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Costs of Star
Wars 6 September 2001 by Loring Wirbel |
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The traditional style of military contract is a Procurement contract, for
weapons and support systems already in the pipeline. This has represented
only about 10 percent of BMDO's annual budget since 1985, but after 1998 it went
up to about 15 percent of the budget. All of the Procurement portion of
the budget goes to contractors. Raytheon has probably spent around $300 to $400 million on this program in a mix of government funding and government subsidized internal funds. The other missile program is the warhead for the SM-3 missile used in Navy Theaterwide Missile Defense. The tests for Navy TMD are still using the SM-2 missile, so essentially no warheads have been ordered, it's still in test phase and they've spent a few tens of millions of dollars on this. Raytheon also works on a sensor for the SBIRS-Low program for early warning, and a special infrared sensor for test ranges. The infrared sensor was awarded $7.9 million by BMDO in 1998, but the SBIRS-Low costs are hidden in overall SBIRS budgets. I doubt Raytheon has spent more than about $10 or $15 million on it so far, though.
Raytheon is a secondary laser contractor for both Airborne and Space-Based
Laser, but the main contractors here are LockMart, TRW, and Boeing, so
Raytheon's involvement is pretty small. Keep in mind that this all has to do
directly with BMDO. Raytheon is heavily involved in intelligence programs
for Space Command and NRO, particularly in ground stations, and these help to
serve space warfare. They are totally within the black budget, however. I
realize that these are fuzzy numbers to work with, but I hope it helps. |