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Musk to Force Pentagon to Build and Then Pay Him to Use Network of Killer Satellites
(talkingpointsmemo.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2025
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politics
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People in one forum speculated about Trump's "Golden dome" fantasy a few months ago. I did a calculation on the back of a napkin. My result: not 1000 or 200, but about 9000 interceptor vehicles are required for good coverage. Very lucrative contract, very impractical system - they'll drive the US bankrupt doing this.
And what will a nuclear-armed adversary do? At first, they might do an atmospheric nuclear detonation high over their own country - to get a little privacy. After that, a small number of missiles will launch on flight paths not leading to the target - to create gaps in the sensor and interceptor network by detonating near them in space. Maybe a few minutes later, the main attack will follow. When approaching the target area, the vanguard of the main attack will detonate in atmosphere to ionize air (turn it opaque to radar). Nuclear weapons do not need sensors to navigate or communicate, they use inertial navigation and remain silent. Interceptors need to see and communicate, which can be denied with nuclear weapons.
End result: an advanced attacker will have to spend about 10 minutes to penetrate this defense. It only buys more time to launch a nuclear counter-attack (which could be launched anyway, based on mere observation and early warning).
Satellites are bound by their orbits to spend a lot of time in useless places from the viewpoint of defending a location. This kind of a system makes the defending side over-invest in infrastructure, which is not economical.