The idea of an antimile shield that protects the United States from enemy attacks is not even original. Already in the era reagan, The country fantasized with an initiative nicknamed “Star Wars” That never saw the light. Now, the Trump administration wants to dust off the project with technology of the 21st century and a more intimidating name: “Golden Dome” (the golden dome).
With Spacex technology. A technological consortium headed by Spacex, the Aerospace Company of Elon Musk, leads the race to develop part of the Golden Dome, Publish Reuters.
Its proposal consists of a constellation of between 400 and more than a thousand satellites dedicated to detecting enemy missiles, following its trajectory and determining if they suppose a threat to the territory of the United States.
Other separate fleet of about 200 satellites (armed with missiles or lasers) would be responsible for intercepting missiles; Although the group led by Spacex would not be, according to Reuters, involved in the offensive part of the system.
Old acquaintances. In addition to Spacex, two other technology companies are part of the initiative: Palantir Technologies and Anduril Industries.
Palantir is a government software co -founded by Alex Karp and Peter Thiel, old acquaintances of Musk. Anduril specializes in military drones and Autonomous Defense Technologies; Its most famous founder is Palmer Lukey, the creator of the Virtual Virtual Rift helmets. All of them, very aligned entrepreneurs and Donald Trump’s millionaire donors.
If you liked, subscribe. The approach proposed by Spacex, Palantir and Anduril has an unorthodox turn for a defense contract for this magnitude: a subscription model. Instead buy and own satellite infrastructure, the Pentagon would pay a fee to access its services.
This model, always according to reuters, could expedite the implementation by dodging the conventional procurement protocols of the Pentagon, but would also tie the government to a supplier and limit its control over the development and future prices of technology.
After the publication of Reuters, which generated comments on possible conflicts of interest and worse things, Elon Musk responded in his X profile: “This is not true”, without giving more details.
From Iron Dome to Golden Dome. The inspiration in the name seems clear: the Israeli iron dome. But the differences also appear in sight: Israel is a small country, with short -range threats. The United States is a continental country exposed to attacks from multiple vectors and with new threats, as the hypersonic missiles developed by Russia and Chinawhose erratic trajectories and extreme speed challenge current systems.
Replicating the iron dome on an American scale is technical and economically unfeasible. Hence, the alternative that right now has more ballots is a solution based on the Starlink satellite constellation, which would cost between 6,000 and 10,000 million dollars.
More politics than defense, for now. Although Spacex and its technological partners seem to be in the lead, traditional defense giants such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX or Boeing are not far behind and also bid on the part of the cake. The Pentagon has received proposals from more than 180 companies.
The big question is whether Golden Dome will really be a defensive revolution against real threats (such as hypersonic weapons or orbital bombing systems) or If it’s just an electoral promise closer to the science fiction of Star Wars than to a pragmatic military strategy. If something has taught us the current administration is that nothing they are going to do tomorrow is predictable.
Images | Peter Thiel and Elon Musk (PayPal), Starlink Stelas (Lowell)
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