To Replace America's ICBM Inventory Will Cost $111 Billion

A Minuteman III missile was test launched from Launch Facility 04. The missile traveled approximately 4200 miles in twenty minutes to the Kwajalein Missile Range in the Marshall Islands. The test is conducted to prove the reliability of land based nuclear missiles. Location: VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, CALIFORNIA (CA) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (USA) Camera Operator: MASTER SGT. LORENZO GAINES Date Shot: 8 Jun 1994 Wikimedia 

Bloomberg: U.S. ICBM to Replace 1970s Minuteman May Cost $111 Billion 

 * Northrop Grumman won initial $13 billion contact last month 

 * Pentagon weapons buyer approved purchase of 659 missiles 

The Pentagon’s next generation intercontinental ballistic missile program could cost U.S. taxpayers as much as $110.6 billion, according to internal Defense Department estimates, adding to a wave of big-ticket nuclear weapons programs slated for the years ahead. 

Ellen Lord, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, approved the ICBM program going forward and supported the purchase of 659 missiles -- 25 for initial testing and 634 for silos, spares and later testing, according to a Sept. 21 report obtained by Bloomberg News that was marked “Unclassified/For Official Use Only.” 

The new estimate includes a $13 billion contract Northrop Grumman Corp. received in September to start full-scale development and eventual production of missiles intended to replace the aging Minuteman III system, the land-based portion of the U.S. nuclear triad. 

The Air Force and the Pentagon’s independent cost assessment office project the missile program alone -- not including the nuclear warheads they’ll carry -- will cost between $93.1 billion and $95.8 billion. That is up from a preliminary $85 billion Pentagon forecast in 2016. 

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WNU Editor: Nuclear weapons are never cheap.

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