> SpaceX ICBM interceptor stuff used to be whispered, but now it looks like it's openly advertised
The GOP wants an interceptor. Musk probably agrees with that. It foes not follow SpaceX is developing an interceptor. (None of their current kit is interceptor stuff.)
> Starlink would be the platform for the interceptor as discussed in Project 2025
This makes no sense—a plane change in LEO takes about as much energy as a launch to LEO. What you gain in proximity you lose in propellant. Interceptors on Starlink is nukes on the Moon.
LEO constellations make sense for sensing—it’s harder to plausibly deniably take out a ring of satellites than an early-warning radar. But not for interception.
> Castelion
SpaceX’s work on rapid turnaround and hypersonic reëntry absolutely has implications for missile intercept. But they’re contributors to the aim and not pursuing it themselves.
> point of hypersonic weapons (used for interceptor) is they start at orbital velocities
The point of hypersonic weapons is they can fly under the radar, literally, and manoeuvre. (I should say goal, because there is no stealthy hypersonic missile yet due to heat signatures.)
The hypersonic flight regime starts at Mach 5, or about 3,800 mph. LEO is at 17,000 mph. To leave LEO quickly, you need to cancel out a lot of that velocity, and that’s just to deörbit, I’m ignoring that you’ve gone from needing to pre-cool your engine to having to pre-cool your entire interceptor because you’re manoeuvring through the atmosphere with orbital energy.
Orbiting missile defence doesn’t make sense. It’s worse than launching from the ground for space intercept. It’s worse than launching from atmosphere for boost or terminal-phase intercept. If you look at what Griffin is doing versus saying, you’ll notice Castelion is building missiles designed to be launched from conventional platforms.
That’s Griffin talking again. Not the DoD. (I may have missed something. If you have an excerpt, I’m happy to respond to it.)
Even then, he doesn’t really make a case for space-based interception. He just says it isn’t as expensive as it was in the 80s, which is true. He also ends by talking about sensing from orbit which, as I said earlier, makes sense.
Crazy how Trump pitching to revive Star Wars, Musk stating the obvious fact that it'd take much longer to get a nuke to Mars is all it takes for you supposedly smart people to devolve into Jewish Space Lasers tier conspiracy theories. Although maybe that's to be expected from people assigning any credibility to a post of someone calling this a Project 2025 thing based on leading conversations with an LLM.
How is that evidence that Starshield is supposed to be a space-based ICBM interceptor network?
Starshield is SpaceX's millitary division. It is two things, whole military using Starlink, and Space Force building satellites on Starlink technology.
> Not surprising given the current administration opposes some of Starlink's "questionable" objectives.
The current administration is pouring billions into SpaceX sats (Starshield, custom Starlink-like secretive sats for US gov). Also, your link is presenting obvious bullshit from AI chatbot as a fact.
