This is who’s developing Golden Dome’s orbital interceptors—if they’re ever built

"If boost-phase intercept from space is not affordable and scalable, we will not produce it."

See full article...

 

[S-T-R]

Some of the companies on the list, such as SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, are well known in the space industry.

Space launch providers have, perhaps unintuitively, very little in common with missile industry. SpaceX is very much an outsider in that field. First of all, as an example, SpaceX expertise is in liquid rockets. Missiles, by virtue of needing to be stored for years at a time, are almost entirely solid fueled. Bigger issue is in guidance system though. Missiles need the precision of a booster landing, but at 100 times the close rate, and with an adversarial target that is using every measure to dodge, decoy or disguise. Electronic warfare is an entire field unto itself.

It's like an airline vs an air force. Sure, both fly planes, but otherwise operate at very different tempos and different environments. There's two very different tradeoffs between efficiency and resiliency.

 

[Argent Claim]

Given recent news about the SecNav getting pushed out over the physical inability of American industry to get a morbidly obese cruiser battleship built before 2028, one wonders who might be next on the chopping block for daring to mention how dumb this Golden Dome is.

 

[Resistance]

If Americas adversaries actually believed this project would perform as advertised, they would, at minimum using every soft power tool available to aggressively pressure the US to stop this project. They would be acting as if the US were destroying their nuclear stockpiles, because in effect, that is what this system claims to do.

But none of that is happening, because no US adversaries with nuclear weapons believe this will impact their ability to strike the US at will.

 

[Taircron]

If Americas adversaries actually believed this project would perform as advertised, they would, at minimum using every soft power tool available to aggressively pressure the US to stop this project. They would be acting as if the US were destroying their nuclear stockpiles, because in effect, that is what this system claims to do.

But none of that is happening, because no US adversaries with nuclear weapons believe this will impact their ability to strike the US at will.

First, I agree.

Second, my other fear is that we're all staring at the MAD of Kessler Syndrome - once an idiot decides to start putting weapons into space, it's gonna be real hard to not shoot them down during conflict. And by 'down', I mean 'all across their orbital path'.

It's bad enough to keep putting more and more spy satellites up there. But once we start having meaningful weapons in orbit, it's only a matter of time until several are detonated, and from there, the collision chain starts. And of course, companies like SpaceX are putting more and more up there, in common, congested orbital bands... It won't take much to stop space travel for several years if LEO gets Kessler'd, but if we congest any higher orbits, it can be centuries or more... All because some idiot wanted to put weapons in orbit.

 

[Soothsayer786]

I have to wonder though, do those companies then also utilize additional third party companies in their processes? This just seems like another giant jobs program that's going to be spread out among dozens of companies and hundreds of subcontractors and will end up costing many times what it was projected to cost.

Of course I don't think it'll ever actually happen but I do expect lots of money to be wasted before it gets axed.

 

[fellow human]

Booz Allen Hamilton

I bet Hegseth likes this one.

 

[RZetopan]

If Americas adversaries actually believed this project would perform as advertised, they would, at minimum using every soft power tool available to aggressively pressure the US to stop this project. They would be acting as if the US were destroying their nuclear stockpiles, because in effect, that is what this system claims to do.

But none of that is happening, because no US adversaries with nuclear weapons believe this will impact their ability to strike the US at will.

Never interrupt your enemy to point out that they are making a mistake. Of course, if a US enemy was making a mistake and the Orange Goblin or even Hegseth were told about it, they would very likely openly brag about knowing.

 

[SportivoA]

SBI same as the old SDI? The ego-fluffing and military-industrial(-political) complex will continue.

 

[Alfonse]

It works fine to keep going with the plan because it won't cost much until you actually start putting hundreds of sats in orbit, it's fine to just do research and build a few prototypes.

How many people could be given free healthcare from the money we're dumping into a boondoggle/vanity project for Dear Leader? Even just the R&D costs.

 

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Given recent news about the SecNav getting pushed out over the physical inability of American industry to get a morbidly obese cruiser battleship built before 2028, one wonders who might be next on the chopping block for daring to mention how dumb this Golden Dome is.

I certainly don't doubt that there's more room under the bus for minions; but 'golden dome' seems like a much vaguer target that will probably be easier to keep Orange Juche distracted about. He's going to want something; but when the deliverable is a somewhat nebulous vision of a plan of a combination of a newer version of bad Reagan ideas and a tackier version of Israeli feeling of technological impunity there's a lot more room to periodically show him a definitely not rigged demo of a sick missile hitting a target and some european fretting about 'destabilization'; while ignoring all the gaping holes that would be trivial to exploit either because they've turned into the beginning of a 15-year software charade or just never been bothered with.

There's a lot less room to hedge about the fact that you aren't going to have a ship with less than half the missile capacity per ton that it should have and some directed energy optimism to dump off the slipway on time.

 

[yet_another_wumpus]

Space launch providers have, perhaps unintuitively, very little in common with missile industry. SpaceX is very much an outsider in that field.

Northrup Grumman is on the list of Department of War Crimes contractors and is a space launch provider known for using solid rockets (built out of old peacekeeper missiles). They also build the solid boosters used by SLS/Artemis. They are presumably unique in having a chance of pulling this off, and so will be the least likely to obtain the contract (if they do, expect NorthrupGrumman old hands to wrest control from Orbital/ATK (ATK is the one that builds the SLS boosters, Orbital builds the rockets. They merged before NG bought them).

 

[forbin]

The roster of Golden Dome Space-Based Interceptor (SBI) contractors, some of which were previously reported, includes Anduril Industries, Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics Mission Systems, GITAI USA, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Quindar, Raytheon, Sci-Tec, SpaceX, True Anomaly, and Turion Space.

This Raytheon?
https://meincmagazine.com/space/2026/...f-the-militarys-most-troubled-space-programs/
That instills a ton of confidence that it will ever successfully be completed.

 

[Snark218]

Anduril Industries, Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics Mission Systems, GITAI USA, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Quindar, Raytheon, Sci-Tec, SpaceX, True Anomaly, and Turion Space.

Well, I guess it's nice they didn't forget anybody.

 

[Snark218]

This Raytheon?
https://meincmagazine.com/space/2026/...f-the-militarys-most-troubled-space-programs/
That instills a ton of confidence that it will ever successfully be completed.

I mean, not like the entire rest of the concept does either; this is one of those projects that inspires fractal dubiousness, where no matter whether you're looking at the broadest outlines or the most granular details, it all sounds like absolute bullshit. Hell, just the name and origin overload my bullshit detector.

 

[alxx]

If Americas adversaries actually believed this project would perform as advertised, they would, at minimum using every soft power tool available to aggressively pressure the US to stop this project. They would be acting as if the US were destroying their nuclear stockpiles, because in effect, that is what this system claims to do.

But none of that is happening, because no US adversaries with nuclear weapons believe this will impact their ability to strike the US at will.

The rest of the world thinks you guys are going to bankrupt yourselves even faster with all the military spending + the extra grift on the top.

 

[Alfonse]

I mean, not like the entire rest of the concept does either; this is one of those projects that inspires fractal dubiousness, where no matter whether you're looking at the broadest outlines or the most granular details, it all sounds like absolute bullshit. Hell, just the name and origin overload my bullshit detector.

And the fractal nature of it goes all the way to the top.

Let's just say you manage to build this thing. Well, nothing's perfect; maybe it will stop 99% of incoming missiles. That's still a fucking lot getting through.

Not only that, Destruction being Mutually Assured is kinda important to that MADdening doctrine. There apparently have been many times that firing off a couple of nukes wasn't done precisely because someone in the room could point to the "Assured" part of that.

Trump initially withheld support for blue states at the start of COVID. Do you honestly think that this shitbag would see the possibility of a few major cities, almost all of them being blue, being wiped out as a bug or a feature? As long as someone in the room could convince him that the destruction won't be "Assured", that more of his political enemies would die than his supporters, he'd pull that trigger in a heartbeat.

An imperfect system is actively worse than nothing at all. At its very core, the idea is bad.

 

[grendelmk1]

Space launch providers have, perhaps unintuitively, very little in common with missile industry. SpaceX is very much an outsider in that field. First of all, as an example, SpaceX expertise is in liquid rockets. Missiles, by virtue of needing to be stored for years at a time, are almost entirely solid fueled. Bigger issue is in guidance system though. Missiles need the precision of a booster landing, but at 100 times the close rate, and with an adversarial target that is using every measure to dodge, decoy or disguise. Electronic warfare is an entire field unto itself.

It's like an airline vs an air force. Sure, both fly planes, but otherwise operate at very different tempos and different environments. There's two very different tradeoffs between efficiency and resiliency.

If I were designing a system to try to defend against a ballistic missile threat against North America, I'd need a whole shit-ton of lift capacity to put interceptors in a whole bunch of LEO counter-orbits.

The "storage" would happen in LEOs high enough to not lose much to atmospheric drag. High enough to not practically decay, low enough an intercept could be done on a reasonable storeable liquid chemical rocket. Imagine a few thousand "brilliant pebbles" orbiting backwards on orbital planes that cover every target and every launcher.

You're damn rights it'd be instant Kessler syndrome if the system ever got used on a serious scale. Having collisions with closing velocities of 14 to 15 kilometers per second would throw shit into all sorts of orbits. Plus, it'd be STUPENDOUSLY expensive.

Perun's got a pretty good "let's do the economics" video in why this whole idea is utterly fucking moronic.

Shooting down half a dozen DPRK ballistic missiles is one thing, stopping Russia from deciding to nuke you as their last dying act would be damn near inconceivable.

So much cheaper to just not be enemies with goddamn everybody.

 

[phik]

Booz Allen Hamilton is best known as an integrator and data services company serving the defense sector

I always knew them as consultants replacing government workers so the Republicans could claim to have shrunk the government. The consultants would end up costing more than the worker in the long run too.

 

[Chinsukolo]

First, I agree.

Second, my other fear is that we're all staring at the MAD of Kessler Syndrome - once an idiot decides to start putting weapons into space, it's gonna be real hard to not shoot them down during conflict. And by 'down', I mean 'all across their orbital path'.

It's bad enough to keep putting more and more spy satellites up there. But once we start having meaningful weapons in orbit, it's only a matter of time until several are detonated, and from there, the collision chain starts. And of course, companies like SpaceX are putting more and more up there, in common, congested orbital bands... It won't take much to stop space travel for several years if LEO gets Kessler'd, but if we congest any higher orbits, it can be centuries or more... All because some idiot wanted to put weapons in orbit.

Not even the shooting down of satellites , which I think your spot on for. But shooting objects with high velocity in boost phase just before they enter Leo... Newton had this law about things in motion...
While yes some debris will go down and out pushed by explosion/destruction, some is going to continue right in to Leo... Full of sat constellations and all sorts of other things to get "shotgunned" into to starting Kessler Syndrome.

 

[Fatesrider]

Never interrupt your enemy to point out that they are making a mistake. Of course, if a US enemy was making a mistake and the Orange Goblin or even Hegseth were told about it, they would very likely openly brag about knowing.

There's one thing to keep in mind. Trump is an ally of Russia, who is a vassal state these days to China. Read how the attack on Iraq was a huge economic boon to Russia, who is up to its eyeballs in hock to the Chinese to keep their shit going in Ukraine. And Iran just sent Russia hundreds of ballistic missiles to help them in Ukraine.

Trump is an ally of Russia, and is doing what he can to destroy the United States from within, and his political friends only care about pwning the libs.

The man is a traitor. And that word CAN be used because he declared war and did much of this during wartime.

 

[infernal666]

This entire thing sounds like a nice little way to funnel money to the right people who will then make a large "political donation" to the Fanta Fuhrer and his ilk.

 

[NewCrow]

“With the commitment and collaboration of these industry partners, the Space Force will demonstrate an initial capability in 2028.”

A bit weasel-wordy: An established term is IOC = Initial Operational Capability.
This means that the system is not yet complete in terms of functionality, performance or numbers, but it is good enough to be used for real - In this case during an actual attack.

By omitting "operational", they could drop an inert bag of rocks from space and still claim to have demonstrated "a capability".

OTOH, as long as certain vain persons at the top of the hierarchy don't know the difference...

 

[darkowl]

Are the sparks and debris that fall after, the “golden shower” part that he’s allegedly so fond of?

 

[rachel612]

This just seems like another giant jobs program that's going to be spread out among dozens of companies and hundreds of subcontractors and will end up costing many times what it was projected to cost.

Correct. We’ve seen this movie before. Same thing happened during Reagan’s Star Wars. Frances Fitzgerald’s “Way out there in the Blue” is a good read. The father of a friend has a beach house* on the Sth Carolina coast paid for (mostly) by his work on that boondoggle.

_{* which probably won’t survive much longer given climate change but it was good while it lasted.}

 

[muchado]

Ground- and sea-based US and Israeli interceptors have shot down thousands of missiles and drones since the first wave of Iranian ballistic missiles launched toward Israel in 2024, with a success rate of more than 90 percent.

According to knowledgeable experts that are now commentators, like Prof Postol of MIT, weapons inspector Scott Ritter and Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, these numbers are fake. Apparently an assessment of the numbers produced in the Iraq war regarding Scud was completely wrong - nearer to 5-10%.

 

[jatb]

The military is at least 10 years ahead of your thinking (hopefully).

Submarine launched ballistic missiles exist and are unstoppable, "Star Wars" with Reagan was a handout to contractors, to be paid by printing and diluting your money. This is just a reimagination of that.

Although if it's ever built, it'll purely be for collapsing underground structures with tungsten rods or something stupid. Might be what they're thinking.

 

[leonremi]

Amusingly, Reagan's Star Wars initiative was never really supposed to work, but was part of a plan to force the USSR into bankruptcy by forcing them to spend themselves dry in trying to match US military spending.
It worked.
This time, the Americans are....trying to do it to themselves?

 

[tRexx]

The golden dome is well named. It is unaffordable and just....stupid. The United States is not Israel.

 

[Steven N]

The rest of the world thinks you guys are going to bankrupt yourselves even faster with all the military spending + the extra grift on the top.

This, the whole situation reminds me if the end phase of the USSR that basically bankrupted itself trying to out MAD the perceived US capabilities that were literally smoke and mirrors.
Except in this case it’s the US bankrupting itself by believing it’s own claims of the imagined capabilities of it’s imaginary adversaries.
Anyone remembers how we looked at the military “capabilities” of Russia before the invasion if Ukraine and what those turned out to be?

(Damned ninjas )

 

[FSTargetDrone]

So much cheaper to just not be enemies with goddamn everybody.

Pffft.

Peace doesn’t pay the military industrial complex nearly as well.

Really though, what a colossal waste of money. A bunch of people are going to make a killing billing this country for this boondoggle-to-be.

 

[MilanKraft]

On the slim chance an actually effective, budget-workable and widely deployable system is built, I'm assuming — in honor of Trump — if we call the shield the Golden Dome, then the hail of flaming debris that will rain down on or near our borders will be called the Golden Shower, right?

(More seriously, Hegdouche and his boss, after a few very expensive years of R&D are done, will be forced into the realization that a "successful" system is going to be more or less like the game of baseball. A batting average of .300 -.400 will be considered "good". So don't worry folks, after we pour tens of billions into this effort, that could've been spent for many other useful purposes in a civil society, we'll only get hit by 60-70% of the incoming projectiles. It'll be fine.)

 

[Tactical Finesse]

The military is at least 10 years ahead of your thinking (hopefully).

The military might be. The political appointees leading it--are wanting to live in a bizzarro re-imagined world of the 1950s. Actually--I think it is better described as them being fans of the pre-war Fallout USA, who stopped reading the Fallout Wikia at October 22 2077.

 

[RZetopan]

The military is at least 10 years ahead of your thinking (hopefully).

You accidentally left out the: "and playing 5-D chess" BS that these loons always claim.

 

[RZetopan]

This has all the earmarks (ha!) of Ronald Ray-Gun's idiot SDI, combined with the psychic warrior BS that the military bought into in the 1970s. The Wikipedia article tries to sane wash what the military was doing at the time. e.g. In addition to “remote viewing” (which is not even a thing) they wanted to train soldiers to levitate and turn invisible. Hence, the warrior part. See the hilarious "men who stare at goats" movie. There were Lieutenant Colonels who bought into Uri Geller's mediocre stage magic shtick and the First Earth Battalion/Project Stargate as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project_(U.S._Army_unit)
https://pdws.biz/index.php/2022/10/...arth-battalion-a-new-age-of-psychic-soldiers/
https://factorfable.com/the-first-e...-strangest-military-experiment-fact-or-fable/
https://wiki.geniimagazine.com/index.php?title=Uri_Geller

 

[Bondi Surfer]

The cheaper solution is to not be such a prick to the rest of the world…

 

[Melon of Troy]

If I were designing a system to try to defend against a ballistic missile threat against North America, I'd need a whole shit-ton of lift capacity to put interceptors in a whole bunch of LEO counter-orbits.

The "storage" would happen in LEOs high enough to not lose much to atmospheric drag. High enough to not practically decay, low enough an intercept could be done on a reasonable storeable liquid chemical rocket. Imagine a few thousand "brilliant pebbles" orbiting backwards on orbital planes that cover every target and every launcher.

You're damn rights it'd be instant Kessler syndrome if the system ever got used on a serious scale. Having collisions with closing velocities of 14 to 15 kilometers per second would throw shit into all sorts of orbits. Plus, it'd be STUPENDOUSLY expensive.

Perun's got a pretty good "let's do the economics" video in why this whole idea is utterly fucking moronic.

Shooting down half a dozen DPRK ballistic missiles is one thing, stopping Russia from deciding to nuke you as their last dying act would be damn near inconceivable.

So much cheaper to just not be enemies with goddamn everybody.

Has nobody considered the cost of not having enemies?