Space-based interceptors may be too costly even for the massively budgeted Golden Dome missile defense system, the program’s leader said Wednesday.
Acknowledging what many analysts have said ever since President Trump ordered up orbiting interceptors in one of the first executive orders of his second term, Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein told the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee on Wednesday that building and deploying satellites armed to down enemy missiles early in flight may never be affordable.
“What we do not know today is ‘can I do it at scale and can I do it affordably?’ That’s going to be the huge challenge for boost-phase intercept,” he said. “I will tell you because we are so focused on affordability. If we cannot do it affordabl[ly] we will not go into production.”
Trump’s 2025 executive order that established the missile defense system explicitly calls for the “development and deployment” of boost-phase space interceptors, even though defense budget analysts and physicists have continuously pointed out that the technology would be too expensive and even ineffective for the project’s desired cost and ambitions. The recently increased $185 billion price tag for Golden Dome would be supported by $17.5 billion in the Defense Department’s 2027 budget request. Most of that is coming from reconciliation spending, a special budget process that requires a simple majority to pass mandatory legislation.
Even though reconciliation isn’t a guarantee for future years, defense spending analysis shows that Golden Dome funds will likely be included in the baseline budget for several years.
Baseline Golden Dome spending is estimated to be $14.7 billion in 2028 and rise to $16 billion by 2031, according to data from the American Enterprise Institute’s budget data navigator. Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at AEI, said that’s a big deal and shows there’s support for the project outside of abnormal spending bills.
“They actually roll it into the base budget in future years; they don’t stay dependent on reconciliation,” Harrison said. “That’s been one of the big lingering questions.”
Trump said last year that the system would intercept “very close to 100 percent” of a wide-range of missile threats, although his most recent defense budget request acknowledged that “the goal is to not create a ‘perfect’ defense.”
During Wednesday’s hearing, Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., said Trump “probably thinks himself a greater theorist of strategic deterrence than everyone else” and that a limited missile defense system would be more feasible.
“It is clear to me now that the reality does not match what President Trump has promised to the American people, an impenetrable shield, as he says, against all threats,” Moulton said. “Experts from both sides of the aisle have admitted this both from a technical and fiscal perspective.”
Guetlein told Congress that the boost-phase interceptors aren’t the only missile-defense solution for the project. In November, the Space Force put out a notice for prototype ideas for a “kinetic midcourse interceptor,” technology that would destroy a missile mid-flight with a direct collision.
“So, if boost-phase intercept from space is not affordable and scalable, we will not produce it because we have other options to get after it,” Guetlein said.
