Study challenges Bush 'Star Wars' program (but he won't care)

[JHB]

APS Study Points to Severe Limits on Boost-Phase Missile Defense
A two-year study challenges many of the assumptions behind the Bush administration's $600 million boost-phase program.

In Physics Today:

Boost-phase missile defense, the strategy of destroying a hostile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) as it climbs into the sky during the first few minutes of flight, is virtually impossible in all but a few limited circumstances, according to a 476-page report released in July by the American Physical Society. Although the report's authors were careful not to make any policy statements or recommendations, they did conclude that "when all factors are considered none of the boost-phase defense concepts studied would be viable for the foreseeable future to defend the nation against even first-generation solid-propellant ICBMs."

Physicists Frederick Lamb of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Daniel Kleppner of MIT, cochairs of the study, said they were careful to deliver an impartial report based entirely on scientific and technical aspects of the boost-phase concept. Lamb said the report, which relied on unclassified material and took some two years to produce, was intended to be both "compelling and sophisticated" in the depth of its analysis and "bulletproof" to scientific challenge.
...
Some Capitol Hill staff members were concerned that delays in getting the report done--APS first envisioned a more limited study that was to be completed about a year ago--had allowed the boost-phase program to become more entrenched in the overall missile defense program. For the 2004 budget, the Bush administration has proposed more than $600 million for boost-phase work as part of a $9 billion request for missile defense funding. Of the $600 million, about $60 million is for research on a high-speed interceptor rocket. The remainder is for continuing work on an airborne laser.

"It's a rock-solid report, but it would have been more useful if it had been released sooner," said Peter Zimmerman, a Capitol Hill veteran and consultant on science issues for the Democrats on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. "Had it come out before last November when the Democrats controlled the Senate, there would have been hearings held." Zimmerman also worried that the report, coming after the 2004 budget was essentially set, would lose some of its impact in the missile defense debate. Comments from the House reflected similar concerns.
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http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-56/iss-9/p26.html

Not that this will deter His Squandership from going full bore for more "missile defense" funding for favored corporate gravy trains. After all, who would know better: a bunch of egghead scientists or "the adults" who spent the first eight months in office making Missile Defense a priority over lesser concerns, like counterterrorism. </sarcasm>

[tabasco]

1. The main feature of Star Wars will work quite well.

The corporate enrichment feature. The republicans don't care about wasting defense money on senseless programs as long as Rockwell, McDonnell Douglas, GE, etc., get the big contracts.
The Bush cabal put General Myers as Chairman of the JCS because he is a Star Wars expert. Never mind that there were much more qualified Army generals for the job. Now we have an AF geek as #1 military officer at a time when we are involved in major ground combat. That's why they trotted out Gen. Peter Pace (Marine)so much at press conferences where the Chairman would normally be present. Myers couldn't intelligently answer questions about the ground operations.

[Capt_Nemo]

2. Neo-Con faith-based Missile Defense isn't required to obey

any stinkin' Physics laws! :evilgrin:

As a physicist myself, the MD proponents' arguments always sounded
as a load of hogwash... anyway, someone is still going to get the
pockets filled thanks to this fraud...

[JHB]

3. bump for afternoon readers

:bounce: