Interceptor Missile Fails Test Launch 1039
jangobongo writes "The US missile defense system suffered a serious setback today, just 2 weeks before it was scheduled to be activated. A target ICBM was launched from Alaska, but crashed harmlessly into the ocean as the interceptor missile based on an atoll in the Pacific Ocean shut itself down due to an unknown "anomaly". The cause of the failure could have been anything from a software glitch to a major hardware malfunction."
Contractor - Boeing (Score:5, Informative)
Orbital Sciences Corp. is an alternate contractor for a booster system in case the Boeing design doesn't meet final acceptance, and several companies such as Lockeed-Martin also have standby programs.
The warhead that may ultimately be deployed is technically an EKV (Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle). Raethon has the contract for this design. It contains a sensor suite that is supposed to descriminate between actual nuclear devices and decoys. Tests so far have had balloon decoys whose IR characteristics were relatively easy to discriminate vis-a-vis an actual warhead. This test would have been against a wider selection of balloon decoys.
For more info, and some nice photos, try:
http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app4/gbi
Re:Funny thing is... (Score:2, Informative)
As for the "simple EMP device" thing, please put down the comic book and step away from the keyboard. Post your present location and somebody will be along with a high-school physics textbook within the hour.
Finally, I don't know what the heck you're talking about regarding the flare thing. We're not referring to the AIM-9, here. I don't think bemoaning the state of the art of 1958 is really a productive line of discussion, do you?
Re:Is it worth it? (Score:2, Informative)
Flawed reporting (Score:0, Informative)
"The interceptor missile did not shut down because of some malfunction, it was shut down intentionally because of inability to monitor performance of a boost stage rocket detected during pre-launch system checks. The boost stage might have been set to work properly or it might not have, but a test of this magnitude and expense demands ability to monitor all mission critical systems so that all necessary data is available for post-mission review. When it became clear that this would not be the case, the mission was scrubbed, not failed.
Unfortunately, a very expensive target drone was lost, and somebody is presently being chewed out because of that. But the kill vehicle and its delivery system remain intact for future use, and by far most of the test hardware funds were expended there. As for schedule delay, expect this test to be rescheduled as soon as a replacement target is ready."
ICBMs are so last-century (Score:1, Informative)
1. Let us not forget the cruise missile you too can make for under 2000 NZD with plans bought on the internet.
2. Hobbyists have flown a autopiloted model plane from Canada to England. They had a hard time making it into the 'model plane' category because that category is strict about maximum weight (10 pounds max). If you don't care what category it officially fits into, make it any weight you want.
3. Did you see the remote-control plane they found in Iraq and tried to claim was a DIY cruise missile? Were they right or wrong?
4. The drones the US has fit three-to-a-cargo-container.
5. These interceptors don't *do* cruise missiles.
6. Terrorist dream machine: Cargo ship, lots of cargo containers, each with 3+ cruise missiles. Launch them all at once. Good luck defending against that, guys!
Parnas predicted this in the 1980s (Score:4, Informative)
Re:How? (Score:3, Informative)
The debt doesn't need to be nearly as large as it is to provide for economic stability. It could be a tenth the size, and noone would be the worse for it.
Re:Is it worth it? (Score:2, Informative)
Um. How do you think I know what I know? The Iraqis I met there told me.
Pre-Iran-Iraq war, Iraq was a pretty well-off country
Yes, that's correct.
The war, the First Persian Gulf war, the years of sanctions, pushed Iraq into a nasty decline
Um. You seem to have lost a decade there.
History lesson: Saddam seized absolute power over Iraq in 1979. (Prior to '79 there were limits on his power that he chose to respect.) The next year, he launched the devastating war with Iran over the Shat-al-Arab. The following 8 years destroyed the country's economy as Saddam funneled every penny of the nation's treasury into his military and his palaces. Schools and roads and water pipes and power lines and electric plants literally fell apart.
In 1988, Saddam grudgingly accepted a cease-fire with Iran and decided to be a Muslim --though Shia make up a tiny minority of the world's Muslims, they make up 60% of the population of Iraq, and Saddam decided to be more openly supportive of Islam in an effort to placate them after nearly a decade of total war.
In 1990, desperate for additional oil revenues and enraged that the Kuwaitis were selling their oil at a lower price than Saddam was willing to take for his oil, he sent his army over the border and declared that Kuwait was the 19th province of Iraq. Only then were Iraq's oil exports shut down and import sanctions put in place.
See? A whole decade of history, forgotten.
Now, for the first time ever in Iraq, there is an Oil shortage and a gas crisis within Iraq.
In Iraq, gasoline is literally cheaper than bottled water, because it's subsidized by the Coalition. When I was last there in the spring, it was going for about a nickel per gallon.
Iraq had water and electricity fine before the US invasion.
In some places, the water and power systems were well maintained. In Mesopotamia, they were crumbling. (It's a Sunni-Shia thing.)
Saddam Hussein's government didn't let schools and hospitals fall apart.
Again, not correct.
The schools were running fine
Wow. That's so wrong. Most of the schools weren't running at all. They had just been abandoned when Saddam stopped paying the teachers' salaries.
the hospitals crumbled under UN and US sanctions, regardless of what the Iraqi government tried to do
Have you not been reading the newspapers for, oh, the last year or so? You are aware, are you not, that Saddam skimmed billions -- at least $20 billion, and maybe more --through illegal trading under the oil-for-food program. Where did that money go? To schools? To hospitals? To repairing the country's crumbling infrastructure? No, it went into Saddam's pockets, into his palaces and into his military.
The hospitals would never get their medication
Sounds like you didn't know that no sanctions ever restricted the importation of medicines. Saddam was free to buy all the medicines he wanted. He chose not to buy medicines. He chose instead to use the revenues from oil sold through oil-for-food to line his pockets and those of his Mukhabarat and Fedayeen.
I could go on with a list of others.
I have no doubt. You could continue coughing up absurdly inapplicable analogies all day.
Re:Is it worth it? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Don't spend it (Score:3, Informative)
Perot got the credit, to which the Republicans co-opted the idea to try and screw up Clinton, who then proceeded to co-opt the whole notion himself to help screw over the Republicans in Congress. If you can't fight them, join them.
Budget deficit was shrinking under Clinton, even with a Rebublican-focused Congress.
What is US debt at now, $7.5 Trillion?
Re:How? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I don't know about you Americans but... (Score:3, Informative)
Pretty definitive I'd say... and I must say I very much approve of this approach (and policy of not joining either!)
Re:Is it worth it? (Score:3, Informative)
Excuse me? You think so? Tell me then, why is Canada's Prime Minister, Paul Martin, refusing to go along with your cockamamy "Missile Defense Shield" program? He (finally) took a stand on the issue last week, and announced that Canada will not put any money into the system, nor will they allow American missiles to be launched from Canadian soil.
Also, if Canada is merely a US lapdog, then why did Canada refuse to commit troops to the War on Islam^H^H^H^H^HIraq? This decision was extremely unpopular with Bush, by the way, which is the reason the US is stubbornly refusing to allow Canadian beef to cross the US border even today, almost 2 years after a single case of BSE was found in a dead cow's corpse in western Canada. The US has also tried to bully Canada with punishing tariffs on softwood lumber. Rather than give in, Canada instead fought back in international forums, and the US has repeatedly, by many jurisdictions, been ordered to drop the tariffs, and the US is finally, slowly complying.
And FYI, Canada has more oil than the Middle East, when you factor in the reserves saturating the tar sands, and above the permafrost. These deposits have been economically unfeasible to collect, until the world oil prices rose as they have recently. Make no mistake that as the political unrest in the middle east worsens, and their oil reserves dwindle, Canada will be the next energy superpower of the world, and it will be the US that will be the one begging for it the most.
The Physicists Aren't Surprised (Score:3, Informative)
Physics Today [physicstoday.org] has several [physicstoday.org] articles [physicstoday.org] dealing [physicstoday.org] with the subject, and the actual report can be obtained here. [aps.org]
The verdict: living under the physical laws we all have to obey, boost phase missile defense really doesn't work -- even if the interceptors can get off the ground. Continuing on in with the fiendishly expensive and marginally beneficial program (beneficial in terms of the defense contractors' job security) in the light that it is not physically possible to expect a reasonable chance (or sometimes even a chance) of success is a demonstration of the Administration's ignorance of science and fact, as well as pork-barrel spending at its worst.
So, I'm not surprised at all about the failure -- and wouldn't be even if they launched the interceptor successfully. It's too bad that we won't see any sort of rational discussion of the topic of missile defense in Congress now that the topic is so politically charged.
Re:Probably a Good Thing (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Is it worth it? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, for China, Russia, et al to launch, that would be suicidal.
North Korea, on the other hand, is potentially a bit different.
A: How can China know that any nukes sent by us in retaliation for an NK first strike are not aimed at them?
B: Will they care? Nukes detonating in NK are sure to cause Chinese problems, them being close geographically.
And NK is working on missiles with the range to hit continental US targets. Then there is the latest brewhaha about enriching Uranium.
C: I am not sure that NK leadership cares about the counterstrike.
I think having something to swat those missiles is a good thing, not a waste of money. And no, it will not work against those other attack vectors. And it is not designed to.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
No, the next arms race has already started. (Score:3, Informative)
America may not be out of the gate yet but Mr. Bush's arms race is already well underway. [www.cbc.ca] Before too long Russia will have missiles inherently capable of penetrating any missile defense shield we can build.
The White House, of course, will probably continue to claim there was no reason to continue those ballistic-arms-buildup treaties we had with the USSR.
Re:Probably a Good Thing (Score:3, Informative)
oh, sorry, i forgot. iran, iraq, and afghanistan have always been the axis of evil. we would never have suported their governments with weapons or intelligence.... my bad.