I support this system, but frankly I am concerned at the, shall we say, underwhelming degree of testing. This after having gone to the political trouble of junking the ABM Treaty. At least get serious about deployment. Don't do it on a shoestring. That could have serious negative reprecussions...if in a real-world situation...it lets us down. It would do lasting damage to the idea of missile defense.
This is the one thing that bothers me. The Administration has slow-walked and prevented the go ahead of serious heavy-duty testing. And the money was there. They just wouldn't spend it. Weird.
By way of contrast, I think it is valuable compare the sheer number of tests we did for the old Sprint "last-ditch" Interceptor which was tested to the "nth" degree...
Full scale testing of the Sprint and the MSR (Missile Site Radar) began in mid-1970, and the first successful intercept of a reentry vehicle by a Sprint occurred in December 1970. A total of about 50 flight tests, the majority being successful, were conducted between this date and December 1973.
