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Washington may relocate the controversial missile defense system planned for Eastern Europe to the Balkans, Turkey or Israel, a Polish newspaper reports. The U.S. plan included 10 long-range interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic. That plan will almost certainly be scrapped, Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza reports. Washington is now looking for alternative locations including in the Balkans, Israel and Turkey, the daily says, citing U.S. administration officials and lobbyists based in Washington. "The signals that the generals in the Pentagon are sending are absolutely clear: as far as missile defense is concerned, the current...

Key Findings --America’s support for a Missile Defense system continues at an extremely high level (88%), a 2 percentage point increase from 2008 and a 5 percentage point increase from 2007. More than 3 out of 4 adults, 77%, feel “strongly” about their support, also a 2 percentage point increase from 2008 and an 8 percentage point increase from 2007. Currently, support ranges from 82% in the West and 83% in the Northeast to 91% in the South and 94% in the North Central region of the U.S. Men and women are at the identical 88% support level. Republican support...

Boeing, working with industry teammates and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA), has completed construction of a second interceptor test silo for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system at Vandenberg Air Force Base. The new underground silo provides additional test capability for the United States' only defense against long-range ballistic missile threats. "Having this second test silo to launch interceptors will allow us to test upgrades to the GMD system more quickly, improving the MDA's ability to stay ahead of evolving threats," said Norm Tew, Boeing vice president and GMD program director. "We are proud to deliver this additional capability...

Strategic Defense: The Air Force's airborne laser program passes yet another test, proving "unproven" missile defense once again. The question is not whether we can get it to work, but whether we can afford not to.The news that Iran has enough nuclear material to build a nuclear weapon in relatively short order and is well along on missiles to deliver its nukes has put a sense of urgency on the proposed missile defense system slated for Poland and the Czech Republic. Fortunately, another answer to the threat posed by rogue regimes like Iran and North Korea has just passed a...

SDI: If you missed the news, which isn't hard given how poorly these things are covered, our "unproven" missile defense proved itself again last week, when a U.S. warship downed a simulated North Korean missile in flight.The test, conducted in Hawaiian waters by the Navy and the Department of Defense's Missile Defense Agency (MDA), was the 23rd firing by ships equipped with the Aegis ballistic missile defense system. It was the 19th success, including the shoot-down of a dead U.S. spy satellite last year. A short-range ballistic missile simulating a missile like North Korea's Nodongs or Scuds was fired from...

EDWARDS AFB, CA - The Boeing Company and the US Missile Defense Agency successfully completed the Airborne Laser's (ABL) first in-flight test against an instrumented target missile, achieving a historic milestone.During the test, the modified Boeing 747-400F used its infrared sensors to find a target missile launched from San Nicolas Island, Calif. The battle management system aboard ABL issued engagement and target location instructions to the beam control/fire control system, which acquired the target and fired its two solid-state illuminator lasers to track the target and measure atmospheric conditions.ABL then fired a surrogate high-energy laser at the target, simulating a...

An advanced component of the U.S. missile defense system has been cleared for flight testing beginning next year. The Raytheon Co., which has headquarters in Waltham, Mass., had design work carried out at the company's Missile System facilities in Tucson. The Standard Missile-3 Block IB program recently completed a critical design review, which will allow for flight tests in 2010 with eventual deployment in Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense systems by the U.S. Department of Defense's Missile Defense Agency, the company said in a release. "SM-3 Block IB is designed to outpace the evolving ballistic missile threats," Taylor W. Lawrence, Raytheon...

Obama will need to ready himself for demands from friends and threats from enemies. China released a report, timed to coincide with the new President taking office, that ‘advises’ the US that weapon sales to Taiwan harm the relationship between China and the US. Given that China is sitting on over a $ trillion of US Treasury Bonds (more than the report below cites according to economists in the know), you can be sure that Washington takes notes of disapproval from China very seriously. The following report is from Associated Press: China made a rare appeal for cooperation between its...

U.S. military planners are working on how to deal with another round of major cutbacks, in terms of budgets and manpower. This is because one of the major candidates for Commander-in-Chief (president of the United States), Barak Obama, has a video in circulation, of a short speech he gave earlier this year, about how he planned on handling the Department of Defense. His major points were; "I'm the only major candidate who opposed this war from the beginning; and as president, I will end it. "Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut...

A missile has hit an errant spy satellite about 140 miles above Earth, a U.S. official says Breaking

<p>A HIT! A missile launched from a U.S. Navy ship in the Pacific hit the decaying U.S. spy satellite it was targeting 130 miles above Earth's surface..... Developing...</p>

REDZIKOWO, Poland - Among the people living around this disused Polish air base, there is little enthusiasm for the missile interceptor station likely to be built here as part of a U.S. missile defense system. Poland's new government is sounding increasingly skeptical about the plan, arguing that it won't boost Polish security, and that sentiment is echoed throughout this farming region near the Baltic Sea coast. The main fear is that the area will become a target for retaliation by Russia, which vigorously opposes President Bush's plan. "If they build the missile defense base here, it'll be a magnet and...

NEW DELHI (AFP) — India announced a final successful test of the surface-to-air Akash missile before starting mass production under an ambitious plan to build a national missile defence shield. The missile blasted off from the Chandipur-on-Sea testing site, 200 kilometres (125 miles) northeast of Orissa state capital Bhubaneswar and hit an unmanned flying target, defence ministry spokesman Sitanshu Kar told AFP. "The Akash missile has successfully hit the bull's eye for the fifth time in a row in the past 10 days and the last trial successfully took place today," he said. The 700-kilogram (1,540-pound) Akash, meaning "sky" in...

Everyone who goes to medical school hears this story at some point.Graduation day comes and the new doctors assemble to get their diplomas. The dean gazes out and announces sheepishly: "I'm sorry to tell you that half of what we taught you is wrong. The problem is, we don't know which half."Nowhere has this been more evident than in genetics.The rules of inheritance, and hints of the biological mechanisms behind them, were first elucidated by Gregor Mendel in the 1860s. Over the ensuing 130 years, scientists gained insight at a molecular level into how biological information is recorded, preserved, used...

Russia's President Vladimir Putin drew a parallel on Friday between U.S. plans for a missile shield in Europe and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, widely regarded as the closest the world came to nuclear war. "I would remind you how relations were developing in an analogous situation in the middle of the 1960s," he said when asked at a news conference about Washington's plans to station elements of a missile defense shield in eastern Europe.

Japanese Police Raid Naval Centre Over Aegis Data Leak by Staff Writers Tokyo (AFP) May 19, 2007 Japanese police and naval officials raided a training centre for seamen Saturday in connection with the leaking of secret information on the US-developed high-tech Aegis combat system. Investigators searched the facility in Hiroshima prefecture, where sailors are put through specialised training in gunnery and torpedo operations. Earlier this year it emerged that authorities had questioned a 33-year-old petty officer for allegedly obtaining the confidential data on the Aegis system without authorisation. The case has unfolded since the officer's Chinese wife was arrested in...

MISSILE DEFENSE Missile Defense Funding Reaches Compromise Point by Martin Sieff UPI Senior News Analyst Washington (UPI) May 14, 2007 Was last week's congressional compromise on U.S. ballistic missile defense funding a disastrous defeat for the program, or was it a resounding victory for ensuring the survival and continued funding of key programs? Was it a bitter, short-sighted bipartisan fight of the kind that gives Congress a bad name? Or was it a triumph for constructive bipartisanship that forged a new and likely lasting consensus for the visionary program between Republicans and Democrats? On one hand, the program slashed overall...

Serious Dollars for AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense Modifications Posted 01-Mar-2007 11:08 Related stories: ABM, Americas - USA, Contracts - Awards, IT - Software & Integration, Lockheed Martin, Missiles - Surface-Air, Protective Systems - Naval, Radars, Surface Ships - Combat Also on this day: 01-Mar-2007 » AEGIS-BMD: CG-70launches SM-3(click to view full) Feb 28/07: Lockheed Martin Maritime Sensors and Systems in Moorestown, NJ received a $979.2 million cost-plus-award-fee contract modification to continue design, test, and deliver the AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Block 2006/2008 (Consolidated) Weapon System capability (BMD Baseline 4.0.1). Updates will include an improved signal processor, and continue...

PRAGUE, Czech Republic -- U.S. plans to extend its ''star wars'' missile-defense program to Europe, which once dismissed the technology as unproven and unneeded, are gaining acceptance among governments here. Despite Russia's mounting opposition, the Czech Republic, Poland, and -- as of Friday -- Britain have all expressed serious interest in hosting parts of the shield. Other countries traditionally cool to the idea have been notably quiet. The trigger: concern about a nuclear Iran. ''This is all a result of Iran,'' says Tim Williams, a European security analyst. ''Governments see that Iranian missiles can hit Europe, and suddenly they are...

Japan plans to speed up anti-missile system Financial Times 10/26/2006 , Author: Michiyo Nakamoto Japan will bring forward its programme for setting up a missile defence system following heightened tensions in the region caused by North Korea's nuclear test, the Japanese defence minister said yesterday. "Japan does not have the power to defend itself against a missile attack," Fumio Kyuma, the new head of Japan's Defence Agency, said yesterday. "We should try to bring forward the timing (of missile defence deployment)," he said. Mr Kyuma also said the JDA could be upgraded to a ministry as early as January, highlighting...