ARTICLE: Cloudy Skies Knock Out Anti-Missile Defense!

[Atahualpa]

Originally posted by The diplomat
I don't understand why people are against a missisle defense system. Do you want the US to be defenseless against a missile attack? Do you want North Korea to nuke a US city?

No complex piece of technology will work the first time out. There will always be initials failures as we test and improve the technology. When we develop a new fighter jet, it takes years to perfect the technology. But shouldn't we try to have a system that can offer us some protection against a missile attack? Even if it only works half the time, that would be still be a 50% chance of saving millions of lives. Isn't that better that nothing?

warning... warning... warning

better than nothing argument detected

warning... warning... warning

[mindseye]

What the Admiral said.

As I've argued in countless ABM threads, for many reasons, ICBMs are the least likely nuclear weapon delivery vehicle to be used against the US.

Container ships, fishing vessels, small planes and even trucks are superior in virtually every meaningful way, making them far greater threats than sophisticated, high-accuracy globe-circling rockets.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar


The United States of Apolyton *would* send outs its ubermissiles (which, in tests, shoot down 105% of enemy missiles) however there are clouds outside. We ask that all enemies of Apolyton please hold until the weather changes.
To help best plan the attack, please go to weather.com and choose a nice, sunny day.

[DRoseDARs]

A shocking, totally unexpected, wholly unforeseeable development:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200412/s1266063.htm

'Son of Star Wars' missile test fails

The first test in nearly two years of a planned multi-billion dollar United States anti-missile shield has failed, with the interceptor missile shutting down on its launch pad in the central Pacific before it was launched, the Pentagon said.

About 16 minutes earlier, a target missile carrying a mock warhead had been successfully launched from Kodiak Island, Alaska, the Pentagon's Missile Defence Agency said in a statement.

The aborted mission appeared likely to set back plans for activation of the rudimentary bulwark, known as "Son of Star Wars", against ballistic missiles that could be fired by countries like North Korea.

The system is a scaled-down version of a ballistic missile shield first outlined in March 1983 by President Ronald Reagan and derided by critics as "Star Wars".

In 2002, President George W. Bush pledged to have initial elements of the program up and running by the end of this year, although critics say that tests like the one on Wednesday failed to demonstrate any real-world capabilities.

"This is a serious setback for a program that had not attempted a flight
intercept test for two years," Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's chief weapons tester under Mr Reagan, said in an email exchange with Reuters.

The Missile Defence Agency said an unspecified "anomaly" had caused the interceptor to shut down automatically in its silo at the Kwajalein Test Range in the Marshall Islands.

The test had not been tied to the question of when to declare the system operational, said Richard Lehner, an agency spokesman.

"That's something that will have to be considered," he said.

Earlier this week the Missile Defence Agency postponed the test flight due to the failure of a radio transmitter.

It is not known what impact the failure will have on the Missile Defence Agency's plans for a fully-fledged intercept attempt next March or April.

In earlier tests, target missiles have been successfully intercepted in five out of eight attempts, but those have been under artificial conditions using some surrogate components.

Since the last test in December 2002, flight tests have been delayed or cancelled six times.

In December last year, Defence Minister Robert Hill announced that Australia would participate in the US missile defence program.

-Reuters


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Kimmy must be paralyzed with ...uh, not fear... erm ... laughter!

[BeBMan]

Five out of eight isn't that bad. Just hope they don't attack with nuclear warheads

[Atahualpa]

Engineers
Rocketry is now around for ~60 years and then it shuts down on the launch platform.

Humanity has really improved a lot!

[Urban Ranger]

Oops x2

[Gatekeeper]

I suppose it will take another seven to 12 years to perfect anti-missile technology, at which point — and to our great dismay — it will be learned that new incoming warheads will be able to detect threats to their existence and take countermeasures, such as evasive maneuvers.

Gatekeeper

[Hueij]

Hey, it wasn't so bad... At least they got the target rocket up in the air

[The diplomat]

Don't tell me the military uses Windows? That might explain the "anomaly".

[Shogun Gunner]

This may be beating a dead horse...

In addition to the missile shield being useless against a terrorist nuke smuggled in any varieties of transportation modes (small plane, cuban refugee ship, container ship), wouldn't the shield also be useless against nuke tipped cruise missile? These can launched from subs right off the coast.

/beating dead horse

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Shogun Gunner
This may be beating a dead horse...

In addition to the missile shield being useless against a terrorist nuke smuggled in any varieties of transportation modes (small plane, cuban refugee ship, container ship), wouldn't the shield also be useless against nuke tipped cruise missile? These can launched from subs right off the coast.

/beating dead horse

If we have a missile defense system, then we will be able to devote more resources to protecting ourselves against small planes, ships and other nuke attacks because we won't have to worry so much about an ICBM.

[KrazyHorse]

If we have a missile defense system, then we will be able to devote more resources to protecting ourselves against small planes, ships and other nuke attacks because we won't have to worry so much about an ICBM.

[Arrian]

ICBMs are not what we must worry about. We have the ultimate deterant : a ****load of our own ICBMs.



This made at least a modicum of sense during the Cold War arms race. It makes none now.

-Arrian

[KrazyHorse]

I just want to know how spending billions on a buggy system will free up more resources to deal with other delivery platforms. I suppose now that everybody won't be spending 10 hours a day hiding under their beds they can get some work done.