US President Donald Trump unveiled a plan for his ambitious “Golden Dome” missile defense shield this week, stating that it would cost $ 175 billion and take nearly three years to develop – but some experts say that the price tag may be several times more.
The Golden Dome Project aims to look at the design of the United States and deploy a next generation missile Defense Shield on the entire Continental US that will be able to detect, track and integrate hypersonic missiles and other advanced aerial threats. Golden makes the dome unique that it will feature space-based interceptors: capable of shooting in the orbit of spacecraft in the Earth’s orbit.
On Tuesday (May 20), Trump and US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held a press conference at the White House, during which he announced that the US Space Force General Michael Guitalin, Vice President of Space Operations, will lead the program. “It’s time that we change that equation and start doubling homeland’s security,” Gutlin said during the press conference.
Hegseth issued a statement on 20 May stating that the Defense Department is requesting Funding of $ 25 billion as a part of Trump’s “one, large, beautiful bill” law that includes tax deduction and changes in expenditure.
“We are ready to continue that work with the Congress to secure funding for the important important capabilities required in the budget request of FY16,” Hegseth’s statement said. “Golden Dome ensures that the American homeland is not exposed, while the opponents develop more advanced and fatal long distance weapons.”
The Congress Budget Office (CBO) published a report on 5 May, which estimates the cost of deploying a constellation of space-based interceptors, which Trump has outlined in his vision for Golden Dome. According to the CBO, the lowest estimate of developing and deploying such a system is around $ 161 billion, which sits below Trump’s estimated costs. High estimates of CBOs suggest that the cost can reach $ 542 billion or half a trillion dollars.
In fact, the final value can be even more tag.
During a security summit organized by Politico this month, the head of the space operations of the US Space Force. Chance Saltzman explained his cost estimates. “I am 34 years old in this business; I have never seen an initial estimate, which was too much,” Saltzman said, according to Air and Space Forces Magazine. “My intestine tells me that some additional funding is going to happen which is necessary.”
While Golden Dome is described as a purely defensive system, which is to protect the United States, other nations are already questioning the intention behind the program.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning told reporters today (May 21) that the Golden Dome program “will expand the US arsenal for fighter operations in outer space” and “a strong aggressive nature” that violates the principle of peaceful use in the outer space treaty. “
While Russia initially criticized the initiative, Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov told reporters on Tuesday (May 20) that Golden Dome “is a sovereign case for the United States” and that America should be able to build missile rescue, if it is a threat, according to Moscow Times.
Golden Dome takes its inspiration, at least in name, from Israel’s Iron Dome, a missile shield system, which has been used since 2011 to disrupt rockets and artillery weapons by Israel defense forces. It contains radar systems that detect threats and track, missile launcher, and a control center that coordinates between the two.
Golden Dome’s roots are also in a former missile defense program proposed by President Ronald Reagan, known as a strategic defense initiative. Reagan introduced views at television address in March 1983, in which he inspired the scientific community to help the United States to develop space-based defense weapons that could “impotent and obsolete” the threat from nuclear weapons.
The SDI program was given the nickname “Star Wars” by the media, as how it looked at that time. But before the Earth’s orbit was militarized, the cost launched for reusable rocket technology increased rapidly, and the countries began deploying space-based weapons, of which the choice of which was found only in science fiction when Reagan gave his address.
Fast forward four decades and Trump says that the Golden Dome project can finally make Reagan’s vision a reality.
Trump said, “We will really complete the work that President Regan started forty years ago, ending the danger of the missile for the American motherland forever.”
