http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=716&e=6&u=/ap/20031211/ap_on_re_us/missile_defense_testMissile Defense Hits Target During Test ($10 B per year of your deficit at work - and to be declared operational without real testing Oct 04 so as to be a Bush Election asset)
By B.J. REYES, Associated Press Writer
HONOLULU - An interceptor missile fired from a Navy ship knocked a target rocket out of the sky over the Pacific on Thursday in the first successful test of a U.S. missile defense system in more than a year, military officials said. In June, an interceptor missile missed the target rocket in a similar test.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=716&e=15&u=/nm/20031211/ts_nm/arms_missile_test_dc Comment: Bush has ordered up 20 “working” copies of Raytheon’s Standard Missile-3 interceptors (designed to destroy its target by colliding with it rather than using a large explosion) to be placed aboard three Navy ships with improved versions of the Aegis system within two years. So this test is a part of an increasingly "complex, stressing and operationally realistic ballistic missile engagement scenarios." – but of course we do not know in what way the scenario had been made more realistic, or what was still lacking. We do know that this number 5 of the 6 tests to be done before the October 04 pre-election announcement of “success”, and this test has the addition of the up-range destroyer to provide a cue and maneuvering of the USS Lake Erie during the test, the Aries target missile flew a realistic threat trajectory, that the on-board transponder was for range safety purposes only and was tuned so it could not be detected by shore-based range radars, or the Aegis AN/SPY-1 radars or the SM-3 missile, assuming the secret test set-up was as per the plan announced a few years ago.
Your 10 billion per year is also buying a ground-based midcourse defense (GMD) with six ground-based interceptor missiles in silos at Fort Greely, Alaska and four at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California system that need satellites with heat-sensing capability to detect the launch of ballistic missiles, and need sea-based radars to track those missiles, and ground-based interceptor missiles that carry exo-atmospheric kill vehicles (EKV's -- exo-atmospheric means above the atmosphere – which after being released, are supposed to be guided to the hostile warhead by onboard infrared sensors and to destroy it by direct impact.
But today’s test was of the ground-based midcourse defense (GMD). It is only the first phase of a much more ambitious program whose ultimate aim is deployment of a multi-layered system, including a boost-phase component. Bush wants the ability to intercept outside the Earth's atmosphere during the target missile's descent, as well the ability to go after warheads in their boost phase, in conjuction with a ground-based mid-course flight path long-range ballistic missile defense. Eventually $50 billion of your kids earnings will add 22 more ships to the U.S. Navy cruisers and destroyers that now carry the Aegis system. Oh , did I forget that the planned shield that includes components based on land, in space and at sea, also has an in the air component -- a laser-firing Boeing Co. 747 aircraft?
Has anyone seen in the media any questions about
-- What is the mission of the system?
-- How much will the system (assuming it is capable of accomplishing its mission) contribute to U.S. security?
-- Will it work?
-- Is it cost-effective? Could the funds dedicated to it be more fruitfully expended in some other fashion?
-- Will it have any unintended consequences that adversely affect U.S. security?
-- How plausible is a missile attack launched by that rogue state, North Korea, that, unlike Al-Qaeda, is worried about retaliation? – Or is GMD, if it works, going to protect against an attack whose likelihood is miniscule.
--Can it work without the defense being told the launch point and launch time of the target missile as well as its planned trajectory? Will we in 5 years and a minimum of $50 billion have even one successful test against a target missile launched without advance notice and equipped with sophisticated decoys and other countermeasures such as a dedicated enemy is likely to employ.
--What will change the years behind schedule situation that the two new satellite systems: SBIRS-High (Space-Based Infrared Satellite) (renamed the Space Tracking and Surveillance System (SSTS) to just confuse us). and SBIRS-Low. Not a single satellite has yet launched.
--Does anyone care that the GAO has found that Bush plans to declare the system “operational” without even one test of the Alaska radar. And the GMD needs x-band radar and a floating platform x-band, modified from a deep-sea oil rig design (surprise) is not scheduled to be ready until late 2005 – as a test – not final asset.
Would anyone be surprised that the scheduled deployment date for GMD is just a month before the 2004 election – and will happen without proof of concept!
And the media will go wild – and Bush election will be on track! – for only $10 billion a year!
The above facts are stolen from the Coyle article, Is Missile Defense on Target? Arms Control Today, Oct 2003, pp 7-14.
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