Interceptor Missile Test Fails

[shemp]

Gee, what a surprise!

Interceptor Missile Test Fails

(AP) An interceptor missile failed to launch early Wednesday in what was to have been the first full flight test of the U.S. national missile defense system in nearly two years.

The Missile Defense Agency has attempted to conduct the test several times this month, but scrubbed each one for a variety of reasons, including various weather problems and a malfunction on a recovery vessel not directly related to the equipment being tested.

When we really do get attacked, I hope the weather is good.

The target missile got up there OK. Maybe we should use the target missiles as interceptors instead?

A target missile carrying a mock warhead was successfully launched as scheduled from Kodiak, Alaska, in the first launch of a target missile from Kodiak in support of a full flight test of the system.

However, the agency said the ground-based interceptor "experienced an anomaly shortly before it was to be launched" from the Ronald Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean 16 minutes after the target missile left Alaska.

An announcement said the interceptor experienced an automatic shutdown "due to an unknown anomaly."

Damn those pesky "unknown anomalies"!

Combining this with the earlier tests, which were rigged to succeed. we are batting .555:

In earlier testing of tracking and targeting systems, which critics derided as highly scripted, missile interceptors went five-for-eight in hitting target missiles.

Even Barry Bonds can't hit like that!

 

[Dorian Gray]

The terrorists who fire missiles at us now know that they just have to fire them from the Bermuda Triangle during a storm. You know, the ones with missiles? Like, um.... uh....

Of course, a missile defense shield is utterly useless against the ones who sneak across the Mexican border with a suitcase WMD. Or Timothy McVeigh types, or snipers, or hijacked planes, or.....

 

[RussDill]

Ya, its a damn shame we didn't cancel the patriot missile program. I mean jeeze, with all the miserable failures.

 

[Keneke]

An engineering test has failures in the course of testing. What a big surprise. We should cancel all funding, since a missile attack will never happen. Nope, never, can't even conceive of it.

Of course, a missile defense shield is utterly useless against the ones who sneak across the Mexican border with a suitcase WMD.

Just like Homeland Security is useless against incoming ICBMs. Just like guns are useless against anthrax. Just like the Geneva Convention is useless against non-national terrorists.

 

[odorousrex]

Apparantley we need to budget more money for the military

 

[Hutch]

Ya, its a damn shame we didn't cancel the patriot missile program. I mean jeeze, with all the miserable failures.

I'm presuming you had your tongue firmly implanted in cheek when you said the above, Russ, but in many ways you are right...they have had miserable failures, from the non-interceptions of Scuds in GW1 (the success rate was much lower than percieved) to the 'accidental' shooting down of allied aircraft in GW2.

Bloody unfortunate that they have had few legitimate targets to shoot at since the F16/F15's tend to knock out Opposition fighters before they become a threat...

Oh well, there's always Korea.

 

[RussDill]

An engineering test has failures in the course of testing. What a big surprise. We should cancel all funding, since a missile attack will never happen. Nope, never, can't even conceive of it.

I sense sarcasm here, but it makes a good point anyway, if you want to cancel a program, cancel it on its merits, cost, etc, not because an engineering test failed.

 

[Hutch]

An engineering test has failures in the course of testing. What a big surprise. We should cancel all funding, since a missile attack will never happen. Nope, never, can't even conceive of it.

But Keneke, they've been testing it, under the most favorable circumstances, for several years. And IIRC correctly, the first actual working base (with presumably the same equipment as is being validated (or not) is up and running in Alaska.

Just like Homeland Security is useless against incoming ICBMs. Just like guns are useless against anthrax. Just like the Geneva Convention is useless against non-national terrorists.

Missile defense is not inherently a bad idea. A missile defense that provides no reasonable deterrent after many billions of dollars is not inherently a good idea.

IMHO, as always

 

[Keneke]

And IIRC correctly, the first actual working base (with presumably the same equipment as is being validated (or not) is up and running in Alaska.

The working base is actually a political maneuver. The politicians said "We want an untested missile in the silo instead of nothing at all." We engineers shrugged and did what they wanted. The actual deployment has little to do with our current progress.

A missile defense that provides no reasonable deterrent

I would agree with you, if the system does not and never will provide safety. But saying that it doesn't work from mere tests - tests that were voluntarily stopped before the interceptor was even launched, because of computer anomalies - is incorrect. In tightly controlled tests, with one missile firing at one incoming, all the while we have multiple missiles already in silos, test stoppages are to be expected. We would stop a test if our embedded testing equipment were offline. We stop for weather because the test is measuring pure capability. (As skeptics, we all know the necessity of removing extraneous variables, right?) We stop for "anomalies". We must exhaustively test every variable in the equation. You're asking the Wright Brothers to design and build an airplane and expect it to cross the Atlantic on the first attempt.

It took a decade to get a man on the moon, and this project is much, much harder. And has less public support.

 

[RussDill]

So wait...the argument is that it only provides a certain layer of protection, that isn't even 100% in itself, so don't do it. Why does this sound vaguely familiar to a certain armorment issue? With people using one argument on one issue, but the same people using the opposite argument on another issue.

 

[shecky]

I'll be happy as long as the govt continues to throw money at it.

Yes, I've got bills to pay.

 

[Tmy]

So wait...the argument is that it only provides a certain layer of protection, that isn't even 100% in itself, so don't do it. Why does this sound vaguely familiar to a certain armorment issue? With people using one argument on one issue, but the same people using the opposite argument on another issue.

The problem is when its not even close to 100%. This thing has been kicked around for decades and it seems to be an expensive failure.

Imagine how many armured vests n vehicles we could buy with just 1yrs worth of StarWars spending??

 

[BPSCG]

Imagine how many armured vests n vehicles we could buy with just 1yrs worth of StarWars spending??

And what about the children? For God's sake, won't someone think of the children?

 

[Keneke]

The problem is when its not even close to 100%. This thing has been kicked around for decades and it seems to be an expensive failure.

Imagine how many armured vests n vehicles we could buy with just 1yrs worth of StarWars spending??

Only 21 (edit) years, and 8 of them near-squandered by Clinton's misgivings.

Something must be done. If it's not going to work (which I do not concede to), change prime contractors perhaps (Sorry, Boeing!), but don't scrap it altogether.

 

[Hutch]

Something must be done. If it's not going to work (which I do not concede to), change prime contractors perhaps (Sorry, Boeing!), but don't scrap it altogether.

Keneke, you work in the Government--you know better than to suggest changing contractors after a system has been approved and billions spent (then again, maybe you don't work DoD).

Look, I would love to have a system, but to deploy one now, with the knowledge we have of it's apparently limited effectiveness (despite the first SDI funding beginning in 1983 and the testing starting in 2000) and at the cost of approximatley $100B to deploy (Washington Post estimate)---I just think things are being rushed and we'll have a system that will not do what it is supposed to do--which is basically deterrance.

Hopefully we'll never have to find out who's right.

 

[Rob Lister]

So wait...the argument is that it only provides a certain layer of protection, that isn't even 100% in itself, so don't do it. Why does this sound vaguely familiar to a certain armorment issue? With people using one argument on one issue, but the same people using the opposite argument on another issue.

How right you are. Even regarding this issue of missle defense the two prime arguments against it are:

1) It'll never work, and
2) This will only cause Them to build better missles that can get past it.

Number one may or may not be correct (I'm thinking not) but number two was at least part of the reason the Soviet Union collasped as soon as it did (not that it wouldn't have eventually anyway). Star Wars (as it was known at the time) was brillant. The media had no idea just how hopeless the whole idea of it was. We were (at the time) building something for which technology hadn't even begun to make possible. We were building shadows in space; illusions of technological ability.

But now we have the ability. There are kinks to work out but they are managable. There will be more tests and more failures and the critics will beat their drums at each decrying it all as expensive nonsense and warmongering, dispite its purely defensive purpose. Pretty soon we'll have deployed a system not only capable of meeting existing threats but also adaptable to new ones.

I like it.

 

[varwoche]

1. death
2. taxes
3. missile defense test fails

Don't worry. It won't come by air anyway.

 

[a_unique_person]

Ya, its a damn shame we didn't cancel the patriot missile program. I mean jeeze, with all the miserable failures.

The funny thing is, you aren't being sarcastic.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/12/10/iraq.friendlyfire/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Navy pilot killed during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was shot down by U.S. Army soldiers who mistakenly believed an enemy missile was heading their way, according to a military investigation.

The Army battery violated proper firing procedures when it launch two missiles as two U.S. Navy F/A-18 fighter jets returning from a mission in central Iraq on April 2, 2003 approached their position, according to the report.

Lt. Nathan White, was killed when both missiles hit his jet. The other pilot returned safely to the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, according to the report.

The missile system also failed to properly identify the two aircraft, according to an executive summary of the report released Friday evening.

 

[The Fool]

If this stuff turns out to be useless for stopping missiles It may yet be usefull against Martians, although "the chances of anything coming from mars are a million to one" he said.

 

[a_unique_person]

How right you are. Even regarding this issue of missle defense the two prime arguments against it are:

1) It'll never work, and
2) This will only cause Them to build better missles that can get past it.

Number one may or may not be correct (I'm thinking not) but number two was at least part of the reason the Soviet Union collasped as soon as it did (not that it wouldn't have eventually anyway). Star Wars (as it was known at the time) was brillant. The media had no idea just how hopeless the whole idea of it was. We were (at the time) building something for which technology hadn't even begun to make possible. We were building shadows in space; illusions of technological ability.

But now we have the ability. There are kinks to work out but they are managable. There will be more tests and more failures and the critics will beat their drums at each decrying it all as expensive nonsense and warmongering, dispite its purely defensive purpose. Pretty soon we'll have deployed a system not only capable of meeting existing threats but also adaptable to new ones.

I like it.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1121-23.htm

Prior to 9/11, Rice advocated cutting anti-terrorism spending and concentrating on anti-missile defence. She played a key role in misleading Americans into believing Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and Saddam posed a dire threat. She urged Bush to invade Iraq and plunge deeper into Afghanistan. Her ludicrous claims about Iraqi "mushroom clouds" panicked many Americans. For this alone she should have been dismissed.

The most important function of national security adviser -- and I can say this having myself been interviewed at the White House for a position on the National Security Council -- is to co-ordinate all national security policy. But under Rice, defence, state and CIA were at each other's throats. She allowed the president to humiliate himself over Iraq's non-existent weapons, Saddam's uranium and "drones of death."

After the European powers refused to join the trumped-up Iraq war, Rice famously advised Bush to "punish France, ignore Germany, and forgive Russia." Bush followed this amateurish, vindictive misadvice, seriously damaging U.S.-Europe relations and helping advance dictatorship in Russia.

Bush's second-term foreign policy may grow even more aggressive, unilateralist, and driven by right-wing ideology and religious zealotry.

Look at the mayhem NK causes by just hinting that it might have a nuke. Even with a working, in place missile shield defense system that is 99% capable, are you going to be the president who gambles that the one they fire won't get through?