WASHINGTON — During Sen. Kevin Cramer's first term, while his Republican colleagues ducked their heads when the White House came looking for a Senate champion for a priority of President Donald Trump's called the Space Force, Cramer raised his hand.
The idea to create a separate, co-equal branch of the military dedicated to space was received with skepticism by many, including some experts in the fields of space and defense, when it was first floated in 2016. The idea remained a point of contention on Capitol Hill for three years until finally it received enough bipartisan support in 2019 to pass and be signed into law.
Cramer's efforts to get the new military branch across the line in the Senate earned him the nickname "Godfather of the Space Force" from his Democratic colleagues, who used the moniker to rib Cramer.
Now, in part because of his Space Force leadership, Cramer is once again on the front lines of yet another of Trump's widely-trumpeted, somewhat controversial policy goals: the creation of the "Golden Dome," an ambitious shield project designed to protect the United States from enemy missiles, within the next three years.
The Golden Dome proposal has been met by some early criticism and skeptics, specifically around the capabilities of space-based interceptors, upon which the concept hinges, to be effective in countering large-scale attacks of multiple missiles being released in a salvo.
Those limitations, they said, combined with the price tag of the project, which Trump said will be $175 billion over the next three years, could wind up being the kind of wasteful spending the second Trump administration has claimed it is trying to eliminate. The U.S. previously spent about $30 billion over the course of a decade in a failed attempt to stand up the Strategic Defense Initiative, an early version of the Golden Dome proposed by then-President Ronald Reagan in 1983.
Still, Cramer, who was in the Oval Office on Tuesday, May 20, for Trump's announcement of the project, is bullish on the Golden Dome and North Dakota's potential role in the effort. He said critics of the idea are discounting the fact that the atmosphere for developing the Golden Dome is a lot better now than it was when SDI was being proposed.
"What's new is there are so many players in it ... and this ecosystem of autonomous drones and aircraft and satellites and space is really more of a Silicon Valley play than it is the more traditional San Diego shipbuilding play, because it moves so fast." he said. "There's a lot of capital out there for this type of industry, there's important commercial applications as well as military applications. That's why the price has come down so much to do a lot of this — it's no longer nascent. It's state of the art, but it's moving so fast."
'North Dakota has been in the early missile warning business for decades'
Cramer said there are multiple reasons North Dakota is primed to play a critical role in the development of the Golden Dome, one being the Space Force Station in Cavalier. The facility was initially part of the complex that supported the Army's short-lived anti-ballistic missile program in 1975. The Air Force acquired it in 1977 to house a missile early warning system.
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There are now 40 Space Force Guardians, as well as some civilians stationed at the facility, operating the PARCS, Perimeter Acquisition Radar Attack Characterization System. The system primarily keeps watch for sea-launched and intercontinental ballistic missiles launched toward North America and collects missile warning data, but also has as its mission to provide data concerning space launches and orbiting objects as a collateral sensor as part of the country's Space Surveillance Network.
"North Dakota has been in the early missile warning business for decades," Cramer said.
Recent modernization of the radar at Cavalier has improved the station's ability to capture and move data more quickly, Cramer said, making it a valuable part of creating the multi-tiered system necessary for the Golden Dome to operate effectively.
"Cavalier is just one piece — a really big piece — but it's when you create these layers of defense, obviously identifying a threat early, and then be able to put a target on, and fire on, that threat quickly, that's what's so important," Cramer said.
Defense officials have confirmed that the challenge of standing up the Golden Dome would be the requirement for unprecedented teamwork across existing systems like the one in Cavalier, as well as the addition of potentially tens of thousands of space-based interceptors in order to fulfill Trump's executive order.
"This is like the monster systems engineering problem. This is the monster integration problem," said Assistant Secretary of Defense Steven Morani. "This is going to be layers of architecture working together at all group level elevations … to protect the United States … so we're going to need all the services and agencies that do this kind of work to step up."
Cramer acknowledged that building the infrastructure and technology necessary to provide protection for the entire United States will be a challenge. The Golden Dome was inspired by Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system, which has famously been very effective at intercepting short-range missiles and rockets, but Israel is geographically the size of New Jersey.
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"It's really a matter of scale. You're applying the same basic concepts of the Iron Dome. Realizing that a lot of it exists already and part of what (Space Force) Gen. (Michael) Guetlein will be overseeing is the knitting together of those things and coordinating them through a sophisticated communications system, which we already have in the Space Development Agency," Cramer said.
The Space Development Agency offers North Dakota another touch point in the development of Golden Dome, Cramer said. The agency recently added a 25,000 square-foot Satellite Test and Checkout Center at the Grand Forks Air Force Base, which Sen. John Hoeven said would help put the state, “at the center of U.S. military operations,” for decades to come.
"If there's a hypersonic missile launched from Moscow or from Beijing, they'll literally see it first in Grand Forks, and then they go into action. So already, North Dakota is a major player in Golden Dome with existing technology," Cramer said.
Cramer added that the addition of the satellite studies program and aerospace engineering degree at the University of North Dakota, part of what the school calls its National Security Corridor, adds a wealth of knowledge on the relevant subject matter in state.
"North Dakota's role in space, and North Dakota's role specifically in Golden Dome, is well earned, well established. It's historical," he said.
The current, House-passed version of the budget and tax bill includes $25 billion for the development of the Golden Dome. The Senate is expected to take up and consider the legislation after the congressional Memorial Day recess.