House Golden Dome Caucus co-chairman Dale Strong (R-AL) urged Congress to decide on a budget to fund President Donald Trump’s missile defense system.

Speaking alongside Raytheon President Phil Jasper and Keith Webster, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Defense and Aerospace Council, Strong said it would be difficult to get the expensive project off the ground if Congress continues to rely on continuing resolutions.

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“We’ve got to get a budget — these continued resolutions don’t work,” Strong said Wednesday at the Global Aerospace Summit.

“We’re a little bit behind,” he ceded.

His remarks were supported by the rest of the panel, which met to discuss how to create the Golden Dome. Jasper stressed that his company, and the defense industry more broadly, needed regular demand signals to invest in the project. The uncertainty created by constant continuing resolutions could jeopardize the company’s ability to partner with the government in creating the system.

Jasper noted that the complexity and scale of the Golden Dome meant no company could create the system single-handedly. The multilayered system will require close coordination between the government and multiple defense companies, something extraordinarily difficult given the uncertainty caused by the lack of a budget.

Webster fully agreed, saying a “CR is not a wartime footing.” He reiterated Jasper’s stress on the necessity of stabilizing demand signals.

The U.S.’s ballooning debt further supports the need for a budget, Strong argued, which is forcing better cost effectiveness.

“We need to be able to do more with less,” he said.

“Before it was: let’s get it done,” Strong added. “Now, it’s let’s get it done, but what will it cost?”

He bemoaned the “unbelievable breakdown in communication” in Congress as the reason for the reliance on continuing resolutions, urging lawmakers to begin directly speaking with opposing members.

The Golden Dome is estimated to be one of the most expensive defense projects in U.S. history. Trump estimated the project to cost $175 billion, with a $25 billion down payment. A recent Congressional Budget Office estimate put the total cost of deploying and operating a constellation of space-based interceptors for 20 years at anywhere from $161 billion to $831 billion.

Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, vice chief of space operations at the Space Force and new head of the Golden Dome project, compared the project to the creation of the atomic bomb.

“The only time that I can think of in the history of the United States where we have gone after something this complex was the Manhattan Project,” Guetlein told the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 12.

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He insisted that it is doable, though paralleling Jasper’s remarks in stressing the number of organizations that would need to cooperate to create it.

“It’s not complex because the technology’s going to be hard,” Guetlein said. “It’s complex because of the number of organizations and the number of agencies that need to be involved.”