throwaway238492

>> You’re skipping the $400mm NASA COTS contract that came a year earlier.

You have it backwards, the DARPA Falcon project was awarded in 2003 (before Falcon rocket was even named!) COTS was 2005, and in no small part due to Griffin as mentioned.

Wasn't that the DC-X? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X

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.

The Griffin connections go back to SpaceX's founding (they examined ICBMs together in Russia and even presented together at Mars Society). SpaceX was founded months after SDI's main barrier, the ABMT Treaty, was withdrawn from by the U.S. The first contracts by SpaceX were part of Prompt Global Strike (DARPA Falcon Project) which was a proposed hypersonic delivery system for boost-phase interceptors.

The key link between Starlink and SDI seems to be Mike Griffin and all his connections with Elon, https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin

Also recent funding for LEO-based missile interception, mostly Republican led,

- https://www.science.org/content/article/decades-after-reagan...

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79e8Y2Mgq-0

Starlink's history is rooted in the U.S. DoD's Strategic Defense Initiative, https://ioc.exchange/@muskfiles/112522370451697720