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195

Senior Canadian diplomat compares Trump's Golden Dome missile program to a 'protection racket' (apnews.com)

submitted 2 days ago by floofloof to c/[email protected]

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[–] Maverick604 2 points 13 hours ago

“Ever since nuclear-armed intercontinental-range missiles were deployed in the 1950s, the United States (and its potential adversaries) have been vulnerable to nuclear attack. This is very unnerving, and has caused our leaders to search for some kind of technical fix that would change this situation by making it possible for us to defend ourselves against such an attack. Fixing this situation is also very appealing to the public. As a consequence, new systems for defending against ICBMs have been proposed again and again, and about half a dozen have been built, costing large amounts of money, in the hope that a technical fix could be found that would make us safe. But none of these efforts have been successful, because the difficulty of defending against nuclear-armed ICBMs is so great.”

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

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

Does anyone remember when canada was building one of the world's most advanced fighter jets and cancelled it because the americans said they would build a missile defense shield that would protect us instead?

Make the avro arrow great again!!!!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

If they build something to attack missiles immediately after launch, how do the Americans even know who is the target?

Like, you're choosing whether or not to shoot down a missile that launches in the general direction of Canada and America, but at launch you can't see exactly which?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The current President of the Divided states... a racketeer? A swindler?

ORLY.bmp

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Throwing out the ".bmp" like it's 2003, let's go

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Not to mention, it's never going to happen.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Because it’s cost prohibitive?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Extremely so.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Oh, the taxpayers will still pay for it. It will just never be built.

[+] [email protected] -11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Never say never. Somebody like you probably thought going into space would never happen. It’ll happen and it won’t hurt to be at the frontier.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Lol! You don't know what his "Golden Dome" is, huh? It's basically the satellite defense system Reagan wanted to build back in the 80's. Except he called the project "Star Wars".

If they decide to build it, it will probably bankrupt the country, and still not work as intended. Even the most competent people wouldn't be able to make this work...and we all know Trump only hires the most incompetent people, so....yeah. It'll most likely get hacked on the 2nd day of operation, and used to wipe the US off the globe.

[+] [email protected] -8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

But you’re against any form of space defense? Or just this?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Satellite self-defense systems are actually pretty efficient at protecting a satellite, and they don't pose an undo risk to the rest of us in the ground.

But any kind of orbital missile defense system, is going to have to be inconceivably large and prohibitively expensive, just to reach a point of basic viability. The planet is huge. And considering that the kinds of attacks that systems like these are designed to prevent, will be traveling at orbital velocities...you need to have missile systems everywhere. If you don't, then you won't be able to "catch" the hostile missiles you're trying to intercept.

That means potentially thousands, if not tens or even hundreds of thousands, of launch satellites in orbit. And we're not talking about small satellites here. In order to accelerate to the kinds of speeds required to intercept an ICBM, these missiles will need a lot of fuel...or they'll have to have even more of them in orbit, so that any path that ICBM takes will have at least one defense satellite in a position to passively intercept it.

Low to medium Earth orbit would have to be blanketed in these satellites. And that's just to protect one country. If the US starts doing this...so will China. And Russia. And everyone else who's afraid of these satellites will be used offensively as well as defensively. Because the same missiles that can potentially intercept an ICBM in flight, can also do an incredible amount of damage to a surface target, with little to no warning. They would be everywhere above us. All of us. And could just drop a missile directly down on any point below them.

This gets even more complicated, when you think about the satellite to satellite defenses required to defend each one of these launch platforms from each other. Logistically speaking, it turns into a cluster-fuck, really fast. You could potentially see billion dollar satellites getting shot out of the sky as soon as they reach orbit, and before they have a chance to reach their intended firing positions. How many times could you stand to lose them, before the cost of trying to send them up there became prohibitive? How much of your GDP would you be willing to spend in order to simply maintain that system?

[+] [email protected] -6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Other countries wouldn’t just be shooting down our satellites for the same reason they don’t just blow up our naval or aerial fleets. Moot point.

Baby steps. Start small and build it up. Figure out new, more feasible weapons. Other countries are already thinking about and experimenting with space defense. Not just us.

When your bones have been repurposed for crude oil and when all of Earth’s resources have gone dry, the people of that time will think of space military the same way we think of the Air Force.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

"start small and build up doesn't work. Total cove age is the only way to ensure protection. That's what makes systems like this ridiculous. Unless you have total coverage, you may as well not have anything at all, because it would be functionally useless.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Don’t let your hate for Trump blind your ability to conceptualize innovation.

With that logic nothing would ever be created. Think about fighter jets. In the beginning you have one. Doesn’t do much, but if you keep building eventually it becomes something really effective. Come on.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Lol! It has nothing to do with Trump. It was also a stupid idea when Reagan wanted to do it. It has nothing to do with "innovation" or politics. It's just physics.

It doesn't matter how long you do something wasteful and pointless. It doesn't improve over time. It just costs more.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Don't let your hatred of Trump and Reagan and your knowledge of physics blind you to the better points of what could be achieved by boiling the earths oceans!

[–] [email protected] -1 points 23 hours ago

Knowledge of physics. Nobody here knows enough about physics to claim anything to be impossible. Things we once thought were impossible are suddenly possible. Happens all the time. Don’t let one bad idea by somebody you don’t like blind you to progress.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

You’re like a cave person to people who will one day have enormous satellites with advanced weaponry on them. Don’t stop dreaming. Space militarization will happen whether you like it or not. Better to think about how it could happen then why one idea can’t. More importantly, think about how we could defend ourselves, not how we could attack others.

[–] Maverick604 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Actually, I would say you sound more like the cave person in this discussion. “Sounds great, let’s do it” is not a reasoned nor analytical approach.

Is it possible to build it? Maybe. Perhaps even probably. Does it make sense to build it? That’s a much better question. Overwhelmingly, the scientific response, since Regan first proposed it, has been “No”.

The biggest problem is the “plus 1” problem. Say you have an array of 100 killer satellites, each with an intercepting missile. Well an adversary can see all 100 satellites, and simply has to launch 101 ICBMs — or 100 cheap “dummy” missiles and 1 real one. It only takes 1 getting through to vaporize an entire city. The killer satellites would likely be a billion dollars or more each, and they are rendered completely useless by a relatively inexpensive fake missile — mostly costing just the price of fuel. You can’t take the chance that any launched missiles are not real, so you must intercept all of them. No matter how many killer satellites you have, it will be trivial to swamp them with cheap fakes and have a few real ones hidden in the volley. Inevitably some of the real ones will get through.

There’s another huge problem someone else alluded to — such a satellite system would be trivial to completely destroy before even launching any ICBMs. The most likely deployment would be LEO (low earth orbit). Destroying any satellite (either from another satellite or from a ground based launch) would send debris out in every direction. That debris would then collide with other satellites, starting a chain reaction that would likely take out most of the satellites in LEO trajectories around earth (including things like starlink, etc).

There are tonnes of other problems with Star Wars/Golden Dome/Iron Dome but just these 2, I think, make it a complete non-starter with our current technology.

I get how seductive the idea is. And one day, perhaps with high energy lasers and technology we clearly are decades away from today, then it might be possible. Spending 100+ BILLION dollars on this today is simple a pipe dream — or the greatest scam in history (more likely).

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 hours ago

And one day, perhaps with high energy lasers and technology…

There’s the intellectual. It’ll happen. It’ll start small then grow to something much more effective. I’m not saying Reagan or Trump’s ideas are the winners, but there is something that could work eventually.

To your two arguments: “plus 1” problem applies to ground defense systems too, and satellites can be equipped with shielding to protect from shrapnel. Lots of other factors to take into account but my point is these same issues came up in the past with other tech and we’ve overcome them.

[–] Tiger666 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Like everything else Drumpf does; this is a scam. Your dear leader will never implement this. It is an obvious protection racket. Reagan had Star Wars and that was never implemented because it would have cost trillions in the eighties. Another conservative grift to increase funds for the military.

[–] YesButActuallyMaybe 1 points 1 day ago

“I’ve got something for you it is shiny it is clean. Come let me adorn you with my yellow laser beam” — Mac frontalot

[+] [email protected] -10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Do people still think defense in space is a dumb idea? Why?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think it's because the threat model against which a Golden Dome defends is just not that plausible any longer. Given the distances, a space-based ground defense can only protect from long-range attacks, like ICBMs. Unlike in the 80s, the technology to intercept and destroy ICBMs safely is now probably there, but the threat of all out nuclear war is much reduced.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You don’t think we’ll ever need some form of space defense?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

We may very well in the future, of course! But maybe at the rate technology develops, it could be smarter to start working on it when the threat becomes visible.

I venture the uneducated guess that satellite to satellite might be the next space defense frontier ahead of space to ground.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 days ago

Yeah satellite to satellite is definitely feasible and I think already being developed.

I just wouldn’t want to be late to the party when other countries have already started establishing viable space to ground weaponry. We take for granted that a lot of the domestic stability that the US is privileged to is due to an advanced military. Not saying we shouldn’t focus our money on more important things, but maintaining our status as a military superpower is unfortunately very important.