space-based systems?
Its a territory rivals have less power over.
Even then, the system would be costly and vulnerable to anti-satellite attacks, Cirincione told Gizmodo.
Around 3,600 interceptors, to be precise.
So were talking about ringing the planet in thousands of munitions-armed satellites.
And remember that this is just to handle one nuke launched by North Korea.
Well, what about lasers?
Reagans original plan was lasers.
Surely technology has advanced since the 1980s.
What about during its mid-course arc?
Theres more time to do something then, between 20 and 30 minutes.
Most of Americas currently deployed missile defense systems are designed tostrike an object midcourse.
In tests, Americas midcourse interceptors only work about half the time.
And those tests are done under perfect conditions against known threats.
Theres still the terminal phase, that less than a second before a nuke hits its target.
The truth is that if a nuke is that close, youve probably already lost.
Even effective terminal-phase defenses can defend only limited areas, the study said.
Moreover, terminal-phase sensors are vulnerable to the blinding effects of nuclear explosions in the atmosphere.
These are just a few of the problems that the researchers discussed in the 60-page report.
There are many more.
And remember this is just talking about shooting down a North Korean salvo.
Things get more complicated when you add Russia, China, or any of Americas other enemies.
We have spent over $400 billion since 1983 on nothing.
Future expenditures will just be throwing money down a rat hole.
He said that Golden Dome was a project at a scale thats never been seen before.
Theres a lot of constituents at play that have a next-level order of integration that needs to happen.
Is this one dome?
Or is it a series of federated domes that interplay with each other?
He said the project is so big that progress will be incremental.
Booz Allen Hamilton hasteased a swarmof refrigerator-sized drones flying in 20 orbital planes around 200 miles in the air.
The plan is for these AI-connected drone swarms to identify missiles as they come in and slam into them.
Thats just one of the many pitches the Trump administration has received.
According toDefense One, the Pentagon has gotten more than 360 plans related to the Golden Dome.
When there is money to be made, science is shunted aside.
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