Missile Defense System Intercepts Rocket in Test

NY Times Terrorist Tip Sheet ^ | September 2, 2006 | DAVID S. CLOUD

[neverdem]

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 — In the first full-scale test of the ballistic missile defense system in more than a year, an interceptor rocket launched from California on Friday shot down a target fired from Alaska that officials said in some respects resembled a warhead from a North Korean rocket.

Pentagon officials said that the successful interception, which occurred in space over the Pacific Ocean, showed that the fledgling system, put in place in 2004 by the Bush administration before testing was complete, would have a good chance of stopping a ballistic missile fired at the United States in a limited attack.

“What we did today was a huge step in terms of our systematic approach to continuing to field, continuing to deploy and continuing to develop a missile defense system,” said Lt. Gen. Henry A. Obering III, the director of the Missile Defense Agency, at a news briefing. “This is a validation of the confidence I have in this system.”

But critics said that the test lacked key elements of realism and that its main objective had been to allow the Missile Defense Agency to claim the program was back on track after the interceptors in the last two flight tests, in December 2004 and February 2005, failed to leave their silos.

Even General Obering, after calling the test “as close as we can come to an end-to-end test,” said that the target missile did not deploy decoys or other countermeasures meant to confuse the interceptor from striking the actual warhead.

Decoys involve relatively basic technology that a potential foe like North Korea could be expected to employ, said Stephen Young, a missile defense specialist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, which opposes deployments of missile defenses.

“This test was as scripted as it can be,” he said. “It’s a..."

[neverdem]

North Korea condemns U.S. missile test

[kinoxi]

Good.

[muawiyah]

Punks.

That whole Axis of Evil and Axis of Weasels crowd really gotta' rethink the world now.

They and their friends in the American left tried so hard for so many years to kill SDI and its associated concepts, and now, along with Karl Rove's freedom, they have to face up to the fact that we, the people, are fighting back against them with all our might (and tax dollars).

[facedown]

Nice shot guys.

[soupcon]

Now if we could just persuade our enemies to alert us as to the launch time, launch site and exact trajectory, we'll be fine. And an unencumbered GPS signal would be helpful also.

[mdmathis6]

It's an important proof of concept that could be upscaled if necessary!

[Chena]

The idiots, I mean, "concerned Americans", who have protested against the Missile Defense System must be very angry today. ;)

[syriacus]

Tom Daschle will be saddened.

As Senate Majority Leader in 2001, he held a press conference in which he said that it didn't take a rocket scientist to understand the futility of working toward a missile defense program

Here's my transcription from the video I made of Daschle's press conference

"Whether or not we want to violate the ABM treaty
especially with a concept [NMD program] that we may not know
...or...
that we do know now does not work
is something that also mystifies me."

"I mean
Every aspect of the debate and the consideration
that is given this whole program
is... is troubling to me.
I... I mean... I...there's a disconnect there.
I mean...It just seems common sense....
I mean...there's no brain..
This isn't rocket science here..."


"Yes it IS rocket science...."

"that's the problem..
Hadn't thought about that..
As I just think out loud ....
as I meander through here."

(laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh)

"That's the problem."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/842392/posts

[Carry_Okie]

Now if we could just persuade our enemies to alert us as to the launch time, launch site and exact trajectory, we'll be fine. And an unencumbered GPS signal would be helpful also.

With an attitude like that we wouldn't even have anti-aircraft missiles.

[HardStarboard]

>>>... the Union of Concerned Scientists, which opposes deployments of missile defenses. <<<

I'm concerned for the sanity of the Concerned Scientists.

With Iran, DPRK, China, and now Venzeula, all developing or seeking missles to hit the US the Concerned Scientists are unconcerned?

[syriacus]

Now if we could just persuade our enemies to alert us as to the launch time, launch site and exact trajectory, we'll be fine. And an unencumbered GPS signal would be helpful also.

Be of good cheer. Practice will help. I have an old newspaper around, with the headline..."Vanguard flops." which is a great reminder that success takes time and effort.

The US didn't have much success in early attempts to get into space....but learned as it went along.
FROM SPUTNIK I TO TV-3

With a series of rumbles audible for miles around, the vehicle, having risen about four feet into the air, suddenly sank. Falling against the firing structure, fuel tanks rupturing as it did so, the rocket toppled to the ground on the northeast or ocean side of the structure in a roaring, rolling, ball-shaped volcano of flame.

TV-3 launch, 6 December 1957. Two seconds after launch,
when the vehicle was four feet off the pad, thrust ceased.
TV-3 crumpled on the pad and exploded.

[soupcon]

Well, at some point in time you have to realize what is doable and what isn't.
To build a very successful anti-missle system would literally take decades, and the threat is more immediate than long-term. I'm not saying it's not desirable to want to explore the feasibility of such a system in the long term, but the feasibility might be close to zero percent, science-wise.

[John Carey]

Missile Defense: Many Positive Impacts
On September 1, 2006, the United States successfully demonstrated the ability to shoot down a ballistic missile like those being developed now in North Korea. This culminated a long engineering development effort that changes the nature of strategic thinking for all nations.

By John E. Carey
September 2, 2006

I can remember standing with Generals from the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and hearing them ask, “So, Comrade John, where is this missile shield and how effective might it be?”

This question came at a time when Ronald Reagan’s dreamed-about “Star Wars” was not even off the drawing board. In fact, this question sometimes came even as we in the United States struggling to accomplish very preliminary technological goals on the road toward achieving the kind of “hit to kill” intercept of a ballistic missile demonstrated on September 1, 2006.

Again in the 1990s (although they were no longer Soviet, but now wearing the Russian flag on the sleeves of their uniforms) the question was much the same, “John, are we all wasting our time with the idea that we will strike each other with missiles? The United States has been working on missile defenses for years. You will shoot ours down. So isn’t deterrence dead?”

In this discussion I would always talk about the failed or one-day to fail policy of deterrence; and how any policy that brought us closer, as the people of the earth, to annihilation, must be a bad one indeed.

Strategic or National Missile Defense

Missile defense, that is, the proposition that one side might be able to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles sent to destroy its people and resources, has been “real” since President Ronald Reagan made his famous missile defense speech in 1983.

Once President Reagan announced from the Oval Office, “I’ve reached a decision which offers a new hope for our children in the 21st century,” no nation could afford to totally ignore, totally overlook two facts:

First: Any nuclear armed missile attack upon the United States means a response of annihilation upon the attacker (this, after all, is the basis of deterrence); and

Second: A missile attack on the United States might, and I repeat might, be a waste of time anyway because the missile sent toward the United States could be shot down by the United States before it could do any harm.

So, once the United States embarked upon a new policy, a policy other than deterrence, or a policy that added some defensive possibilities to deterrence, other nations were forced to consider this question: “Is our expenditure of wealth, technology and other resources, dedicated to building such a complex and costly system to include nuclear bombs, reentry vehicles, multi-stage rockets, esoteric guidance systems, rocket fuels, radras, computers, targeting schemes and all sorts of other supporting technologies, just a waste of our precious national resources?”

This is not to say that, despite the costs and the chance that all the investment might be for naught, nations would quickly throw off any nuclear or ballistic missile ambitions and return to making farm machinery. India and Pakistan both successfully pursued ballistic missile and nuclear weapon development. North Korea has been on the quest for a decade or more. And Iran had been on a similar course, often teamed with North Korean engineers, technologies and tools.

But the lingering thought, in the minds of many national leaders, has to be this: “Have we now embarked upon a system whose time is passing us by? Are we developing a ‘Cold War’ relic system that the United States considers as passé? Couldn't we be using our prized engineers and precious national resources in a more productive way?”

Theater Ballistic Missile Defenses Are Really Real

Theater ballistic missiles defense systems, or systems that can shoot down medium range ballistic missiles, say a SCUD missile fired from Iran to Iraq, have been in development for a long time.

PATRIOT, the U.S. Army’s premier missile defense system, is well known and respected throughout the world. PATRIOT missiles are, perhaps, the only missiles with a real combat record. PATRIOTS changed the matrix in Operation Desert Storm in 1991 when Saddam Hussein used his SCUDs against Israel and Saudi Arabia and threatened the entire region.

The Army’s Theater High Altitude Area Defense or THAAD system, is also coming of age. THAAD will “overlay” PATRIOT by giving kill opportunities on a ballistic missile even before the engagement envelop of PATRIOT is reached.

The United States Navy also has ballistic missile defense capability aboard some of its AEGIS guided missile cruisers and destroyers. These systems are mobile, flexible and often “location unknown” to an aggressor. These ships also have a full package of their own retaliatory weapons such as Tomahawk cruise missiles.

In Israel, ARROW ballistic missile defense systems are on line and PATRIOTs are at the ready in Taiwan, South Korea and elsewhere. Japan's AEGIS guided missile destroyers, equipped with ballistic missile detection and tracking capabilities, are already able to augment U.S. sensors and cueing systems ashore and at sea. Theater ballistic missile defense is quickly evolving into an integrated, international web.

Long-Term U.S. Development

The United States, and only the United States, has, as an ambition, a goal of developing an integrated, multi-kill opportunity, layered, ballistic missile defense capability able to defend the United States, deployed U.S. forces, our allies and our friends. No other nation has the technological know-how or the wealth and assets required to even take a dream like that from fantasy to fact.

And the United States is welcoming the participation of allies and friends.

A proposal is on the table to provide missile defense sensors and weapons for European defense, with the governments of Poland and the Czech Republic already participating in discussions, studies and analyses.

Strategic or national missile defense systems to defend the United States from a limited strike from a nation like North Korea are on-line now, primarily in Alaska and California, to provide an effective if limited defense.

The successful intercept of a simulated North Korean ballistic missile reentry vehicle high over the Pacific Ocean on September 1, 2006, may prove a monumental step forward on the road to developing, testing, demonstrating and deploying the technology and systems of Ronald Reagan’s ballistic missile defense vision.

On September 1, 2006, American missile defense engineers cheered as one target was destroyed by a ballistic missile defense interceptor, just as American engineers cheered in July 1969 when a small spacecraft landed on the moon and mankind first set foot upon another place, another planet, another frontier.

However basic, however unproven, however incomplete, however costly, American, and before long an integrated international system of ballistic missile defenses are making their way gradually from hot spots around the globe to form a web of tighter and tighter defensive reliance.

On September 1, 2006, American missile defense development may indeed have set foot upon another place, another planet, another frontier.

Mr. Carey began a career in missile defense systems in the United States Navy in 1976. He served in President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).

[Carry_Okie]

To build a very successful anti-missle system would literally take decades,

Then they're well on their way because decades is how long they've been working on it.

and the threat is more immediate than long-term.

It's enough to make the North Koreans think about it right now.

I'm not saying it's not desirable to want to explore the feasibility of such a system in the long term, but the feasibility might be close to zero percent, science-wise.

Early anti-aircraft missile systems had a rotten record at first. It took BUILDING them to get the kinks out. We know that the problem of missile defense is in sensors, guidance, and software, all of which are upgradable add-ons to an existing system, not rocket propulsion. So think of what we're building now as an upgradable platform technology. That it kills an incoming warhead at all is great progress, and not that far from an operational system with perhaps a low initial yield. That's how it goes in the real world.

[John Carey]

The U.S. missile defense system that shot down an incoming dummy warhead on Friday achieved terrific success. The hit to kill intercept occurred 140 mile above the earth. Both the target, a simulated North Korean Taepo-dong reentry vehicle, and the “friendly” or defensive kill vehicle were traveling at between 15,000 and 18,000 miles per hour.

The kill vehicle traveled some 1,400 miles after it was ejected from its rocket “bus” that carried it into space.

It was the first time a dummy North Korean missile was intercepted. It is also the sixth successful intercept since 1999, said officials from the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency.

John E. Carey

http://peace-and-freedom.blogspot.com/

[Chena]

Concerned scientists are known to have their head, necks and shoulders buried deeply in the sands of time.

[Laserman]

Being ignorant of the science is no excuse for denigrating it. Actually, there is a vry high probability that the currently planned missile defense system will work well against threats from the likes of North Korea and Iran. But as always happens, they will continue to upgrade their systems with decoys and such, and we will have to continue to find ways to counter their efforts.

Historically, we have always been able to stay ahead of our adversaries. I see no reason to think we won't do so this time too.

[Laserman]

I was thinking they had their heads buried somewhere else than in the sand- say up their as%$#$.

[Chena]

I don't know if you are THEE John Carey, but the analysis you posted, written by John E. Carey, is very much appreciated. I, for one, understand how critical it is for the U.S. to develop and perfect a tried-and-true missile defense system. President Reagan, God rest his soul, knew it, and I believed him, and still do.

BTW, if you are truly Mr. John E. Carey, I'm honored to have "met" you.

[Chena]

Sand and asses tend to converge at times. ;)