Free Republic

The House Armed Services Committee today added $362 million to the Obama administration’s 2011 defense authorization bill for missile defense, including $50 million for further tests of Boeing’s Airborne Laser, a program the Obama administration had sought to wind down. “I am particularly pleased that the Mark increases funding for directed energy research. It was clear that the budget request was not sufficient to support further flight testing using the Airborne Laser Test Bed as well as mature innovative directed energy technologies,” Rep. Michael R. Turner R-Ohio, top Republican on the Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, said in a...

A new missile was installed in a silo at Fort Greely last month, the 22nd interceptor at the Missile Defense Agency site outside Delta Junction. Ralph Scott, the spokesman for Alaska Missile Defense, said the latest installation is part of an effort to steadily add missiles at the site. The Defense Department has plans to install 26 missiles at Fort Greely, with the process to be completed by October. Fort Greely is one of two sites in the U.S. with deployed interceptor missiles, according to the Missile Defense Agency Web site, joining three missiles at Vandenberg Air Force Base in...