Posted on 12/03/2001 9:49:33 PM PST by TD911
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States military on Monday successfully carried out a twice-delayed test shoot-down of a missile warhead over the Pacific Ocean, advancing missile defense plans opposed by Moscow and Beijing.
``The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) announced today (Monday) that it has successfully completed a test involving a planned intercept of an intercontinental ballistic missile target,'' the Defense Department said in a statement.
In the test, a ``kill vehicle'' projectile fired from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific intercepted and destroyed the dummy warhead launched on a Minuteman-2 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California about 4,800 miles away.
The test was postponed on Saturday and Sunday nights because of bad weather.
The United States had failed in two of four previous attempts to shoot down ``a bullet with a bullet'' in space over the Pacific. Both Russia and China oppose U.S. plans to develop a missile shield, saying it would violate the 1972 anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty and could trigger a new arms race.
The test is part of the Bush administration's goal of building a limited shield to protect against ballistic missiles from ``rogue'' nations such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq.
Just so you are aware, the reason for postponement during bad weather is for instrumentation and publicity photographs, not because the system will not work. The intercept was in outer space, no weather there, and the missiles fly quickly through ground weather. Just so you know.
They don't even try to hide it anymore. We get China's opinion, we get Russia's opinion, but the reporter didn't think to call anybody from the Bush administration to get their opinion on this whopping technical achievement. I'm surprised they didn't slip in an opinion by a former Clinton administration hack. I guess he had to save something for tomorrow's papers.
Huh? The instrumentation radars that record the details of the exo-atmospheric hit certainly will perform better when the weather's good, but I don't think publicity photos of a night launch in Kwaj would be a consideration. With the survival of the BMD program and a (well deserved) half billion dollar bonus on the line... getting a good photo for the press release was surely the last of among about 5000 things to be considered.
During WWII, Von Braun and his team developing the V2 pulled together an edited film showing only their successful test launches (about ten percent or less of the total trials) for Hitler and the German General Staff. It was the only way they could expect to get continued funding. I suppose someone like you would have said the idea of an ICBM would never work since all of the early testing and development was so rarely successful. With your obvious grasp of science, technology, and weapons development you might just qualify for a seat on Congress.
They were given the wrong documents to leak to NBC.
Big Ditto here!
Ever heard of the "Scientific Method?" One tenet is that you only change one variable at a time. The successive tests alter various control variables, and see if the theorized model matches the results. That's why you do tests.
If it had been bad weather, and "it didn't work" exactly what would you have learned??? Was it the weather, or the variables you had changed??? BTW, this IS rocket science, folks!!
The tests were postponed due to weather, but still the insidious headline implying some fundamental problem with the technology.
I know the system is expected to work in bad weather when complete, but it's only in the testing phase when engineers would expect ideal conditions.
Way to go NMD Team!!!
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Only the ChiComs and the enemies of America don't want us to have successful missile defense team.
They are no different that Je$$e and $harpton who want to take away the guns of the good people in the Goron inner cities. They hate it when people are able to defend themselves.
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Yes, they do. They might as well say unnamed critic is on their own staff. They go out of their way to dig up these critics who have less to say with each test.
AP!! Read this!
The test and development of these systems is far more important than your unnamed critic. Report on the big news. Leave the whining to us.
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