After five days of reporting that things in space are further away than people think, this one runs the other way — and keeps a promise made on air.

Autonomous decision-making in orbit is already operating at a scale almost nobody registers: 207,152 collision-avoidance manoeuvres in six months, executed without human approval. And a far more consequential system is being built on top of it.

In this episode:

• Why a snap count is the clearest model of pre-committed automation
• Why the decisive layer of Golden Dome is not the interceptor
• $185 billion against the Congressional Budget Office's $1.2 trillion
• Why 98% of the 2027 request depends on a bill that has not passed
• What the programme's own director has said about whether it survives
• Why a missile is not a person — and why the worry is the precedent anyway

Clyde's Question: are you for this system or against it? Say it plainly.

The Film Room: an earlier call confirmed, with a second axis added.

Plus One More Thing from Proverbs 21 — the horse is prepared.

Includes a disclosure, read in full near the top, about a conflict that is not adjacent to today's subject but identical to it.

Day six of twelve on the Space Edition.

Today's Maren Brief carries both points of view with complete sourcing. Free, no paywall.

Orbital Dominion — Global Chokepoints: Space Edition, Book Two. Out now in audiobook.

Midnight Hammer — The Aegis Directive, Book One. Included with Spotify Premium.

A note on narration

This program is narrated using digital voice technology, including a voice model of the author.

Verify before testify. The watchman reports the morning and the night.