Featured Image Credit: Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla
Topics: Donald Trump, Politics, Technology
Joe Yates
Topics: Donald Trump, Politics, Technology
After President Donald Trump revealed his plans for developing a military defense program which will be know as the 'Golden Dome', a deep-dive has been taken into the true cost of sending US weapons to space.
The reason for wanting to splash $175 billion of taxpayers money on the program comes after years of warning from the Pentagon that the US was falling behind, with both Russia and China already transporting weapons to orbit.
However, building up its armoury and defense in space isn't an easy fix, with the 78-year-old president explaining to reporters from inside the Oval Office on Tuesday (May 20), that the 'Golden Dome' would be 'fully operational before the end of my term', which ends in 2029.
While we've already reported the timeline, why it might be necessary, Musk's potential involvement and China's response... we can now dive a bit deeper into the cost.
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To help get things going, the Republican POTUS has requested $25 billion from the coffers be made available for the program in his proposed tax break bill - which is moving through Congress.
Speaking at a Senate hearing last Tuesday (May 13), Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch - who currently serves as the joint program officer for the Guam Defense System, explained how incorporating a small 'Golden Dome' for the US island territory would cost around $8 billion.
Mainland America is roughly 17,328 times larger than the Western Pacific island - so the true cost of the Trump administration providing an integrated air and missile defense system could cost way more than $175 billion.
Senator Angus King, of Maine, extrapolated the $8 billion figure and multiplied it by the number of cities in the US that have the same amount of people or more living in them than the entire population of Guam, which is 779.
By King's methodology, the 'Golden Dome' is estimated to cost more than $6 trillion - $6,232,000,000,000 to be precise.
That calculation is 35 times more than Trump's initial estimation.
However, it is important to remember that that figure has simply been extrapolated from Guam's military defense system, that is earmarked for completion in 2031, which the Golden Dome will not be a carbon copy of.
Using a similar approach, The Hill crunched the numbers and recorded a far more modest number of $119 billion - a figure the outlet worked out by calculating Guam's area in square miles relative to the US - which is 14.86 times larger.
Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that space-based components of the program alone could cost as much as $542 billion over the next 20 years.
It's reported that there are medium, high and 'extra high' choices for developing options within the program, an official said as reported by PA News Agency.
The differences between the three options would essentially depend on how many satellites, sensors, and space-based interceptors are bought.
So, how much it would really cost is unclear as of yet, but it is likely to cost much more than $175 billion.