Also recent funding for LEO-based missile interception, mostly Republican led,
- https://www.science.org/content/article/decades-after-reagan...
> recent funding for LEO-based missile interception
This has nothing to do with SpaceX.
Terrence J O'Shaughnessy also runs Starshield at SpaceX. He was in charge of U.S. homeland missile defense.
Kuiper (the Amazon competitor) has another four-star general who focused on missile defense: John Hyten.
Starshield is Starlink for the military. It came after Starlink. It is neither a root of Starlink nor a missile-defence project at this time. (Maybe it eventually gains that capability. But that’s not currently in play.)
Starlink came about because SpaceX built cheap, high launch frequency rockets for, at first, NASA. It doesn’t shoehorn into an SDI origin by any stretch. At the point we’re contorting to make that connection, it might as well be part of our ballistic missile programme.
> The full report
Yes, people want missile defense. That doesn’t make everything in space is missile defense.
In 2005, he was appointed NASA Administrator where he pushed for commercial cargo and crew transportation services that saved the company from bankruptcy.
"In February 2018, Griffin was appointed as Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering by Donald Trump. One of his first actions was to create the Space Development Agency.[13][14] The organization was tasked with procuring a proliferated constellation of low Earth orbit satellites to detect Chinese and Russian hypersonic weapons. Commercial contracts for the constellation were given to L3Harris and SpaceX."