Griffin was also the NASA administrator; it’s far from clear he was essential to Starlink’s genesis.

> recent funding for LEO-based missile interception

This has nothing to do with SpaceX.

Watch that Heritage Foundation video above (^youtube), it's only a couple minutes. The full report is at https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/time-new-missile-def...

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.

> Terrence J O'Shaughnessy also runs Starshield at SpaceX. He was in charge of U.S. homeland missile defense

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.

Do you know about DC-X ?

"In early 2002 he met entrepreneur Elon Musk and accompanied him on a trip to Russia where they attempted to purchase ICBMs. The unsuccessful trip is credited as directly leading to the formation of SpaceX.[7] Musk offered Griffin the title of Chief Engineer at the company,[8] but Griffin instead became president and COO of In-Q-Tel, a private enterprise funded by the CIA to identify and invest in companies developing cutting-edge technologies that serve national security interests.[9]"

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."