SpaceX does the whole rocket launch thing for a fraction of the cost of the space shuttle. GPS is not that complicated any more and all the processing power required fits in a chip the size of a cellphone.
But those things cost 2.5M a piece?
Plus low volume production volums and long times needed to manufacture it.
Could it be cheaper? Yeah I'm sure. But the US Gov is willing to pay for em so why drop the price?
[1] https://ipdefenseforum.com/2026/01/taiwan-looks-to-partner-w...
That’s not to say that it should cost 2.5 million, but Ukraine doesn’t need storability and durability because I think they pretty much get driven from the factory to the launch site in a matter of days.
For the reliability/storability parts though, the electronics are probably the least of the issues. You've got a jet engine in there that needs fuel, oil, and has a number of high speed moving parts. Having something like that sit for years in a ship and work with high reliability is not so simple.
The funny thing is that this was designed in USA based on what was learned by reverse-engineering one of the models of Iranian Shahed drones.
That was certainly the smart thing to do, but it contrasts with the very frequent opinions expressed on many US forums, which disparage some other countries, mainly China, because supposedly they copy other technologies, instead of being "independent innovators like USA".
Fortunately for USA, they still have engineers who understand that the most efficient strategy is to first copy whatever others do better than you, and then improve on it. There are no such things as "independent innovations", any successful innovation is applied over a countless number of previous innovations discovered by others.
The US had expensive systems because INS and accuracy is expensive without GPS.
GPS will be denied in any future war environment. That's why we stopped work on things like the Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb. It was useless in Ukraine due to GPS denial.
There is a strong feeling on HN that because Trump is President, Musk holds zero responsibility.
This way the illuminati remain pure, when Trump eventually dies.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/order-limit-starshield-...
That Starshield was remotely limited is not in dispute, only whether it was just Elon's doing, or at Trump's behest.
https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/features/2025/regi...
You could still jam this but you need to overcome 20+dB of additional gain in the transmission. If the party you are jamming has anti-radiation missiles, you are forced to make yourself an extremely hot and unambiguous target to participate in jamming at these power levels.
WILL BE is key here.
You end up with a _just as good_ device that will fail way more times than before (1:100 or more instead of 1:100000) but is way cheaper and way easier to procure. When it fails just launch another.
I wouldn't specifically do this to the tomahawk as it's used in missions where accuracy is critical in order to avoid collateral damage. But otherwise I'm a strong proponent of applying "new space" logic to military gear.
Excellent point! In Ben Rich's Skunkwork book he touches on this a bit towards the end of the book.
For attritable systems this becomes an even bigger importance. Like for example, do you really need to have a 1000 or MTBF rated jet engine when the expected life of a one way UAV is a few hours?
However, you can't compare them to long-range cruise missiles that are north of $1 million. The payload is much bigger and you just can't leverage cheap commercial engines.
no?
cost-per-launch is about equal, it's just that falcon made it to the desired launch cadence to spread cost-per-month around, while shuttle did not
why do you think falcon program is closing as starlink launches are switching to starship?
What we ultimately want is effect on target.
Electromagnetic radiation is a lot cheaper to generate and transmit across space than a 450kg warhead. The only obvious exception being if that warhead is the W80 variant.
It has been the best, second to none for a long time. If you want the best castle, you buy it from the United States. Other countries may also sell castle technology... though as Norway noted it doesn't have to buy the best (and most expensive) from the United States, it just has to buy something better than Russia's. ( https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/norway-se... )
... And then with the conflicts in Ukraine and to a lesser extent Iran the world has realized that while we've had the best castles for a long time, they're big, expensive, expensive to maintain (and its own hasn't been maintained well) and has the possibility of a switch on the drawbridge that will let it down when the US wants in...
While Ukraine and Russia have rolled up to the battlefield with a cheap cannon that is demonstrating that expensive castles aren't all they're cracked up to be.
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Yes, you can probably build a cheaper Tomahawk missile today. However, can someone else build a cheaper drone that is even better for the battlefield theaters of the next several decades?
I heard the US produced knockoffs of the Iranian ~$10-50k drone and produces it for ~$35K and its a modular and an upgradable platform (ie. not just a dumb copy). If you ask me, that ability to not only produce castles but also 'cheap cannons' as per your analogy when needed for cheaper and then improve on top of it is a pretty darn good skill.
[1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-cost_Uncrewed_Combat_Attac...
Somewhere in the next decades, the US has switched to being the finely crafted military equipment.
My armchair historian says that the technology innovations are done during peacetime while treaties limit the size of the forces. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Naval_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Conventional_Armed_F... ) while the inventions happen during the war itself. This in turn means that much of the technology innovation is focused on fighting the last war.
With the Pax Americana ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana ) and various policies (could the military industrial complex have survived the Last Supper? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Supper_(defense_industry) ... and how has that contributed to current budgets and projects?) the United States has produced cutting edge military equipment. We've certainly left that period.
This is now shifting as the Chinese can technologically keep up and asymmetric warfare means smaller nation states can overwhelm with "just good enough" to make the economic calculations different.
The Barracuda would be really really useful a lot (probably most) of targets and missions, but we can't pretend like there's no tradeoff in performance and additional limitations. Very roughly a Tomahawk has twice the range, and 7 times the payload.