Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48283871

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

That's not even close to what the Golden Dome is.

> The Golden Dome is a planned multi-layer missile defense system for the United States, intended to detect and destroy ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles before they launch or during their flight.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dome_(missile_defense_s...

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47629385

Points: 24

# Comments: 3

[citations needed]

> Griffin who went from the CIA to become head of NASA and funded the early SpaceX (10x from what Musk himself put in!)

Strawman eh? You pretty much claimed that Griffin funded SpaceX, and not just that, that he invested 10x as much as Musk.

Now you go around editing your comments. Lol.

It is not a strawman to say that what you said is non even nearly close to reality.

What passage in that interview says anything about "In‑Q‑Tel invested in SpaceX" or "CIA funded SpaceX"?

That interview is a NASA oral history of Mike Griffin’s career. It mentions his time at In‑Q‑Tel and later NASA, but it never says In‑Q‑Tel or the CIA funded SpaceX. You’re conflating "this guy once ran a CIA‑linked VC" with "he personally funneled CIA money into SpaceX," which simply isn't true. SpaceX’s early funding is well‑documented as Musk’s own money plus later NASA contracts as a customer, not a CIA equity round.

SpaceX (and Kistler Aerospace, Orbital Sciences etc.) was awarded contracts for commercial transportation to the ISS [1]. NASA’s role was as an anchor customer and partner under a publicly described program to get cargo (and later crew) to ISS via commercial providers. NASA’s commercial cargo program and SpaceX’s contracts are not secret. They were openly competed and publicly announced. That's the opposite of clandestine CIA startup funding.

DoD launch money for SpaceX (EELV/NSSL contracts, etc.) came much later, after Falcon 9 was flying and competing with ULA, and those are again launch service contracts, not "investment".

> Trump admin took this link down off NASA's website but it's archived just before the transition

That interview wasn't mysteriously "scrubbed". The website got updated and you found an old link that wasn't working anymore [2][3]. Not a conspiracy, just garden variety link rot.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Orbital_Transportat...

[2] https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/griffinmd-1-...

[3] https://www.nasa.gov/history/history-publications-and-resour...

Such a cynical take! Starlink made Golden Dome possible. It is easy to make up conspiracies post-hoc while forgetting that they were ridiculed when they announced it and the "experts" opined that it is impossible to do.

> SpaceX was in fact founded with the architect of SDI

This is highly unfounded speculation. Griffin went to work for "In-Q-Tel" after SpaceX was already founded (as said in the link you cited). There is no evidence I could find that they ever invested in SpaceX.

The existence of cheap launch and cheap satellites allowed the (at the time new) Space Force to pivot from large, expensive monolithic satellites to a "proliferated architecture" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Development_Agency#Launc...) at a much lower cost.

Why would you be "terrified" of space-based ballistic missile defense? Seems a lot better than ground-based interceptors that have a not-great rate of interception.

This is a super easy way to run linux VMs on Apple Silicon. It can also act as a backend for docker.

If it saves $1T, then why does it require raising taxes?

The federal govt spent about 2.6-2.8 trillion dollars[1] on healthcare in 2025 - including Medicare, Medicaid, ACA subsidies, VA/DoD health and federal employee benefits). In what world is that "lack of spending" ?

[1] https://www.pgpf.org/article/healthcare-spending-will-be-one...

Their revenue from Starlink is slated to be bigger than the entire NASA budget this year.

The actions that cause possible bad societal harms from drinking alcohol are indeed banned or heavily penalized. Drinking and Driving. Public Intoxication. Domestic Abuse. Child Endangerment and more.