Posted on 05/31/2017 7:17:48 AM PDT by rktman
In a critical milestone for the program to provide a missile defense umbrella over the U.S. homeland, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency on Tuesday reported the first successful interception and destruction in flight of a target with ICBM characteristics.
A ground-based interceptor launched from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California collided with and destroyed an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)-class projectile that had been launched from at atoll in the Marshall Islands, more than 4,500 miles away, the MDA reported.
Tuesdays was the 18th text since October 1999, and the tenth to have been declared successful. Three of the eight failures were ascribed to the kill vehicle failing to separate from the booster rocket, while another three also related to kill vehicle performance.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
Is it bad that I read the headline as “direct collusion” instead of collusion?
North Korea will never be able to afford a flood of missiles. Do they really want to risk launching two or even ten missiles at the USA, knowing that between their failures and our defenses they might score no hits at all?
Read it again. It’s COLLISION!
Read it again. It’s COLLISION!
The Patriot missile system would typically miss more than hit its targets, but it was better than nothing. The only reason Obama cancelled its deployment in Europe is because he thought it was “sour relations with Russia”. A purely defensive missile was seen as being too aggressive.
How many missiles does North Korea have to fire to get a 99% probability of hitting Guam? If all they have to worry about is the reliability of their rockets they might need to fire say 2 or 3 of their scarce missiles. If every missile they fire has a 50% chance of being shot down, how many do they now need to fire? My poor statistics say 15 to 20.
It promotes deterrence by making the job of the attack planner much more difficult even when it is not close to perfect.
A message test. We have a lot of enemies. This will have to get by the infantile stage.
Imagine how far,we’d be if they hadn’t slashed funding for much of SDI. I was able to to play a small role back in the 80s and even early 90s. And I would leave my job tomorrow to go back to it if they’re funding and hiring. In a New York second..
“10 for 18 ain’t quite gonna cut it guys. “
They are One for One on ballistic missile interceptions.
New York? Lol!
“It promotes deterrence by making the job of the attack planner much more difficult even when it is not close to perfect.”
How many ‘defense’ missiles are available to protect Guam?
How would you identify and prioritize the NK nuclear vs. conventional warheads?
Was that a photoshop, or “white knuckles below” time?
You learn more from failures than you do from successes.
Consider: for decades, America's founding idea of freedom for individuals in the society and limitation on individuals in positions of power in government have been challenged by so-called "progressive" notions of a reversal of that Constitutional formula for liberty.
A great "battle of ideas" has been occurring, sometimes unnoticed by many, for decades!!
Now is the time to launch a massive "defense umbrella" of rediscovery of the ideas of liberty to expose and destroy the Progressive ideas which threaten to extinguish the beacon of liberty which has brought millions of oppressed persons to America for hundreds of years.
This is the moment! Now is the time!
Thomas Jefferson, only days before his death on July 4, 1826, explaining his inability to attend a gathering to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Declaration, wrote to Roger Weightman:
" I should, indeed, with peculiar delight, have met and exchanged there congratulations personally with the small band, the remnant of that host of worthies, who joined with us on that day, in the bold and doubtful election we were to make for our country, between submission or the sword; and to have enjoyed with them the consolatory fact, that our fellow citizens, after half a century of experience and prosperity, continue to approve the choice we made. may it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all) the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings & security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. the general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view. the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god. These are grounds of hope for others. for ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them."(Jefferson, June 24, 1826, to Roger Weightman, End of Jefferson quotation)
One would think I should have learned a lot by now. Lol!
Years ago there was a proposal to arm ICBMs with kinetic kill weapons, tungsten arts that wouldlam into their targets with meteorite like velocities. This would seem to be the ideal weapon the use in retaliation for any North Korean attack on the US
A lesson learned during WW2 when they realized that 'adding armor to the sides of airplanes because so many of the ones that returned to base were all shot up' wasn't the right approach. They figured out that if they returned to base at all, the number of holes in the sides wasn't the problem - so they reasoned that armoring the engines would increase survivability.
Very real, and very hazardous for the crew below. This problem, caused by the ignition shock near the ocean surface was so serious that the program was stopped until an engineering task team could resolve it.
Lots of Lockheed people were involved in this and in a few more launches a major solution was developed.
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