Posted on 12/16/2010 11:19:31 AM PST by FromLori
VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- An interceptor missile launched from California on Wednesday failed to hit a target fired from a Pacific atoll 4,000 miles away during a test of an anti-ballistic missile defense system, the Air Force announced.
The missile, called a ground-based interceptor, lifted off from coastal Vandenberg Air Force Base at 12:03 a.m. and released a device called an Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle, or EKV, that was to plow into a target missile fired from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
The interceptor's sensors worked and the EKV was deployed, but it missed, according to a statement from Rick Lehner, a spokesman for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
It’s a difficult task. I’d also like to point out that they do real-world testing because they don’t know if the technology will really work in the real-world: sometimes it needs to be tweaked. This is one of those times. No big deal.
So did the sub-launched one off the coast a few weeks back...
Good point I guess I’ve been reading too much about N. Korea lately.
It might be a big deal politically, though. Congress has been looking at this system as something worth canceling.
“So did the sub-launched one off the coast a few weeks back...”
There were TWO. The camera guy said the one he filmed was just like the one he saw the day before, but did not film.
Don't think they would cancel it if it fails. If it SUCCEEDS, THEN they might cancel it...
doesn’t matter since they can fire missles from 35 miles of our coast anyways and we don’t know they are there....
IIRC, START will do away with missle defense(for us) any way.
another brilliant Obungler idea.
“No big deal.”
One of 0bama’s campaign promises was to stop development of “unproven missile defense systems”.
I think we need this capability, but if The Man decides it’s “unproven” he can cut it. Even if it was Jeff Baxter’s idea.
We need beam weapons.
Damn it.
We’re running out of time.
Sometimes they work sometimes they don’t, I’ll take that chance over getting nuked though. At least there is something to try. I hope they keep working on it and Obama doesn’t try to kill it.
Well, Active Sonar is bad for whales. We know who Obama backs in that fight.
So if half the missiles miss, that means you need more than 2 launches at each inbound to insure successful interception. Lets call it five launches to be safe. That’s easy - you just install 5X number of launchers for each suspected inbound. If we discount Russia (MAD) then for china we need about 120 interceptor launchers to cover ground and sea based missiles.
That should easily cover the stray N Korean or Iranian launch. Still cheaper than the effect of one nuke hitting any American city. What’s the problem?
Failures are rare but they do happen. That said they could do this back in the mid 60s according to my dad who worked at the missle base on the Marshall Islands at the time. He didn’t go into detail.
No, for NK & Iran we need the courage to whack their threats pre-emptively.
There were TWO. The camera guy said the one he filmed was just like the one he saw the day before, but did not film.
THREE - One was spotted at the exact same time on the following day...:^)
A NK launch would be somewhat limited, since they don’t have a large number of the type of missile that could reach US territory. In a case like that, I would expect at least two interceptors would be launched against the inbound target. Also, if tensions built up beforehand, I would hope that the test aircraft with the high powered laser would be deployed also to help stop an inbound warhead. After that, let a Trident empty it’s tubes on North Korea!
But we have obama so that’s not going to happen.
Three, wow. I wonder if someone has been watching for more?
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