The “Golden Dome” missile defense project, which U.S. President Donald Trump wants to turn into a multilayered defense of the country against missile attacks, relies heavily on technologies that have not yet proven their effectiveness. Bloomberg writes about this, reports UNN.
Details
One of the system’s key and at the same time riskiest elements is space-based interceptors capable of destroying ballistic missiles during the early stage of flight. The Pentagon has already allocated $3.2 billion to develop prototypes of such vehicles, but the technology itself does not yet exist in a form ready for combat use.
The “Golden Dome” is intended to combine satellite and ground-based sensors, command-and-control systems, and various types of interceptors. The official estimated cost of the program’s so-called target architecture is approximately $185 billion through 2035.
The bill could turn out to be significantly larger
At the same time, the U.S. Congressional Budget Office estimated the possible cost of creating and operating a large-scale missile defense system at approximately $1.2 trillion over 20 years. One reason for such a large discrepancy is that the Pentagon does not disclose the detailed architecture of the “Golden Dome.”
Trump himself stated that the system should protect the United States against virtually all types of missile threats. However, even the program’s director, Space Force General Michael Guetlein, acknowledged that space-based interceptors would not be deployed unless they proved sufficiently affordable and suitable for scaling.
The Pentagon plans to test the technologies needed for the “Golden Dome” in the coming years. Thus, the United States is simultaneously investing tens of billions of dollars in creating the system and checking whether it is possible to implement its most ambitious elements in practice.