Test fails for airborne laser designed to shoot down missiles

[bemildred]

A Boeing 747 jumbo jet outfitted with a massive laser gun failed to knock out a dummy missile over the Pacific Ocean, marking the second consecutive setback for a key missile defense program that is years behind schedule and plagued with cost overruns.

The heavily modified 747, dubbed Airborne Laser Test Bed, was unable to fire the laser gun because its onboard sensors could not accurately track the missile, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said. It was the second time in as many months in which the laser failed to hit the target.

The latest glitch came at a crucial time for the program, which has been under intense scrutiny from Congress looking to cut Pentagon spending on new weapons. The Pentagon quietly conducted the test late Wednesday night over a military test range near Point Mugu.

"In this budget environment, any setback to a controversial weapon system has the potential to be fatal," said Loren Thompson, a military policy analyst for the Lexington Institute, a think tank in Arlington, Va. The airborne laser "is a revolutionary weapon system … but the government is out of money and it has taken an awful long time to develop."

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-airborne-laser-20101023,0,6448960.story

[ensho]

1. and the test, etc. cost us taxpayers enormous amounts of money

the whole program needs to be cut. period.

[leveymg]

2. They've been working on this thing since '82, and it still doesn't work $10B later. Enough.

It likely will never work in cloud or rain, anyway, and there are several ways to defeat it - reflective finish on missiles (cheap), chaff (cheap), spin (not expensive), anti-aircraft counter weapons (expensive), or a plasma field deflector shield (real expensive).

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. Most of the people who worked on that piece of shit have already been laid off

Why are they waisting any more money on it?