Science & Technology

Golden Dome: is Trump's missile defense system even plausible?

By T.K. Randall
April 8, 2026

Image: Donald Trump
Credit: Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA 2.0 (adapted) Back in January of last year, newly elected President Donald Trump ordered the armed forces to begin work on a revolutionary type of missile defense system that would be based in Earth's orbit.

Known as Golden Dome, the system would be designed to work by detecting threats to the United States such as drones and missiles, then launching space-based interceptors to destroy them.

Unlike conventional missile defense systems, Golden Dome would cover the entire world, making it virtually impossible for a hostile nation to effectively strike the United States with missiles.

According to reports, the Pentagon has this month chosen Impulse Space and Anduril to build prototypes of the system's missile targeting and tracking mechanisms.

But with estimated costs rising to more than $3.6 trillion over 20 years, just how viable is it for any country to realistically build a system that would make it impervious to missile attack ?Critics have long argued that Golden Dome, which would require a constellation of thousands of armed satellites and a whole army of orbital data centers, is technically and financially infeasible.

Some have even gone so far as to say that building something like this is scientifically impossible.

Given the scale and cost of the project, if it did go ahead, Golden Dome would likely take up a large percentage of the defense budget for the better part of two decades.

Not only that, but if the US did go down this road, other countries - such as China - would likely work on building similar defense systems of their own.

From an ethical point of view, there are also concerns over the consequences of stationing weapons in space - something that could lead to space-based attacks and reciprocal anti-satellite weapons.

In summary, Golden Dome would take too long to build, be too expensive, too controversial, and, most critically, scientifically implausible with today's technology.

Source: Gizmodo

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