georgeg23

so spaceX was deep into this since their founding...

I found this comment very enlightening,

In 2019, Elon Musk met 4-star general O’Shaughnessy & Jay Raymond to discuss homeland defense innovation. O'Shaughnessy took their discussion to the United States Senate to pitch a new space-based "layered missile defense system" much like Brilliant Pebbles but powered by artificial intelligence to quickly and lethally act upon hypersonic and ballistic missile threats. He proposed the acronym SHIELD which stands for Strategic Homeland Integrated Ecosystem for Layered Defense.

This system would consist of a satellite constellation in orbit equipped with infrared sensors and eventually ICBM interception capability. The U.S. Space Force was established later that year and O’Shaughnessy joined SpaceX where he now leads their StarShield division. SpaceX started deploying these special military variants of their satellites in 2023, launching them interspersed and connected to other Starlink satellites. The first StarSHIELD satellites host infrared sensors designed by L3Harris to detect and track missiles and perform fire-control functions.

SpaceX’s first StarSHIELD contracts were with the Space Development Agency and announced in 2020. The SDA was conceived and established by Under Secretary of Defense (R&E) Mike Griffin, who was previously the Deputy of Technology at Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. It is interesting to note that Griffin has an extensive history with Elon Musk during the early years of SpaceX . While these first tranches of SDA satellites are focused on communication, missile detection and tracking, Griffin and others have said that including space-based interceptor weapons in later layers will be "relatively easy" and he now works with SpaceX employees and primes on an interceptor with a company called Castelion in El Segundo. The interceptors are hypersonic glide vehicles (like FOBS) that re-enter from LEO and maintain contact with the satellites through phased array communication, the constellation above gives continued guidance to the interceptor to hit the ICBM or other target at launch above the enemy country.

Meanwhile a presidential candidate has been openly touting the program https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2811927/trump-propos... and chatting about it on Elon's X. It's now part of the official GOP platform (number 8).

always thought it was weird how all the SpaceX StarShield/Mars Program employees joined Castelion https://castelion.com/team

Makes sense now

Maybe it's not about birds if it's about nukes.

sadly him playing games with the nuclear balance leave us all underlings in his game.

So isn't that a deep problem to his FSD architecture?

Didn't Elon have a Twitter meltdown today about how AI will leak your secrets?

The cited Science journal paper answers your question about whether the U.S. govt wants it. As well as the quotes from Heritage and Trump. Sounds like including interceptors (Brilliant Pebbles) is a bit political, but missile tracking is bipartisan (Brilliant Eyes).

Yeah but OP is backed by citations w/ Nature & Science.

the point is you judge the facts for themselves

Sounds like an ad hominem attack... or ad-machinum?

Must be training it on classified documents

The satellite can deploy a hypersonic glide vehicle and utilize it's orbital velocity to manueve within the atmosphere.

See Fractional Orbital Bombardment. China tested theirs last year.

...SpaceX people are building it here: https://www.castelion.com/team

Studies I've seen are not so clear that an EMP would kill many satellites. They would raise radiation levels 10x over normal for few months, but most Starlink satellites would be fine (as seen in the last solar CME event).

assume you meant can't* ?

So what happens now? Assuming the Delaware Supreme Court upholds the decision, will a new ex post facto pay package be negotiated?

Not too surprising given time and space are pretty symmetric (or anti-symmetric).

Update, actually NSA is a confirmed customer.

https://techcrunch.com/2015/01/11/leaked-palantir-doc-reveal...

The company's name is derived from The Lord of the Rings where the magical palantíri were "seeing-stones," described as indestructible balls of crystal used for communication and to see events in other parts of the world

The main source that sells a continuous cross-platform civilian tracking dragnet (probably to the NSA) is Peter Thiel's company Palantir.

Thiel is at the center of so much other sci-fi military industrial complex stuff, it's scary.

There are plenty of ground-based missile defense solutions for NK (aircraft and drones near NK are also an option if boost-phase interception is considered critical when their program advances).

The problem with space-based orbital missile defense is it necessarily threatens the entire planet while being predictable and easy to shoot down with relatively small missiles. Those anti-satellites attacks, which are justified by threatened countries, lead to a cascade of space debris, that leaves an unusable space environment for centuries and may in itself trigger nuclear conflict.

Not everything has a technological solution. Staging weapons in space is not a path to world peace, it just heightens the stakes and shortens the escalation. As Israel learned, you can try to seal off your border and your sky, but there are always holes. There are many ways NK or Russia can deliver nukes besides ICBMs. Dreaming of a shield in space is a false promise. Building bridges rather than walls is the only path to peace.

If the U.S. can be a model for the world, it is not it's military might to emulate, but the idea that people of all nationalities and backgrounds can come and live together and resolve their differences. It is possible!

It has plenty of flaws and would be net destabilizing. "Iron dome in Space" doesn't work when it comes to nuclear weapons. Heck even Iron Dome can't protect against large barrage of small rockets from Gaza. It would just make first-use of nukes more likely.

https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/space-based-missile-defense...

Elon founded SpaceX with Michael D. Griffin and offered him the role of Chief Engineer but he declined. Griffin instead went to Washington to steer NASA funding to SpaceX, before they ever launched any rockets.

Griffin was Chief Architect of the Brilliant Pebbles 'missile defense using weapons in space' program and has been advocating for it his whole life. After NASA, Griffin started the Space Development Agency--what that article is talking about--and gave contracts to SpaceX. When Biden came in he deweaponized everything, and then the lines were clearly drawn between him and Musk.

Check out Michael D. Griffin and also Will Roper.

It's worse than that, SpaceX is a major military contractor which had been working with the Trump administration to stage weapons in low Earth orbit.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/23733/spacex-exec-says...

Also see Starshield

There'd probably be people effectively living in the park in their RV if entrance was free. The entrance requirements also help enforce that rangers inform visitors about dangers, closures etc.. upon arrival.

Winner pays what #2 bid + a penny more correct? (Similar to eBay, when done correctly)

It's unclear why a penny is considered the legal adder, why not 15% more? If this is all disclosed in Google's terms of service, is it really fraud?

In particular I would recommend the ELEY Garden Hose

Can't we all just get along...

But then market pressures for efficiency will lead to mergers and acquisitions...

Glad kids will no longer be waking up to bus exhaust fumes every morning.

The paid lottery in particular is problematic given you don't get refunded if you lose.

Well obviously, it speaks to it's God(s) every day.