Trump Golden Dome timing leaves GOP scratching its head

I am pretty much in tune with what is going to come out of DC these days, but even I was stunned when Donald Trump started talking about building a Golden Dome defense system.

It turns out, I was not alone, as many Republicans in office were just as stunned, especially when Trump touted a $175 billion price tag, which is not even remotely realistic.

Trump selects design

Last Tuesday, Trump broke the news that he had selected the design for the Golden Dome defense system.

For those of you not familiar, this system would be a much larger version of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.

It would require hundreds, if not thousands, of armed satellites to be sent into space to defend every part of the country from a missile attack.

Trump said the system would cost about $175 billion and would be fully operational by the time he left office, and I can flat-out tell you he is wrong on all accounts.

The costs

First, let’s examine the costs of this project. If it costs $12 billion to build a single carrier, how much do you think a system like this would cost?

Just to give you an idea, a recent contract was issued for 54 satellite units, which came to $2.5 billion. I have seen reasonable estimates on how many satellites it would take to build such a system, and they estimate it would take roughly 1,000 units in all. So that cost alone would be $46 billion, and that is assuming that the pricing is accurate, which I am going to go out on a limb and say it’s not.

You would also have to have backup units, the cost of sending each satellite into space, the cost of maintaining the satellites, etc. For satellites of this size and weight, you are talking about $500 million just to put them into space, so even if we knock that price down to $400 million, you just added another $400 billion to the cost of the project. Even if you cut those costs in half, it is still way over what Trump said it would cost.

Once you start adding in delays, and the other costs mentioned above, this is easily a $1 trillion or more project. And, by the way, some of the technology needed for this project is still not tried and true, so this is far from realistic.

Caught off guard

Experts in the industry were stunned when Trump announced this because they know it will never happen as Trump is describing it. For instance, Melanie Marlowe, a senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies’s Missile Defense Project, stated, “Golden Dome is not going to be an impenetrable missile shield across the entire United States of America.”

Marlowe added, “We will not have space-based interceptors in three years. That is a very challenging and expensive problem to solve. But if we start moving quickly, we can make good progress on getting missiles, radars, and satellite constellations in that time frame.”

This is a pipe dream and nothing more than a hubris project for Trump. He is not worried about the money, as he wants his name attached to the project, so if it ever does become a reality, he is the one who gets credit for starting it.

Then, of course, there is the reality that we don’t need this, at least not now. There is no real threat we need to worry about to justify this type of spending, especially when we have missile defense systems already in place and, oh yeah, we are $36 trillion in debt already. This is a fool’s project, nothing more. What aggravates me more is the clear and blatant deception on the costs and timeline of the project.