5 things to know while Trump puts the golden missile defense shield
President Trump is preparing to get his first great flight for his golden gun at $ 25 billion, proposing to start the alleged missile defense system.
Billions of dollars for the golden dome – part of the Republican Party reconciliation bill to increase the Pentagon spending by $ 150 billion – that the system that Trump is promoting on the campaign trail will soon begin to consolidate.
But the proposed system, which aims to work as a shield that protects the continental United States from ballistic and excessive and advanced missiles, has a fair share of issues outside the gate, including its huge, potential and feasible price.
Questions were also raised about whether defense contracts could be used to build the golden dome to provide the wallets of companies owned by billionaire Elon Musk and others.
Here are five things that must be known with the formation of the system:
The project may exceed the financing of the Republican Party
Golden Dome Missile Shield is scheduled to get $ 24.7 billion to start the initiative, and the dollar aimed at linking the current programs to the newly developed technology.
The reconciliation bill, which is currently operating through Congress, is the majority of money for efforts that create a network of satellites and objections in space that can detect any incoming missiles and help them.
This effort includes 7.2 billion dollars to develop and purchase space -based sensors, $ 5.6 billion to develop space -based missile objections, $ 2.4 billion in non -kinetic missile defense capabilities, such as electronic warfare tools, and $ 2 billion for military satellites with target target indicators.
For the technology on the ground, legislators included $ 2.2 billion to accelerate the development of high -end defense systems, $ 1.9 billion for ground -based missile defense radars and $ 800 million to develop and deploy ballistic missile defense systems from the next generation of the next generation.
But the project is expected to cost more than $ 25 billion, as experts and analysts can reach the amount of the dollar for the entire system to hundreds of billions, and perhaps to trillion.
Partially high costs of the huge amount of satellites needed to cover and protect the entire United States by sensing and tracking missiles – about 400 to more than 1,000 satellites.
The sources told The Outlet that 200 other satellites – armed with missiles or lasers – will be used to strike the enemy arms.
The role of musk attracts scrutiny
One of the emerging sources of the dispute over the golden dome was the possibility of billionaire from Elon Musk to obtain a part of the change in contracts through his company Spacex, a result that appears to be conflicting interests given his role in the Trump administration.
Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, donated more than $ 270 million to Trump’s 2024 campaign and is now working as a special adviser to the president while leading the Ministry of Government Enabled (DOGE).
Musk’s seems to be the first candidate to win a major contract in building the golden dome, according to a Reuters report last week, which led to warnings in Congress.
A group of 42 Democratic legislators wrote in one letter to the Ministry of Defense inspector: “This is an worrying report,” wrote a group of 42 Democratic legislators in one letter to the Ministry of Defense inspector. “All this raises concerns about whether the defensive contracts for building a golden dome are an effective way to protect Americans or aim to enrich Mr. Musk and other elites.”
Elsewhere, Jin Shaheen, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Jane Shaheen (DN.H.) presented a new bill that would prevent any federal contracts from issuing companies owned by any private government employee, such as Musk.
“When the richest man in the world can become a private employee in the government and exercise influence on the flow of billions of dollars from taxpayer money in government contracts for his companies, this is a serious problem,” Shaheen said.
Questions appear on technological feasibility
When Trump announced that he would ask Congress to finance the golden dome, the observations received in his presidential speech on the legislators on March 4, he referred to the strategic defense initiative of former President Reagan (SDI) – a project to protect against cross -sealing ballistic missiles at the end.
“Reagan wanted to do so for a long time, but technology was not present, not even close. But now we have technology. It is incredible, in reality,” Trump said at the time. “It’s very important. This is a very dangerous world. We must get it. We want to be protected.”
In the midst of the Cold War in 1983, Reagan proposed the Star Wars program, but the program did not exceed research and development and was closed in 1993.
While Washington’s technological progress has grown leaps and limits since then, the equipment for a golden dome is still taking years to develop. These defensive capabilities include space objections to output in the middle of the journey and non -motor such as energy, laser, and high -energy microbial waves.
Experts said that a more rational goal is to improve the current missile shield in the country – and it consists of several layers – as a way to prepare for future threats such as Russia, China, Iran or North Korea.
The United States is already protecting any long -range missiles contained across radars and ground objections at the Fort Grilli, Alaska and Vandinberg Air Force Base, California.
Other defensive elements protect from shorter domain missiles, such as the defense of the high altitude zone, which was somewhat ready to defend Hawaii when North Korea lacked the missile test several years ago.
Washington, DC, at the same time, is protected by NASAMS, a short -term short -term air defense system.
The main promotions of these systems, as well as the Trump -based components, will take years to do.
The legislator asks for weaknesses
Besides questions about whether the United States has a technique to create a golden dome, there are also doubts about the feasibility of such a project. Multiple studies have concluded that the defense system will be weak because it may be steeped if the opponents decide to launch multiple weapons at the same time.
Deputy Seth Molton (D-Mass) put this same issue on Wednesday to senior US Army missile defense officials, noting that Russia and China expressed their concerns with American missile defense systems.
“With what we know about Russia’s efforts to develop and deploy a nuclear weapon into space and their fear of American missile defenses, was there an evaluation of the possibility or increasing the opportunity to use Russia such weapons in the conflict early to extract the space -based intersection class?” Multon asked during the hearing of a sub -committee for armed services.
On behalf of the Minister of Defense of Space Policy Andrea Yavi, the question was postponed to the intelligence community, but Multon continued.
“No, no, it is a operating question. You will spend billions of dollars in taxpayer money that can inspire the Russians to say,” We, we need to get them out before using them. “It is better to discover this if you will spend a lot of taxpayer money on this.”
Molton also wondered whether the regime could defend sea-based attacks-as is the case in the missiles fired from a ship-where Trump appeared to defend the air attacks.
He said: “You can run a boat to the Los Angeles port, right? It is clear that the golden dome is not designed to defend against it.”
“It looks like another big hole in which we must achieve before we spend a lot of money on this,” Multon added.
The plan is derived from the Israeli iron dome
Trump’s dreams of the Golden Dome from the Israeli Iron Dome, a system that the small country uses as a way to produce short -range missiles and artillery up to 43 miles.
The Supreme Leader of the first time appeared in the idea of a system similar to the American homeland in December 2023, noting, “We have no dome. We will get the greatest dome ever.”
Later, in a march in New Hampshire in January 2024, he announced that he “builds an iron dome on our country and a modern missile defense shield, all of which were made in the United States of America.”
But while the Israeli Iron Dome is designed to intercept and destroy the short -range missiles and artillery launched from 43 miles, the defense system will not work for the continental United States
Instead, the potential threats of Washington will come from Bal state missiles between the continents that were launched from countries such as Russia, China, Iran or North Korea, and not short -term projectiles that there is no country opposing the distance of the United States to use.
“Iron Dome was a system specifically designed for Israel,” Tom Karako, director of the missile defense project for strategic and international studies, told Hill last year. “Putting an iron dome in every corner is not accessible to everyone, nor is it reasonable.”
