Public sentiment regarding the Golden Dome Missile Defense Project is sharply negative, characterized by skepticism about its massive financial burden and concerns over its effectiveness amidst pressing domestic issues like healthcare and infrastructure. While there are voices of support for national security, a significant number of commenters view it as a wasteful expenditure that primarily benefits private contractors rather than addressing actual threats, leading to a widespread demand for prioritizing domestic needs over military spending.

Government

Defense Contractors

Military

It's a grift. It works by taking billions from the public and giving it to billionaires.

denzacar

Trump for sure has no idea what it is or how it works. He doesn't even know how stealth aircraft work; he believes that they are literally invisible like Wonder Woman's plane. LOL

Comfortable_Use_8407

Starwars was designed to bankrupt the USSR. Who is going bankrupt after this

Gabe_Glebus

ronny's star wars sdi project is the terd that wont flush. it keeps coming back over and over and...

cyrixlord

Love me some defense industry Perun slide show.  It's how I know it's Sunday

Opening_Cartoonist53

Just use lasers, no reload time, infinite ammo, and you can't outrun them

ferriematthew

Gibberish, no, and wouldn't it be cheaper to just not be the kind of person other people want to shoot.  At least the kind of people who can afford ICBMs.

Ishidan01

Another absolute banger by Perun. Dude absolutely cannot miss.

Booty_Gobbler69

Great video. I think the more important parts of missile defense involve intelligence of possible launches / launch sites / defense against situations that would cause an exchange. The economics for intercepting every possible warhead aren't sunny.

baordog

Trump couldn't even build a wall between him and Mexico. 

This is entirely a grift to siphon off more of the people's money.

DrewbowskiOG

It's literally SDI 2.0, except worse for two or three reasons

One; money laundering 
Two; at least with SDI 1.0, we had a perceived enemy, and used SDI to scare the Soviets when they were all ready weak
Three; we aren't being actively attacked. And to add an addendum to this caveat, the US technically already has missile defense in its/our submarines, fighter jets, and satellites

This shit makes me so angry my husband has to listen to me bitch about it Every time I see it mentioned for the past week

Edited to add:

Jesus the formatting on this is awful, sorry

Alternative_Meat_235

Got to say the idea isn't the worst. We can't just rely on the fact we are half way around the world from the given warzone.

LloydAsher0

boookworm0367

Guess just gonna let POTUS decide specifications because he understands all this huh

NeedleGunMonkey

Which donor……I mean Defense Company got their way into this contract?

KingofPro

As a former BMD commander, I could go on and on about the infeasibility of this proposed system, but we should all realize that this is not the point of this “golden dome”. 

The point is that the United States is now pursuing a policy that will lead to the further weaponization of space. Placing interceptors in space not only destabilizes existing treaties, it gives other nations the cover to place their own weapons in space. 

You will be told ad nauseam that these are purely defensive weapons, as if they couldn’t be easily pointed towards ground targets in an offensive manner. 

The only ones who will benefit from this golden dome will be the defense contractors, who have some lovely, expensive, systems already packaged for your country’s consideration. 

The tell will be Russia and China’s reaction to this news. Will they be outraged that the balance has shifted and their weapons will soon be useless against us, leaving them strategically vulnerable? No. Expect boilerplate language, if any. Because 1) they know it can’t work and 2) it gives them cover to plan their own space adventures.

SWO6

Wow...I was going to make a joke about bringing back Star Wars, but he just owned it...he does know that was not a successful program right? Right!?

WTI240

https://preview.redd.it/pgr3hi9qu02f1.jpeg?width=640&amp;format=pjpg&amp;auto=webp&amp;s=90919f9ecaaa253b300e9dd18be0c9f5d34f88d5

*Live SECDEF Reaction*

epic_inside

Former TAO, and I was a CSMM, CSRO, and CMDCM at NSWC PHD. This Golden Dome proposal is recycled Reagan-era SDI with a new coat of paint and none of the feasibility.  Sanitized version:

Homeland BMD against hypersonics? Technically, we’re nowhere close. We can’t track everything, we can’t engage what we can’t track, and we sure as hell can’t cover CONUS with persistent high-probability kill chains. Aegis BMD and THAAD are solid regionally, but they’re not built for volume saturation or hypersonic maneuvering targets. GMD’s hit rate is inconsistent at best. Add the current manpower and maintenance shortfalls, and there’s no one to operate or sustain this notional shield anyway.

Strategically, you don’t deter by bluffing capability. You provoke escalation. If adversaries believe we’re fielding a first-strike-capable defense, whether it works or not, they start building more warheads and cheaper, faster penetration aids. I’m old. Reagan. Star Wars.  “I declare space lasers!” doesn’t work that way.

If we’re serious about defense, fund proven systems, stabilize the fleet, and invest in real sensor and C2 integration. But this? It’s political theater, not operational strategy.

[deleted]

He selected a design? Must of been from his grandson showing him the death star he made yesterday

Adexavus

Didn't Trump get the Golden Shower system from some Russian "contractors?"

BadLt58

https://www.404media.co/scientists-explain-why-trumps-175-billion-golden-dome-is-a-fantasy/

Remote-Ad-2686

$5 says he thinks that they’re going to build an actual, physical dome that will be golden.

Raven_Photography

China will enter the chat after the giggles stop.

NxPat

The analyses I've seen of just how utterly, impossibly infeasible this whole thing is have been wild.

Navynuke00

SOTI_snuggzz

Ah yes, because that's something the U.S. really deals with on a regular basis...defending against long range missile attacks.

kingofjabronis

Everything is easy when you can just say you did something and move on to saying you did something else.

_Acidik_

Fully in favor of this wholeheartedly, we got to show the world that we must defend democracy. We need to be putting a giant satellite, space laser that can strike ANYWHERE on the globe for homeland defense. The US needs a Gold Dome. 

In fact, we should also outfit all our military branches in  desert gold colors so that we can all be uniform and show the world how united we really are.

We'll call it, the "Global Defensive Initiative."

chaliblue

When a North Korean ICBM (thankfully a dud) landed in my yard the other day, my first thought was that I sure hope our beloved leader can find a solution for this recurring issue!

dainthomas

mtblack412

He's been slurring his speech a lot more recently. It sounds very strange in this video...like he has peanut butter on the roof of his mouth.

JaredSharps

I just have one simple question: How? This project is not feasible to complete in 3 years from every aspect.

Ok-Inside-7630

Meh. I'll believe it when I see it. I don't buy it.

shinsain

He couldnt build a wall how he gonna build this lol

Vegetable_Tune_4932

ptvaughnsto

This is stupid, gold has less durability than iron and diamond

bone_ofmysword

Great now I get to listen to his stupid fucking cult scream about more shit they don’t know anything about because dear leader said we’re gods favorites.

SimplyExtremist

Damn, is it just me or is he really slurring his words lately. Guy sounds like Donald duck

FishermanPale5734

Hate to tell him but it’s not gonna be done in 3 years.

Shidhe

![gif](giphy|e5uyWolyR0y30Wo1ya|downsized)

nuHmey

The amount of money this administration is going to spend, we bout to be broke as fuck in a couple of years. Ya’ll save your money.

Illustrious-Stuff-70

I hope he knows that iron is stronger than gold

vistopher

slaty_balls

... Gold is very malleable. And expensive. Sigh.

OrizaRayne

The fact that people here are commenting negatively on this project is alarming. Regardless of your opinions on the individual announcing this project, AEGIS Ashore (which this will inevitably become a variant of) is a GOOD thing for the defense of this country. Especially with how advanced the weapon capabilities of our adversaries are. Some of you are letting your individual biases cloud you from realizing how capable this could be. Will it be created in 3 years? No, but the ground work could, and if information is ongoing as I’ve heard it is (avoiding OPSEC) this is going to be stupidly expensive, we’re talking hundreds of billions, and it’ll only truly be defensive in nature (Offensive weapons aren’t needed here, but there’s a myriad of reasons I won’t get into for that). It’s also not entirely a continuation of the STAR WARS project under Reagan, only that’s about the closest thing the general public can compare it to. 

I would also state that this concept has worked very well in Israel’s own “Iron Dome” approach. We are obviously talking about scaling something astronomically higher, but this is a huge deal and very good for future defense efforts for this country. I wish this project all the best, especially as new conflicts potentially arise.

BlueberryMuffin8462

i feel like i saw a movie bout this, where they hacked into space weapons and dropped rods on earth.

mrflip23

   Im  sure the space force has a lot to do with classified defense satellites and stuff. There’s so much capability’s

Hopeful-Picture430

Lockheed Martin already has the [page](https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/capabilities/missile-defense/golden-dome-missile-defense.html) up and it's so stupid...

Galaar

How exciting! How’d the initial tests go?

DeliciousEconAviator

ngl, if this becomes a shore billet for FCAs im reenlisting

LilAsianX

Specialist-Jello-704

Say what you will about this administration when it comes to politics. But this is one of the few things I’ve been excited for. Whether you’re left or right wing you should be happy about this.

Miserable-Age-1692

snake6264

Freebird_1957

dorianpora

Because our nuclear boomers aren’t enough.

ALEdding2019

Reagan tried this and aside from bankrupting the Soviets nothing came of it.

Remarkable-Scratch50

Seeksp

I swear you guys cant be happy about anything. Orange man bad.

Which means he believes whatever smoke someone blew up his 🫏. What a 🖕‘n 🍊🤡

highinthemountains

It's a grift, same as nearly anything this regime pushes into law.

dcdttu

Better to throw away $175 billion on pure fantasy than spending it to help actual people in need in the country.

temujen72

How about we concentrate on landing planes without collisions and radar systems that are modernized and don't blip out in the night.

mydogargos

This is just theatre, like Reagan's star wars plan.

Realistic_Special_53

Oh, I’m sure they can get something working for $1 trillion. The contractors will just string us along and say they’re almost there, we need just another couple hundred billion. Sigh.

Obvious_Cookie1812

"impossible to make work"

It will work perfectly at its intended purpose - funneling endless amounts of tax payer money to private contractors.

zeddknite

Anyone who thinks our military spending is ANYTHING but near pure grift is kidding themselves. The cost-benefit ratio of our military spending would have bankrupted any company immediately (no one would 'invest' in this for it's own sake). The entirety of the endeavor is about supporting what industry we still do have - weapons. It's bipartisan, but watch how certain senators change their tune on 'big government' when it means spending on near worthless military programs.

Cantinkeror

"Golden" so its soft, malleable, and very expensive. Got it.

sirkerrald

The funny thing is that USAID really was a golden dome that worked. Spend money on lifting people up and they're a lot less likely to lash out violently at you. You don't have to worry about missiles that aren't shot at you.

agentchuck

I think Trump is excited by this because he confused Golden Dome with Golden Shower. 

Bicentennial_Douche

For much more money they could probably replicate the iron dome over similar areas, like important logistic areas, high density populations, manufacturing hubs, etc. 

Would still cost hundreds of billions more than $175B, but at least it would be somewhat believable. 

For reference the iron dome over Israel was ~$6B, and covers an area ~400x smaller than the USA. Closer to ~$10B in today’s money.

carsonthecarsinogen

The entire "Golden Dome" proposal, as was explained by a missile tech (Check out Habitual Linecrosser and his video on it) focuses on first determining when and where a launch occurred. From there intercepting that launch gets easier. An ICBM takes a while to hit the target, making it easy to shoot down often before or just as it goes ballistic. A hypersonic can be intercepted by a non-hypersonic missile but you need data on direction and speed. Both are hard to get in time if you are only using radar close to the target. That leaves a launch window of less than a second. Better surveillance and overwatch means longer intercept windows and an easier time to actually knock down said missile. 

People keep saying "He wants to shoot down missiles from space!" And honestly, that is dumb. Might as well say you want to shoot down incoming missiles with a laser cannon mounted on the moon. However overwatch from a high vantage point means your ground based interceptors actually have a chance at doing their job.

I have seen a good deal in the comments about MAD, and the problem is surviving to the Counterstrike. And who is going to do it. Considering what happened with Ukraine, does anyone honestly believe a single person would launch in response to the US being launched upon? And if those launches were hypersonic, which are difficult to knock down compared to ICBMs, do you think the US could launch in response? The west coast and the eastern seaboard turn into up close and personal solar farms, the Midwest which is mostly devoid of people tries and fails to defend against waves of conscripts armed with single shot pistols and China ascends as the world hegimon.

Netmantis

the bigger issue is that it could be feasible but it most certainly is not going to cost $175 billion.  i would at the minimum quadruple the cost.  were talking about covering the entire (at least continental) united states in a shield from missile attacks.  just to include covering hawaii and alaska in that would probly double the cost again, and theyre probly the two most likely states to be attacked in any war anyways.

JefferyTheQuaxly

Portions of the wall fell. I don’t think the dome is going to receive any better attention.

r_u_insayian

As a retired air defense artillery officer, I can explain the economics of missile defense. It will always cost more to make something that can destroy a missile than it does to make the missile. Think about how much more technologically advanced a Patriot missile has to be than a SCUD. It has to be able to target and hit that SCUD while both are moving thousands of miles an hour. The SCUD, on the other hand, just has to fly. This is why you can never defend everything. You have to make a priority list of things you want defended and focus your limited air defense assets accordingly. The enemy can always launch too many missiles, drones, artillery, bombs, etc for you to defend all of them at the same time.

Soggy-Beach-1495

Said experts arent considering that the technology itself has advanced 

DARPA's has been working on Glidebreaker, an orbit based missile interceptor munition since the Obama administration, its essentially Brilliant Pebbles kinetic interceptor with in atmosphere intercept capabilities to target cruise missiles and hypersonic gliders

If your orbit based munition can target atmospheric targets,  it suddenly becomes much more attractive and cost effective,  no longer is ot simply idle outside of ballistic missile attacks, instead it's useful in all sorts of different levels of conflict, whether its sniping enemy tankers/AWACS, naval fleet missile defense, shooting down cruise missiles,  ect

Hit to kill maneuvering interceptors are well proven now, and you don't need a big thruster to deorbit from low orbit into an attack dive, gravity is free. Launching the sats is expensive but that's falling drastically with reusable launchers like Starship projected at ~$50 a kilogram to orbit... so an SM6 missile equivalent it's cheaper to put the second stage in orbit with Starship than to buy the first stage booster

Maori-Mega-Cricket

the plan has never been about aiming them at ICBM's , however they can be aimed at people, towns, cities, countries. Peter Thiel is behind this and he's one shady mother fucker. He's the one funding Palantir (mass survalance and AI) Anduril (armed drones) and funds same really hateful people.

He believes that people like him should be a ruling aristocracy and you and me, working for them if we are among those allowed to live. 

Look up Thiel , Dark Enlightenment and Curtis Yarvin , he's not alone and plenty of other billionaires in tech and other areas are supporting this.   


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment

"Several prominent Silicon Valley investors and Republican politicians have expressed their influence from the philosophy, with Peter Thiel describing Yarvin as his "most important connection"."

gee666

It's a cash grab, plain and simple. There will be contracts awarded and money given. Then when they are about half way through, it will be declared that it can't be done. Then POOF! All of a sudden it stops and nobody can find where the money went.

Lol. It's almost like they watched the movie Remo Williams and said, "I think those guys had a good thing going with that HARP idea".

Sumokat

We already know. Everyone knows.

It's a grift for Elon Musk and SpaceX. It's blatant, open air corruption.

Musk is thee ultimate overpromises and underdelivers champion.

TheDudeAbidesFarOut

Thing is, we have already lost and it didn’t take missiles to do it.

Diogenes256

A Republican defense boondoggle? Where have I seen this before? [Oh right…](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative)

CTRexPope

We'll spend $100 billion over the next couple of years to Republican contractors...  Dems will win the next election and cancel the stupidity and we'll have nothing to show for it.

Fieos

The Soviet Union partially went bankrupt chasing a fantasy like this. So obvs Trump is all in on speed run.

but just go over to r/Military and see how stupid they think this thing is to hear all you need to.

mynamesyow19

It’s about giving billions to Musk, who you know will end up with a lot of the contracts, as well as handouts to the rest of the military industrial complex.

Vuronov

Any modern conventional war is going to include long range ballistic missile fires, and unlike WWII US mainland would be readily targetable. If you have read any military planning around China, they have capabilities already to make those war time strikes into US infrastructure, bases, civilian populations, etc. a reality. 

One of US key military advantages is space lift, do you want to give that up to spite Elon ?

Lain-J

I understand why we want a shield, but I am also almost 50. My whole life has been spent under threat of nuclear annihilation. We all know that the first estimate provided for any government program is laughable. We also pissed away untold sums on the star wars program for absolutely nothing. It will always be cheaper to build more offensive missiles with a mixture of warheads and decoy warheads than for a system with the ability to shoot all of them down. The answer is to just shoot more missiles than a system can handle. Sadly MAD mutually assured destruction is the only thing that works.

IncidentalApex

But have experts considered the financial gain of the companies making it?

jtfjtf

I can't read all the comments. The military push for this probably comes more from watching the drones in Ukraine than the nukes in China.

mdandy88

[Here we go again.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative).

ZagiFlyer

Colddigger

Hypersonic glide vehicles are launched on standard ICBMs during boost phase. They are identical to typical ICBMs until midcourse phase, and typical ICBMs already travel faster than Mach 20. If Golden Dome can achieve boost-phase intercept, it completely negates all current HGV technology. Bringing up hypersonics as a gotcha against boost-phase defense reveals your ignorance on the topic.

Also, depending on the mass of the satellites, 36,000 could be totally feasible. We already have 8000 Starlink satellites, and those are pretty heavy and bulky. As a crude comparison, if we consider launching a Falcon 9 full of Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicles, you could fit 150 of those in a Falcon 9 fairing (it would be volume limited, not mass limited). With reuse, the marginal launch cost for a Falcon 9 is around $15 million, meaning the launch cost per EKV is only $100k, so the launch cost for 36,000 EKVs would be "only" $3.6 billion. Granted, that's only one part of a system like this, and the actual interceptors would likely be heavier and larger than an EKV, and there is the cost to build the interceptor itself. But this illustrates just how much launch costs have decreased, which is the major technological factor that could make this system viable. The report cited in that article uses a launch cost of $13-$22 million per tonne, citing an NRC study from 2012, but those numbers are woefully outdated. A lot has changed in the last 13 years, and current launch costs are closer to $1 million per tonne to LEO. Citing such an outdated figure is not a good sign for the overall credibility of that report.

I agree that Musk is certainly involved in this push, because SpaceX is the only company that could actually deploy such a system, however the idea itself is more than 40 years old, descending from the Brilliant Pebbles design which was the end result of the original Strategic Defense Initiative. The major reason Brilliant Pebbles never got fielded wasn't because it wasn't technically viable, but because the Soviet Union collapsed and it was seen as unnecessary at that point.

I get it, people don't like Trump, and I don't like him either. But the basis of this concept predates Trump, and the more I look at it the more feasible it seems.

I kinda wish we had Reddit when the Manhattan project was started (and it was public) so we could see what the hivemind would’ve thought about that “massive waste of money”. Back when we actually had people dying of starvation

SearchingForTruth69

The golden dome won't work because SUBMARINES EXIST, and they could just launch the things from a mile offshore.

scswift

You guys are missing the point, which is funneling a lot of taxpayer money into the pockets of big business. You don't want to be communists or something, do you?!?

JectorDelan

End homelessness for 30 years or let that piece of filth play toy trucks with taxpayer money. What is this boomer obsession with blowing money on stupid shit?

NaThanos__

It’s just like Ronnie “Raygun” Regan’s fantasy defense programs. “ Star Wars” &amp; Strategic Defense Initiative.

Life-Painting8993

Oh, it will work just fine. Wait till you see all that money vanishing, and shit-result being lauded like the next coming of Jesus.

Morden013

The initiative aims to create a space-based missile defense system, costing up to $3.6 trillion, raising concerns about its economic feasibility.

Golden Dome Missile Defense Project

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