Posted on 09/17/2004 8:27:27 AM PDT by Jet Jaguar
WASHINGTON--A third interceptor in the national missile defense system went into a silo at Fort Greely on Wednesday, according to the Missile Defense Agency.
The first interceptor was put in the ground in July. The agency installed a second Sept. 4 without an announcement.
Wednesday's installation gets the agency halfway to its goal of six interceptors for the year. The final three will be in the ground by mid-October, according to MDA spokesman Rick Lehner.
Meanwhile, the agency has delayed a test involving a target missile to be launched from the state-owned site on Kodiak Island. The launch, which already had been delayed, is now planned for late November or early December, Lehner said.
Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said Thursday he understood that computer software in the interceptor booster to be used in the test had problems. The booster is now at a launch pad on the Kwajalein Atoll in the far western Pacific Ocean. The interceptor will have to be shipped back to Huntsville, Ala., Stevens said.
Stevens said he wasn't concerned by the delay. The interceptor booster is of a different sort than those being installed at Fort Greely.
Orbital Sciences built the interceptor boosters used at Greely. They will not be launched as part of the ongoing testing because of concerns about debris falling on land.
The three interceptors at Greely are not yet ready to fire in an emergency, though, Lehner said.
"They're not operational," he said. "That's going to be for Strategic Command and Northern Command to decide when they're ready to go."
President Bush's administration has pledged to have a rudimentary missile defense system working by the end of the year.
Sen. John Kerry, Bush's Democratic opponent in the Nov. 2 election, opposes fielding the system at this point, saying it should be more thoroughly tested.
In the meantime, he has called for cuts in the MDA's budget for the ground-based midcourse system, in which the Greely interceptors are the main component.
Under current plans, another 10 interceptors will be installed at Fort Greely next year, bringing the total there to 16.
Four interceptors also will be located at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California by early next year, Lehner said.
After that, the MDA's plans call for another 10 interceptors at Fort Greely on an unspecified schedule and then another 10 elsewhere in the country or overseas, Lehner said. That would bring the total to 40 interceptors.
Washington, D.C., reporter Sam Bishop can be reached at sbishop@newsminer.com or (202) 662-8721.
Just remember that in the 80's and 90's democrats said Star Wars would never work.
ping
While common wisdom will be that it is the Middle East that is W's legacy, implementing a nuclear shield will be the longest lasting one.
We have a huge technology lead and if we fail to use it, we are either fools or democrats.
Libs just can't stand it when the U.S. defends itself -- the more we're vulnerable, the happier they are.
Libs never care if domestic programs "work." In fact, the more wasterful the programs are, the better. But defense programs had better be 100% perfect (an unobtainable goal) before they get any support from the left.
Even if there is a hypothetical 10% chance that any such system would work, we'd be fools not to implement it. I would rather have 10% than 0%. North Korea was blowing up a dam? And it caused a two mile radius mushroom cloud? Yeh, right.
Right100
"Regan's legacy is our safety" ping
That Chick calls in on the Howard Stern Show Right?
I hope these are set up at more sites in the future.
That is in the works.
I'm glad of that. I fear that N. Korea or some future enemy might launch a missle at us.
PYONGYANG, North Korea (CNN, July 2000) -- A day after surprising analysts by saying North Korea was willing to abandon its missile program, Russian President Vladimir Putin left North Korea for the G8 summit in Japan.
Putin's comment -- that North Korea would end its missile program if other nations provided it with rocket technology for space exploration -- was expected to receive attention during the G8 summit.
Putin, the first Russian leader to visit North Korea, offered few details about how a program of shared technology would work, or who would finance it. He also told reporters that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il had assured him that North Korea's missile program was only used for peaceful purposes.
"The North Korean government is prepared to use exclusively the rocket technology of other nations if they provide such an opportunity for the peaceful exploration of space," Putin said.
Even more idiotically, they kept insisting that if it wasn't 100% effective it was not worth pursuing.
It has aleady happened. See this.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/856644/posts
It burned up, but it was close. They have made improvements in their programs and AK, HI are easy and a long shot, California.
And see this.
You be the judge.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=North+Korean+Missile+Warhead+Found+in+Alaska
They just said that in order to obfuscate their anti-American feelings.
Redundancy Alert!
Thank You for this information! I didn't know this. I knew they fired one over Japan a few years ago that fell apart. The public should have been told more about this. Leave it to the MSM to not report the real stories.
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