Trump's Golden Dome gets $3.2B of contractors and an AI sprinkle The United States Space Force (USSF) has awarded eleven companies contracts to develop space-based interceptors for President Trump's Golden Dome program, in agreements worth up to $3.2 billion. Raytheon, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are among the familiar defense contractors named in the list, …
"This cost around $350 billion to set up and around $4 billion a year to operate. It reportedly works 57 percent of the time in tests."
if you're spending that much surely you get a hit rate >85/90% - should've been sent back for a refund or improvement - maybe they did and came back with "Sorry sir that's the best we can do"
The Union of Concerned Scientists estimated [PDF] that an effective space-based interceptor network would require hundreds to several thousand orbiting interceptors..
The UCS is an activist/lobbying group. They also seem to be assuming that New Xanadu's shareholder pleasuring dome will be trying to hit missiles during their boost phase. Given they could potentially be launched from anywhere, that would end up being a Golden Globe and they'll be sued by Eldritch.. I mean Eldridge Industries for trademark infringement. If it just has to protect CONUS, it won't necessarily need to be as bigly.
Or if Trump continues to practice his.. unique form of diplomacy and the US is booted out of their bases, gaps will appear in potential coverage. But current events have given a peak at what new missiles like Russia's Oreshnik can do, but flipside is also what THUD.. I mean THAAD perhaps can't do. 57% might turn out to be optimistic vs hypersonic missiles. But it's also one of those MAD & Star Wars issues given it'll just keep the arms race going while potential opponents develop counters, or ways to bypass the system.
Representatives of the Whitehouse met with the concerned scientists and had them all shot
Trump’s purge of National Science Board condemned as a ‘real bozo the clown move’
It's a reference to the classic of English literature
"The environmentalists lobby, however, ... claim the concert will cause earthquakes, tidal waves, hurricanes, irreparable damage to the atmosphere, and all the usual things environmentalists usually go on about. But I've just had a report that a representative of Disaster Area met with the environmentalists this morning and had them all shot"
"The environmentalists lobby, however, ... claim the concert will cause earthquakes, tidal waves, hurricanes, irreparable damage to the atmosphere..
There is irony as well as overlap there between the UCS and NSF. Science makes predictions, then experiments or just time can falsify those. Plus when 'the science is settled', lobbyists shouldn't expect a continued firehose of cash. There's also some civics, like the way every 4 years, the US elects a new figurehead, who forms a government, who can then nominate a new NSF boss, who can then be confirmed or denied. But the new boss can also appoint a new board to make sure the agency is aligned with government policies.
Meanwhile, the environmentalists lobby complains that there will be hurricanes, tidal waves etc and some may not be able to attend the upcoming Party Of the Conferences in Antalya this November, or the warm-up parties in Fiji or Tuvalu. Cooler heads might wait to see who ends up appointed to any new NSF board, and what the government's science policy might be.
"Science makes predictions, then experiments or just time can falsify those"
"can" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here as the usual outcome of the experiments is to modify not falsify the predictions. Not sure how time alone falsifies them.
"the US elects a new figurehead, who forms a government"
The figurehead of the US government does not form a new government, well at least until The Legion of Dumb took charge. He does select cabinet members to the most important government agencies that can set major policy but if the congress, until recently not "formed" by the figurehead, actually does the job specified for them in the Constitution then they have the power to override or defund these policies. Preferably with the help of the third branch of not-formed government (senate required to advise and consent at the federal level) deciding if these overrides are legal, constitutional and in the best interest of the US. If your going to bring up civics it's best to know how it actually works, or used to work when the figurehead, congress, and the Supine Court actually abided by the Constitution they swore an oath to uphold.
"or the warm-up parties in Fiji or Tuvalu"
Assuming they are still above sea level. So far it's not looking good.
"can" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here as the usual outcome of the experiments is to modify not falsify the predictions. Not sure how time alone falsifies them.
Clues here-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_series
Common examples include heights of ocean tides, counts of sunspots, daily temperature readings, and the closing values of stock market indices such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
So I predict the temperature tomorrow will be 50C. In as little as 24hrs, that prediction can be falsified. Climate stuff is all about time series analysis and dire predictions.
If your going to bring up civics it's best to know how it actually works, or used to work when the figurehead, congress, and the Supine Court actually abided by the Constitution they swore an oath to uphold.
Err.. right. So wiki again-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislature
A legislature (UK: /ˈlɛdʒɪslətʃər/, US: /-ˌleɪtʃər/)[1][2] is a deliberative assembly that holds the legal authority to make law and exercise political oversight within a political entity such as a state, nation, or city. Legislatures are among the principal institutions of state, typically contrasted with the executive and judicial institutions.
So your 'figurehead' is actually in charge of the Executive Branch, forms a government and manages the country, per the US Constitution. The Legislative Branch makes laws like the National Science Foundation Act of 1950, establishing the NSF and giving the head of the Executive Branch the power to appoint or dismiss the NSF board. So in dismissing the NSF board, Trump is acting within the bounds of the Act and the Constitution.
Assuming they are still above sea level. So far it's not looking good.
I'm pretty confident that both will still be above sea level by November, because most of the sea level predictions have been falsified by time again. Whether there'll be enough jet fuel to fly 30,000+ lobbyists to party in Turkiye might be a different question. Our 'leaders' will find the fuel for 'essential' travel because they'll always find cake to eat, even while the peasents starve.. Own nothing, be happy. Eat bugs, be happy. Don't look too closely at French history because then our 'leaders' might become unhappy..
The Iran war has shown why. They are able to launch large numbers of cheap drones and overwhelm missile based interception. Even if it doesn't overwhelm it to the point that something gets through, you won't have an infinite number of multi million dollar interceptors so in a longer conflict you'll eventually end up defenseless. This is exactly why Trump wanted a cease fire, turns out Iran is going to be able to keep sending out missiles and drones longer than the US can restock his antimissile defenses, and things would get bad if we ran out.
Even if this was 100% perfect in defending against ICBMs or conventional cruise missiles, what happens if dozens of fishing boats all around the US that have been running fake transponders showing they are owned by Canada or Mexico or the Bahamas open up a hatch on the deck and hundreds of drones fly out? What happens if someone has been building nuclear capability into the tens of thousands of communication satellites we'll soon have orbiting - taking out an ICBM or sub launched cruise missile that you can detect the launch of is very different from detecting the launch of a missile from a satellite you didn't even know had one, that isn't following trajectory this system has been designed and tested for?
This is a pointless boondoggle like Reagan's Star Wars, a giveaway to the military industrial complex, but won't make us safer in any real way - it'll mean anyone who wants to do us harm won't do it with an ICBM, that's all.
> dozens of fishing boats all around the US that have been running fake transponders showing they are owned by Canada or Mexico
I think they will be running fake transponders showing they are owned by Afghanistan and North Korea, and not regimes El Presidente doesn't like.
The US now spends $800+ billion on defense and is asking congress for $400+ billion. That is more than the next 8 or 9 countries combined, many of them use to be our allies. DOGE somehow missed the waste fraud and abuse in the only government agency that has failed audits for the last 9 (at least) years and doesn't plan to pass one for at least three more, yeah sure. If anyone believes that the cost of this project and it's operational costs will not double or triple I've got a Trump watch, bible, meme coin, shoes, NFT, ... I'd like to sell you.
We didn't do much better in Vietnam (I became eligible for the draft in 1973 and remember it well) despite our overwhelming hardware advantage. I think all of our war losses since WWII can be summed up in an old anti-war song from the Vietnam era, "Well it's one, two, three what are we fighting for?". The North Vietnamese were fighting to free their country from the last vestiges of corrupt colonial rule, we were fighting the commies under our beds.
They spend more than enough to protect themselves from Russia, who has been exposed as a paper tiger that doesn't justify anything like the current US presence. Or really any US presence. Since the cold war ended our bases there have little do with protecting Europe, and much more to do with having shorter hops to fight stupid wars halfway across the world.
It would be great if everyone in Europe kicked our bases out, that would make it much harder to wage those types of pointless wars.
This is the only Neutron Bomb that I would ever approve of.
NO, NOT the "golden dome" - this is 3.2 billion for a handful of space interceptors for intercepting ICBMs. The whole concepts of a dome thing is supposed to cost like 400 or probably more like 4000 - it involves a shit ton of ground based equipment all over the place and mostly is coastal/borderish and around big cities.
Trying to defend the indefensible and objectionable is a thankless Sisyphian task which outs participating contractors as legitimate enemy targets for all manner of revolutionary and evolving punitive shenanigans so best be sure you really know what you’re doing and who it is going to negatively impact and infuriate and who and what you are doing it for and why you are doing it for them.
Having no wrongs answers to all of those sort of questions should give one righteous peace of mind with no additional emerging major consequential problems to fail to address and vanquish.
Can these orbital interceptors hit targets on the ground as they pass over?
> The Space Force argues the global strategic landscape has shifted enough to require combining existing missile defense systems with next-generation space-based tracking and AI-enabled interceptors ..
Good Grief and WTF :o
