It really seems, when it comes to the Trumpites, past is prologue. And by that I mean an ever metastasizing dark age, dark past, now overwhelming present culture and scientific advances. As well as reason, end common sense.
The preference then is for regression not progress. We see it
in the attacks on the universities, the most recent Harvard. As if the country
can afford the wanton destruction of its brainpower – and letting it flee to
China or the EU.
We also saw at the outset of Dotard’s reign, the first target
of DOGE was US Aid, and for what? To save maybe $12 million. Meantime, the
Trumpites are prepared to send the nation’s deficits soaring to over $36
trillion by passing a reckless tax cut that will only benefit the richest.
Estimated 6 figure returns for the upper 0.5% and a couple hundred for the hoi
polloi – most of whom voted for Trump hoping for better breaks. But now they will likely get their couple
hundred in tax cuts but lose their Medicaid, their 'Meals on Wheels', food stamps and more – to appease
the oligarchs.
Adding wasteful insult to the existing financial injury of a
looming trade war, idiotic tariffs, and soaring bond yields – we have the
spectacle of $175 billion to build a “Golden Dome” missile defense system for
the U.S. But make no mistake that this
is a Dotard pipe dream, a fantasy no different than Ronnie Raygun’s Star Wars
(SDI or strategic defense initiative) malarkey.
Point of fact: Since April, The U.S. has been asking defense contractors for information on space-based interceptors to knock out incoming missile threats, as the Pentagon explores Trump's ill-advised Golden Dome incarnation.
But the idea of mounting rockets, or lasers, to satellites so they can shoot down enemy intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) as they lift off is not new - it was part of a loopy, short-sighted initiative devised during the presidency of Reagan. It represents a huge and expensive technological leap from current capabilities. It is also a mindless boondoggle and waste, which will be no more effective than Ronnie’s Star Wars bollocks.
Nor any more effective than the THAAD missile shield that emerged under Bush Jr and Obama. THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Defense) - had only been "successful" because of GPS finder beacons attached to the warheads of the dummy targets. We've actually known about this tomfoolery or fakery the past 25 years or so. Reuters was the only news agency that got wind of the initial 'Defense Week' story back then and revealed the fix. The wire service quoted a Pentagon official who "conceded that real warheads in an attack would not carry such helpful beacons". Gee thanks much, Roscoe! I'm sure I'll sleep better at night now, supposing maybe you guys secretly planted beacons on the North Korean warheads.
As for the Dotard 'Golden Dome' version of a missile shield, the so-called notice arrived compliments of the Missile
Defense Agency and U.S. Space Force – both of which are holding a series of
meetings to discuss space-based interceptors. It’s all a waste of time and
brain power, friends.
In the notice, they supposedly asked companies to provide
specific information on actual or conceptual "space-based
interceptors" that would knock out ICBMs during the "boost
phase" - the initial slow and predictable climb through the Earth's
atmosphere. (Current defenses are only able to target enemy missiles as they
travel through space.)
The Pentagon said it is also interested in concepts capable of
"post-boost, early midcourse, or midcourse intercept that show a path to
boost-phase intercept, including kinetic and non-kinetic effectors,
sensors/seekers, and fire control solutions."
Give me a break. Didn’t these geniuses figure out the
inherent chuckle factor when Bush Junior tried to advance them?
Guess not.
According to Tom Karako, a weapons and security expert at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies:
“This notification would seem to confirm the near likelihood
that both space sensors and space-based interceptors will be a key component of
Golden Dome's forthcoming architectural plans, which will probably emerge in
the coming weeks,"
The MDA has established multiple delivery timelines for Golden
Dome, with the earliest capabilities expected by December 31, 2026, and
additional capabilities phased through 2030 and beyond.
The “industry engagement” was supposedly held in Alabama over
multiple days from April 30 to May 2. It emerged amid growing hysteria about
advanced missile threats from Russia and China, as well as regional powers such
as North Korea and Iran. Hypersonic weapons, which can maneuver at speeds
exceeding Mach 5, pose particular challenges to existing ground- and sea-based
interceptor systems that target enemy missiles during the portion of their
flight path when they have the greatest maneuverability and can most
effectively evade missile defenses.
In truth, the Space Horizons Research Task Force already knows
all it needs to, i.e. that what's being proposed is merely a resurrection of
the old Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which was never
proven workable or even remotely feasible. It depended upon incorporating
space-based interceptors as well as powerful lasers mounted on satellites to
take down Soviet ICBMs.
The most devastating exposure of this missile defense con (which likewise applies to the ‘Golden Dome’ hooey) appeared in the May, 1987 issue of Physics Today and was entitled "APS Directed Energy Weapons Study (Executive Summary)". Versions of it subsequently appeared in other journals, including the Reviews Of Modern Physics, e.g.
https://journals.aps.org/rmp/abstract/10.1103/RevModPhys.59.S1
The study basically took apart the 'Star Wars' rubbish piece
by piece with no fewer than 26 major deficiencies identified on
everything from the weaknesses of the proposed lasers to shoot down the
incoming missiles (too weak by several orders of magnitude) to the problem of
identifying the targets "at sub-micro-radian resolution"
in the boost phase to "lack of precision tracking via
active sensor systems" and the ease with which any missile
interceptor design can easily be thwarted, say by use of dispersal of million
of reflecting, metallic decoys.
Even two years earlier, in an article appearing in the
June, 1985 issue of Physics Today (p. 34, 'The Strategic
Defense Initiative Perception Vs, Reality'), the SDI was dismissed as a
"political PR promotion scheme". In other words, it was created
purely to pump up defense budgets and enrich all those contractors who'd be
manufacturing the components of this farce. As the author (Wolfgang Panofsky)
pointed out:
"What is frightening at this time is the blatant salesmanship, which
does not focus on SDI';s military merits but which appeals to economic self
interest."
Adding:
"There exists at this time no technical basis that justifies expanding
research and technology programs in ballistic missile defense beyond a program
of limited experimentation ...and studies of an objective rather than
promotional manner."
Nor is there any basis now for expanding an analogous research and technology program. There is absolutely NO assurance, zero, that anything
different will be achieved with this Golden Dome codswallop. But the Trumpers’ brainiacs are prepared to
piss away over $175b to try to prove a bullet can still hit a bullet – even one
moving at 17,000 mph.
Trump: Golden Dome will cost around $175B, be 'fully operational' in three years | DefenseScoop
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