The Space Forcegeneral, recently designated to head the Pentagon’s new Golden Dome office, shared his perspectives on his new position and the challenges that led to the office’s establishment on Tuesday.
Gen. Mike Guetlein, President Donald Trump’sselected to serve as the Golden Dome for America Direct Reporting Program Manager, was approved by the Senate last week and stated that the main reason for such an extensive air defense system is due toChina and Russiaexpanding their nuclear weapons stockpile to the point where it could annihilate the planet multiple times.
The Golden Dome is set to be a complex air defense network designed to protect the entire U.S. territory from ballistic, hypersonic, and sophisticated cruise missiles, along with other airborne threats from powerful competitors or unstable countries.
“They have been developing ballistic missiles equipped with decoys, jammers, and spoofers, among other things, in an effort to bypass our national missile defense systems,” he stated.Innovate Space: World Economic Summitat Amazon’s HQ2 facility in Arlington, Virginia, on Tuesday. “They have been developing stealth cruise missiles. They have been creating hypersonic missiles that can travel faster than 6,000 miles per hour and change direction during the final stage. They have been constructing satellites or weapons that resemble satellites when launched, orbit the Earth, and can target any location they choose.”
The list of dangers continues to grow: submarines capable of approaching our coasts, launching hypersonic or cruise missiles,” he added, also highlighting the use of drones in conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. “The enemy has been observing how we conduct warfare, and they have become highly motivated to challenge us across various areas. However, even more concerning is that they have become highly skilled and determined in doing so, which includes putting the homeland in danger. It has reached a stage where we must tackle these threats.
Guetlein, who will report directly to Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg, mentioned he has a 60-day period “to develop the objective structure” for the project, which he acknowledged he has not “constructed” so far.
“I am convinced that the technology required to implement Golden Dome is available today. It has simply not been applied to this particular problem set for homeland protection, nor has it been adapted for this form factor,” he added.
During his initial week in power, Trump issued an executive order instructing the military to develop a continental air defense system comparable to Israel’s Iron Dome and President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative.
The president stated that the administration estimates the project will cost approximately $175 billion, whereas the Congressional Budget Office has projected the cost could range from $161 billion to $542 billion over the next two decades. Trump anticipates that it will be “fully operational by the end of my term,” which is scheduled to conclude in January 2029.
Guetlein stated that the main difficulty he anticipates in building the Golden Dome will involve overcoming the “culture” he was raised in through the Air Force, where military officers lack trust in defense contractors.
I was raised in an Air Force that consistently maintained a certain distance from industry. There wasn’t much openness in our communication, and this was a cultural issue. It wasn’t something enforced by law,” he explained, noting that one thing that had changed was the “vast scale of our challenge” because “space is too large for the Space Force to handle on its own.
Trump selected Guetlein, the second-highest-ranking official in the Space Force, in May to oversee the department’s initiative to construct the Golden Dome.
Rep. Jeff Crank (R-CO), who serves as cochair of the Golden Dome Caucus in the House of Representatives, stated that “the Chinese possess several unique advantages compared to the United States in many areas.”
They don’t have a Congress they need to concern themselves with, or continuing resolutions, or anything like that. If they want to allocate more resources to space, they do so without hesitation. They operate under a command economy, allowing them to shift focus quickly based on their priorities,” he stated during the Space Foundation event. “The free market system is an exceptional system. It’s our biggest strength, but occasionally, we undermine it through Pentagon bureaucracy or government red tape.
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The aerospace firm Northrop Grumman Corporation is conducting tests on space-based interceptors, according to CEO Kathy Warden during a recent quarterly earnings call.
As we turn our attention to Golden Dome for America, we observe Northrop Grumman significantly contributing to the administration’s objective of accelerating progress and establishing initial operational capability.in the coming years,” Warden stated, as reported by The War Zone, and added, “It will also involve new advancements, such as space-based interceptors, which we are currently testing.”
