Excerpt:
Missile defense system in Alaska deployed despite lack of testing
11/4/04
BY MICHAEL CABBAGE
The Orlando Sentinel
FORT GREELY, Alaska - (KRT) - Six white domes that open like clamshells dot a rocky, fenced-off field here in the heart of the Alaskan wilderness.
Beneath them, 80-foot-deep silos hold missiles designed to destroy enemy warheads in mid-flight. They represent the first step of a $25.3 billion shield against long-range ballistic missiles and fulfillment of a 2002 pledge by President Bush to field such a defense by the end of 2004.
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/nation/10097808.htm
Excerpt:
Airborne Laser faces `do-or-die' tests
BY MICHAEL CABBAGE
11/04/04
The Orlando Sentinel
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. - (KRT) - Near the remote desert airfield where test pilot Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier, engineers are working on a high-tech missile-defense system that could make Yeager's accomplishment look modest in comparison.
A gleaming new 747 jumbo jet sits inside a cramped hangar, the revolving turret on its nose a clear sign the plane will not be hauling tourists on long-distance flights. Instead, dozens of technicians are outfitting it with a sophisticated array of lasers designed to shoot down ballistic missiles from hundreds of miles away shortly after they lift off.
Program managers insist the Airborne Laser, or ABL, "will be as revolutionary to warfare as the advent of the atomic bomb" on the day it works. A growing number of critics argue that day will never come.
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/nation/10097825.htm