Missile Defense Brigade Activated At Peterson Air Force Base

The Denver Channel ^ | POSTED: 11:41 a.m. MDT October 17, 2003

[RoughDobermann]

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- The Army activated a brigade Thursday charged with command and control of a $22 billion system intended to protect the nation from a ballistic missile attack.

Some of the soldiers assigned to the Midcourse Defense Brigade, which will have at least 60 Colorado National Guard and active-duty soldiers, will work inside Cheyenne Mountain, home to the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD.

If a missile attack was launched, NORAD would notify the brigade, which in turn would provide information on the missiles' location to operators of "kill vehicles" based in Alaska and California.

Kill vehicles are intended to collide with enemy missiles at altitudes of 100 to 250 miles. The nation plans by next fall to have up to 10 of the defensive missiles on alert.

"What happens in Colorado, this is the command and control hub, working with Northern Command and Strategic Command in Omaha. This is the central nerve center for the midcourse defense system," said Lt. Gen. Joseph Cosumano Jr., commander of the Army Space & Missile Defense Command.

The United States has been working to develop a missile defense system since the early 1980s and a ground-based system since the mid-1990s.

Five of eight tests of the new system were successful from October 1999 to December 2002. The last test failed because the "kill vehicle" and its booster rocket didn't separate.

Rick Lehner, spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency, says engineers believe they have corrected the problem.

But a report from the General Accounting Office released last month warned that only two of 10 technologies in the defense system are ready.

John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org, a defense think-tank, said the military has shown that shooting down incoming missiles is "physically possible," not that it can work in a realistic attack scenario.

"If the only thing standing between an American city and a North Korean missile is this (technology), we are in trouble," Pike said.

[ArrogantBustard]

It's a good first step.

[mict42]

There are no ifs ands or buts about it. We must keep working until we get it right. Better a partial than none. Keep working hard guys.

[Poohbah]

Even a partial defense makes the attacker's job more uncertain.

[ArrogantBustard]

Oh, I forgot to add: John Pike squats to pee.

[RKV]

Don't hold back OK? Tell us what you feel. LOL!

[GOP_1900AD]

Wow, we actually agree on something!

[inPhase]

" John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org, a defense think-tank, said the military has shown that shooting down incoming missiles is "physically possible," not that it can work in a realistic attack scenario."

Have to start somewhere and sounds good to me.

Piko should go to SWA to judge realism. As his opinion is certainly not ever technical nor in depth to make science judgements.

His job is to run a crew that pastes articles and military data -- often way off -- onto his website, mixing old with new, working with non working systems. Good antique hunting actually. He is always way behind even the beltway proposals for technology. His brain crashed into an anti SDIO think tank 10 years ago.

Funny thing is these types of dead wood, greasing palms on the beltway like to be called greybeards. They wear hats or many hats, they pontificate (their descriptions).

[chilepepper]

Anyone who thinks that it is just "coincidence" that this occurs a couple of days after the Chinese send up a big, relatively heavy manned capsule doesn't know how to interpret the news...