Missile Defense Test (first in two years) Failed

[Killarney]

We're spending $10 BILLION A YEAR on this program. This test alone was $85 million.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041215/us_nm/arms_missile_usa_dc

U.S. Missile Defense Test Fails

The first test in nearly two years of a multibillion-dollar U.S. anti-missile shield failed on Wednesday when the interceptor missile shut down as it prepared to launch in the central Pacific, the Pentagon said. In 2002, President Bush pledged to have initial elements of the program up and running by the end of this year while testing and development continued.

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

The last test, in December 2002, misfired when the warhead -- a 120-pound "kill vehicle" of sensors, chips and thrusters designed to pulverize its target on collision -- failed to separate from its booster rocket.

Boeing Co., as prime contractor, put together the ground-based shield, which is to be folded into a system involving airborne, sea- and space-based elements. All told, the Pentagon is spending $10 billion a year on the project. Key subcontractors are Northrop Grumman Corp., for battle management; Raytheon Co., for the kill vehicle; and Lockheed Martin Corp. and Orbital Sciences Corp., which build the booster rockets.

[JaneDoughnut]

1. When do we get to declare it a sunk cost?

We shouldn't invest anything more in this "defense" system.

[Johonny]

2. Why?

I think missile defense is a worthy scientific study. The question isn't if we should research missile defense or even this current system. It's why the hell are we building a defense system that doesn't work? The current administration has skipped the research phase and just built any old thing.

[JaneDoughnut]

3. Because

this particular system is better suited to offense than defense, and it hasn't accomplished anything so far but to further strain our relationships with other nations.

[immoderate]

5. Can you say boondoggle?

This is a project that is doomed to failure. It's the Maginot line in space. It's the Tower of Babel.

Creative thinkers will see their heyday in inventing ways to circumvent it. And that will be a high school project. Why spend billions on perfecting a stupid idea?

--IMM

[WhereIsMyFreedom]

9. Let's get some perspective

Missile defense may be worthy of scientific study, but they are spending $10 billion every year on it. Compare this to NSF's entire budget of $5.58 billion (fiscal year 2004). Will this missile defense research produce twice the scientific value each year of ALL the research NSF produces yearly? Not even close! In the last twenty years it hasn't produced as much scientific value as one year of NSF research. So from the perspective of scientific research then it is a complete waste of money.

[zbdent]

4. Just like it did before

(except for the time in which there was only one "bad guy" missile fired, and the Defense Dept. was told the exact date, time, and trajectory of the "warhead" - and barely hit it at that. Just imagine what would happen when reality hits and you have one smart missile trying to figure out which of the 40 or 50 coming at you has the real warhead . . .)

[Johonny]

6. you are all wrong

Sorry. The missile defense system in a limit nature could be deployable in 10-20 years. The tracking technology is going to be there soon. The question is really going to be in what phase of lunch is best (clearly the current thinking is showing how hard it is to hit it after lunch phase). Once again there is lots of great research going on in this area. The folly is once again not in trying to study and construct a missile defense system. It's deploying a system that doesn't work and is know that it doesn't work.

[Viking12]

7. I think it's best with the soup.

The question is really going to be in what phase of lunch

Because my Alphabet Soup has as much chance being an effective missile defense as this money vacuum.

[northzax]

11. I think it's an interesting problem, actually

but not one that really needs solving st this juncture. We've been told for two decades that a tracking system is just around the corner, one that can distinguish a ten million dollar missile from a 5 dollar baloon. And yet it doesn't exist. you might make the system work with some sort of beam weapon that could hit an incoming warhead, one with a cycle rate fast enough to handle several targets in under ten seconds. But it's unlikely (lasers just don't seem to be developing the power needed, it would take a breakthrough of mammoth proportions.) that's the problem. technically, it is a feasible system, with enough radar, enough computer power (with a fast enough cycling rate for both) and enough missiles, you're going to hit something. But offense is much cheaper, in this case than defense. Figure that, once we invent good enough radar, and good enough guidance systems and good enough rockets, we'll get to a 30 percent kill rate in 20 years. that seems generous, considering the technical breakthroughs all these will take, wecurrently have radar that can't effectively track and distinguish betweeen incoming targets, guidance systems that can't guide a kill vehicle fast enough and rockets that aren't agile enough to be guided once they fix the first two problems and of course, the fact that the kill vehicle diesn't seem to actually kill things, but I digress) so we get to a 30 percent kill ratio. that means every defense rocket lauched has a 30 percent chance of killing it's target. we'd need 3 defense rockets for each incoming warhead. guess which are cheaper?

This is often described as 'hitting a bullet with a bullet) it's acutally much harder than that. we need to hit 50 bullets with 50 bullets, simultaneosly, while ignoring the 200 non bullets that look an awful lot like bullets. and one failure means a loss.

It's not a question of whether we can deisgn and build a system, given virtually unlimited resources, to defend against the current threat. wecan, in time, succeed in building a ground based linterceptor system that will be somewhat effective. the question is, should we bother, in an age of scare resources, allocate so many to this particular project?

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. My question is, what is really being funded by all the money that

is supposed to be going into this project? It took only 3 years to get a working atomic bomb, from scratch. This star wars crap has been on the drawing boards for 20+ years and they still can't get it to work. It suggests to me that while there is some work going on, much of the funding is going into black ops. It's all top secret stuff, so there's no accountability.

Ahhh, don't mind me. It's just my tinfoil hat talking.

[WhereIsMyFreedom]

10. You're asking the right question

And I think you've found the most likely answer.