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Remember those "Star Wars" critics?

Cal

Well-known member
http://www.examiner.com/a-168837~Editorial__Where_are__Star_Wars__critics_now_.html

Where are ‘Star Wars’ critics now?

The Washington DC Examiner Newspaper, The Examiner
Jul 6, 2006 5:00 AM (4 days ago)


WASHINGTON - North Korea’s threatening spate of missile launches — including an unsuccessful try with an advanced version of its Taepodong 2 Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile that is capable of hitting the United States — has sparked a cacophony of talk from leaders and foreign policy experts around the world.


As they debate and discuss various options at the United Nations and in capitals around the globe, the rudimentary U.S. missile defense system is poised to shoot down anything launched from North Korea that threatens the American homeland or the critical interests of our regional allies like Japan and Australia.

Noticeably absent are the voices of those who, since President Reagan first proposed such a system in 1984, have fought development and deployment of the missile defense system the U.S. must now depend upon in dealing with North Korea. These folks have claimed over and over that the system they derisively call “Star Wars” can’t possibly work, would be too expensive, would incite a new world arms race, etc., etc. Names that come to mind in this regard include senators like Joe Biden, D-Del., Jack Reed, D-R.I., Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Carl Levin, D-Mich., and the Clinton-Gore administration that delayed and dilly-dallied with work on missile defense for most of the ’90s.

It is important that the American people understand two aspects of the current crisis as it relates to missile defense. First, the system President Bush recently ordered advanced from its testing stage to operational status when the North Koreans began preparing the Taepodong 2 launch is extremely rudimentary because it is still being developed. The system now includes only 11 ground-based launch sites in Alaska and California capable of knocking out long-range missiles like the Taepodong 2, and four Aegis-class Navy destroyers equipped with missile defense battle management systems and Standard-3 missiles capable of hitting medium range threats.

Second, they will no doubt protest to high heaven, but “Star Wars” critics must bear the major burden of responsibility for the delays and setbacks that have prevented the missile defense system from becoming fully operational long before the present crisis with North Korea. There have been technological problems, especially in the very early stages, but those were temporary and subject to American technological prowess.

Far more serious have been the setbacks engineered by the critics — like then-Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell’s maneuvers to kill the first Bush administration’s Global Protection Against Limited Strikes (G-PALS) plan, the Clinton-Gore gutting of the Strategic Defense Initiative office in 1993 and the delaying tactics used by Senate Democrats in the first years of this decade to reduce the current program’s funding.

It is a sobering thought to wonder how much more secure the United States and its allies would be today in the face of madness like North Korea’s launches if instead of a limited defense still in development we could depend upon the robust protection first proposed
 

Econ101

Well-known member
There has been a lot, lot of money spent on "star wars" without verifiable tests as to its efficacy.

There has been a question as to its attainability from a technological standpoint and despite the money that has been spent, there are no results.

This is not the fault of critics of "star wars" it is the reality of the situation.

war stories: Military analysis.
Bush's Latest Missile-Defense Folly
Why spend billions on a system that might never work?
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Friday, March 12, 2004, at 5:48 PM ET

Forces are finally converging for a genuine debate on President Bush's missile-defense program. The Republican-controlled Congress is looking for ways to cut $9 billion from the military budget (which, at $420 billion, is getting unmanageable even for hawkish tastes). It's becoming painfully clear that rogues and terrorists are more likely to attack us with planes and trains than with nuclear missiles. And a recent series of technical studies—bolstered on Thursday by a high-profile Senate hearing—has dramatized just how difficult, if not impossible, this project is going to be.

Bush's budget for next year includes $10.7 billion for missile defense—over twice as much money as for any other single weapons system. This summer, he's planning to start deploying the first components of an MD system—six anti-missile missiles in Alaska, four in California, and as many as 20 more, in locations not yet chosen, the following year.

Yet, except by sheer luck, these interceptors will not be able to shoot down enemy missiles. Or, to put it more precisely, Bush is starting to deploy very expensive weapons without the slightest bit of evidence that they have any chance of working.
Click Here!

In the past six years of flight tests, here is what the Pentagon's missile-defense agency has demonstrated: A missile can hit another missile in mid-air as long as a) the operators know exactly where the target missile has come from and where it's going; b) the target missile is flying at a slower-than-normal speed; c) it's transmitting a special beam that exaggerates its radar signature, thus making it easier to track; d) only one target missile has been launched; and e) the "attack" happens in daylight.

Beyond that, the program's managers know nothing—in part because they have never run a test that goes beyond this heavily scripted (it would not be too strong to call it "rigged") scenario.

It's as if some kid were to hit a baseball thrown by a pitching machine straight down the middle at 30 mph and, on the basis of that feat, claimed he could hit whatever Mark Prior might throw him from a real mound, pitch after pitch after pitch, without fail.

There is, in other words, a vast distance between the Pentagon's current level of testing and the level that would need to be done before anyone could begin to claim that a missile-defense system might shoot down real enemy missiles in a real nuclear attack.

The latest annual report by Thomas Christie, the Pentagon's director of operational testing and evaluation, reveals just how incalculably vast this distance is. (The report was published with no fanfare at the end of last year and has appeared on private Web sites—but not the Pentagon's—in the past two weeks.)

Christie's bottom line is that we're rushing into this thing blind. Assessments of the system's capabilities are based primarily on "modeling and simulations" or on canned tests of "components and sub-systems," not on "operational tests of a mature, integrated system." Nothing can be reliably inferred from these data, because we don't know enough about the actual system that might be built and, therefore, don't know whether it bears any resemblance to the simulations. Or, as Christie puts it: "Due to the immature nature of the systems they emulate, models and simulations cannot be adequately validated at this time."

Step back and look at what a missile-defense system would involve. Broadly speaking, it would be a meshing of six separate operations: 1) an early warning radar, which would detect a missile launch; 2) satellite-based sensors that would distinguish missiles from deliberate decoys and random space clutter; 3) X-band radar that would track the missiles and control the firing of "kill vehicles" (anti-missile missiles that would shoot down enemy missiles); 4) the kill vehicles themselves; 5) booster rockets to launch the kill vehicles; and 6) the automated command-control-communications network that would connect all the above into a seamless system.

The anti-missile missiles that Bush plans to deploy later this year are the simplest elements of this system. Yet, Christie notes, they aren't ready for prime time, either—or, as he puts it, their development has been "hindered" by several shortcomings. There is currently no deployable rocket to boost them into space. Sensors, which would guide the kill vehicles to their targets, are not placed in the most optimal locations. (In the tests to date, a "transmitter" has been attached to the target, making it easy for radars to track.) A ship-based radar, which would be more flexible, won't be ready even for testing until, as Christie delicately puts it, "the post-2005 time-frame."

In general, Christie writes, kill vehicles need to be tested "at higher closing velocities and against targets with [radar] signatures, counter-measures [such as decoys], and flight dynamics more closely matching the projected threat." For now, he continues, "the small number of tests would limit confidence" in the performance of the system—or, for that matter, of any component in the system.

For many of these components, tests will not be ready for a while. The upgraded version of the Patriot air-defense missile, known as PAC-3, has shown "shortcomings" in operational testing. Further tests are scheduled—three this year, 12 next year, five in 2006, and seven in 2007—but, Christie notes, "the adequacy of this testing cannot be fully assessed because detailed objectives for most of the tests ... are not yet defined." In other words, the program managers not only haven't yet tested the missile; they haven't yet figured out what they need to test. Ditto for the vital Space Tracking Surveillance System. "The full capabilities of STSS," Christie writes, "cannot be tested until ... 2006 and 2008."

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is not exactly stepping into gear. In the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings on Thursday, Sen. Carl Levin, the panel's ranking Democrat, pointed out that seven of the eight flight tests scheduled for 2003 and 2004 have been canceled or delayed until next year.

The trade publication Aerospace Daily reports today that the Airborne Laser—a program that involves attaching a kill laser to a modified Boeing 747—is suffering major cost overruns (its $3 billion budget over the next five years is soaring to $5 billion), and its first tests, once scheduled for December 2004, have been pushed back to the middle of next year at the earliest.

Here's the question smacking us all in the face, proponents and opponents alike: How much are we willing to spend, over how long a period of time, not to build an effective missile-defense system but just to discover whether such a thing is feasible?

The Pentagon plans to spend at least another $50 billion over the next five years—through about the time when the Space Tracking Surveillance System will just be starting its tests (in other words, not just well before the system is ready for action but well before we'll have discovered whether it will ever be ready). If at the end of the day we ended up with an effective defense against missiles, it would almost certainly be worth the cost. But in fact, we might discover that it isn't feasible after all.

Already, the $10.7 billion that Bush is spending for fiscal year 2005 is more than the entire U.S. Army is spending on research and development. More to the point, it's nearly twice as much as the Department of Homeland Security is spending on customs and border patrol.

The world poses a "spectrum of threats," as strategists like to say, and there's only so much money to deal with them. Where should we focus our attention and resources: on tangible, present-day threats that can be addressed by means that don't involve bumping up against the laws of physics—or on hypothetical threats of the future that this administration is trying to defeat with technology that might never get out of the lab?
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I didn't write the article or even read all of it. I would assume you could pull out the facts of the cost out of it very easily to make my point.

The best scenario concerning N.Korea's missiles probably came into play---that we didn't have to even fire up the missile defense system. It could have been quite embarrasing.
 

Cal

Well-known member
Hey, I'd be willing to give up all of my future SS checks to fund a system that just might save our collective butts if a missile is ever successfully launched at us.

Econ, you got a link for that old article?
 

Econ101

Well-known member
Cal said:
Hey, I'd be willing to give up all of my future SS checks to fund a system that just might save our collective butts if a missile is ever successfully launched at us.

Econ, you got a link for that old article?

Sorry, I just googled it to get the money spent on the program. Next time I will put the link in. I googled "Star Wars Spending".

I don't happen to live on the west coast or alaska where this is more likely to happen from n. korea if it ever does, but a terrorist attack could happen anywhere.

We all serve at the pleasure of God.

They need to get a program working, if they can, but throwing money at a problem instead of really dealing with a problem has been a way of life in our capital.

N. korea is just trying to up the ante for blackmail. They want some good carrots.

Personally, I would take the troops out of N. Korea and put them under the nuclear umbrella.

It worked with the Russians and not a shot was fired (maybe one or two by the fringe nuts).

Ronald Reagan accomplished more than GW without even firing a shot.

Sometimes prudence is the better part of valor.
 

nonothing

Well-known member
My question is...which country are the N koreans,building these weapons for to protect themselves from?.It cant be China they Trade with them?
 

Econ101

Well-known member
nonothing said:
My question is...which country are the N koreans,building these weapons for to protect themselves from?.It cant be China they Trade with them?

They are building the weapons and testing them to get more "carrots" from the international community to keep up a corrupt regime.

They are about to get a regional arms race.

The Chinese better see it is not in their best interest. If they do not, why should the U.S. trade with them? Just for the potential corporate profits?

The existence of the N. Korean regime is there only because the Chinese allow it and can use it.
 

RoperAB

Well-known member
Im all for MD if it works.
I will say this. Canada and America have a history of wasting money on systems that either dont work or on things that actually make our military less effective because the money could be better spent on other things.
 

Cal

Well-known member
nonothing said:
My question is...which country are the N koreans,building these weapons for to protect themselves from?.It cant be China they Trade with them?
I read a little blurb that they were supposedly aimed at Hawaii, don't think they are defensive. Naturally, we already have airline tickets to go there in November. :roll:
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
RoperAB said:
Im all for MD if it works.
I will say this. Canada and America have a history of wasting money on systems that either dont work or on things that actually make our military less effective because the money could be better spent on other things.

Roper- Don't know if this fits under your definition or not- but it is definitely getting us closer to true "Starwars" technology...I wonder if Luke Skywalker will be one of the pilots :???: :wink: :lol:


Monday, July 10, 2006 2:23 p.m. EDT
Marine Corps Wants Spaceplanes


The Marine Corps is seeking a new high-tech vehicle to ferry troops to hotspots around the globe – a spaceplane.

Spaceplanes are craft that take off and land like airplanes but achieve low orbit using rockets.

"Unlike the Air Force, Navy and Army, all three of which sponsor expensive satellite programs, the cash-strapped Marines are pushing just one space concept, called Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion, or SUSTAIN,” the Web site Military.com reports.

"It's a reusable spaceplane meant to get a squad of Marines to any hotspot on Earth in two hours - then get them out. The idea is to reinforce embattled embassies, take out terrorist leaders or defuse hostage situations before it's too late.”

Col. Jack Wassink, chief of the Marine Corps's small Space Integration Branch, said:
"The Corps has always been an expeditionary force, a force of readiness, a 911 force. All SUSTAIN is, is a requirement to move Marines very rapidly from one place to another. Space lends itself to that role."

Propulsion and aerodynamics challenges will have to be met before the spaceplane becomes a reality, Wassink acknowledges, and "there’s a whole host of safety considerations.”


But he believes it’s possible to develop SUSTAIN within 10 to 15 years.
 

RoperAB

Well-known member
Back in the early 70s the American government wasted tons of money on a Canadian company called AVRO on a flying saucer project.
Seriousely it was a flying saucer like you would see in an old 60s science fiction movie.
It was actually the Canadian government under Diefenbaker <conservative>that pulled the plug on AVRO which was basically a liberal slush company about like Bombardia only worse.
 

Brad S

Well-known member
I'll never be the guy that rationalizes guvment (RR referance) spending, but well managed R&D spending always returns great spinoff tech returns. The libs know this, but they like being eunics.

If a woman marries a "male" liberal, would this be a same sex marriage?
 

Econ101

Well-known member
Brad S said:
I'll never be the guy that rationalizes guvment (RR referance) spending, but well managed R&D spending always returns great spinoff tech returns. The libs know this, but they like being eunics.

If a woman marries a "male" liberal, would this be a same sex marriage?

Brad, why the polarization? Polarization is just a tool to put people in groups so that some people can get away with poor decisions. Stick to the decisions and have a decent conversation of why one point should win over another. It provides the opportunity for all sides to win instead both sides being used.

Basic science is now being funded by the fed. govt. in medicine but the govt. allows private companies (drug companies) to use this public support of thier industry for profit purposes without paying for them. Sure we all benefit from better drugs, but are we getting our money's worth? Are we not giving a "free ride" to drug companies with no return on our investment?

The federal agency that is supposed to be regulating this industry is fraught with poor decisions. Do we put up with this incompetence just to get drugs onto the market?

Can't we parse out the good from the bad? Our politicians are supposed to do this for us but instead they play political games with their power and enhance their own re-election coffers.

This is also the case with most "earmarks".
 

Frankk

Well-known member
If a woman marries a "male" liberal, would this be a same sex marriage?[/quote]

I don't think so, but I do know if a woman marries a chicken hawk neocon she can get a lesbian.
 

Brad S

Well-known member
No new conservative here slave holding incestuous hillbilly. Old school conservative, as in all men are created equal. Got it, slaver trash?

Ya cain't be a lesbian in Mahzou unless ya kin outrun yer brothor/dad/cuzin
 

Econ101

Well-known member
Brad S said:
No new conservative here slave holding incestuous hillbilly. Old school conservative, as in all men are created equal. Got it, slaver trash?

Ya cain't be a lesbian in Mahzou unless ya kin outrun yer brothor/dad/cuzin

Are you saying the men in Dick Cheny's family can't run?

This thread is getting out of hand.
 

Frankk

Well-known member
Brad S said:
No new conservative here slave holding incestuous hillbilly. Old school conservative, as in all men are created equal. Got it, slaver trash?

Ya cain't be a lesbian in Mahzou unless ya kin outrun yer brothor/dad/cuzin

Kind of went crazy there for a minute did you Brad you all right?
 

nonothing

Well-known member
Brad S said:
No new conservative here slave holding incestuous hillbilly. Old school conservative, as in all men are created equal. Got it, slaver trash?

Ya cain't be a lesbian in Mahzou unless ya kin outrun yer brothor/dad/cuzin




I think that is the heat stroke talking...out cutting hay in the hot sun?
 

Cal

Well-known member
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Aegis_BMD_System_Guides_Missile_To_Seventh_Successful_Target_Intercept_999.html

Aegis BMD System Guides Missile To Seventh Successful Target Intercept

USS Shiloh fires the SM-3 missile.
by Staff Writers
Kauai HI (SPX) Jun 25, 2006
During a test today the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Weapon System with its Standard Missile (SM)-3 successfully intercepted a ballistic missile target with a separating reentry vehicle outside the Earth's atmosphere. Both the Aegis BMD Weapon System aboard the guided missile cruiser USS Shiloh (CG 67) and range sensors confirmed a direct hit of the missile target during its midcourse flight phase over the Pacific Ocean.
Lockheed Martin develops the Aegis BMD Weapon System and serves as the Combat System Engineering Agent for the U.S. Navy and Missile Defense Agency's Aegis BMD Weapon System program.

This Missile Defense Agency-sponsored test - Flight Test Maritime-10 (FTM-10) - marks the seventh time the Aegis BMD Weapon System has successfully guided an SM-3 to a ballistic missile target intercept and the second time that the system intercepted a ballistic missile with a separating reentry vehicle. U.S. Navy ships equipped with earlier versions of Aegis BMD capability have been on operational duty since September 2004.

During the test, the Aegis SPY-1B radar aboard USS Shiloh provided real-time detection, tracking and discrimination of the medium range target with its separating warhead. Once the SM-3 was launched, the Aegis BMD Weapon System continued to track the target and provide guidance commands to the SM-3 to intercept the target. USS Shiloh was deployed with the latest versions of the Aegis BMD equipment and computer programs, BMD 3.6, and the SM-3 Block IA missile. The Aegis BMD 3.6 combat system will be certified for tactical deployment this fall.

In addition to USS Shiloh, three other U.S. Navy ships and a Japanese destroyer participated in the intercept test:

- USS Lake Erie (CG 70), deployed with the prototype Aegis BMD Signal Processor (BSP), detected, tracked and discriminated the separating target warhead in real-time. - USS Paul Hamilton (DDG 60) exercised its Long Range Surveillance and Tracking (LRS&T) capability. - USS Milius (DDG 69), employing the 3.6 version of Aegis BMD in a LRS&T operation, provided fire control information to other elements of the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) and received a cue from a prototype X-band radar on Kauai. This prototype radar is a version of one being deployed by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) in Japan. - The Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) ship JDS Kirishima (DDG 174), equipped with the Aegis Weapon System, tracked the ballistic missile target.

"Every Aegis BMD test pushes the envelope on what is possible for missile defense from the sea," said Orlando Carvalho, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin's business unit in Moorestown. "The success achieved today is a direct result of the professionalism of the Sailors operating these ships and the thorough systems engineering accomplished collaboratively by the Navy, MDA and industry."

The SPY-1 radar, augmented by the Aegis BSP signal processor, which is in development and will be installed in Aegis BMD ships beginning in 2010, provides an advanced discrimination capability to defeat more complex ballistic missile threats. The Aegis BSP is an open architecture design, allowing for quick and affordable upgrades as the signal processor technology evolves. The move to open architecture for Aegis BMD is in parallel and aligned with the Navy's Aegis Open Architecture (OA) initiative to transform the (non-BMD) Aegis Weapon System to a fully open architecture system, beginning with the Cruiser Modernization Program now underway. BMD capability will be included in modernized, OA Aegis cruisers and destroyers starting in 2012.

The target missile intercepted in today's test was provided by the MDA's Targets and Countermeasures Program, for which Lockheed Martin is prime contractor. A team of Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company and Orbital Sciences Corporation personnel launched the target missile from the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai.

The MDA and the U.S. Navy are jointly developing Aegis BMD as part of the nation's Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS). Ultimately 15 Aegis destroyers and three Aegis cruisers will be outfitted with the capability to conduct LRS&T and engagement of short and medium range ballistic missile threats using the Aegis BMD Weapon System and its SM-3. To date, 11 Aegis destroyers have been upgraded with the LRS&T capability and two Aegis cruisers have been outfitted with the emergency engagement and LRS&T capability.

The Aegis Weapon System is the world's premier naval surface defense system and is the foundation for Aegis BMD, the primary component of the sea-based element of the United States' BMDS. The Aegis BMD Weapon System seamlessly integrates the SPY-1 radar, the MK 41 Vertical Launching System, the SM-3 missile and the weapon system's command and control system. The Aegis BMD Weapon System also integrates with the BMDS, receiving cues from and providing cueing information to other BMDS elements.

The Aegis Weapon System is currently deployed on 80 ships around the globe with more than 30 additional ships planned or under contract. In addition to the U.S., Aegis is the maritime weapon system of choice for Japan, South Korea, Norway, Spain and Australia. Japan will begin installation of Aegis BMD in its Kongo class Aegis destroyers in 2007.
 

Brad S

Well-known member
Frank, you must not have meant "chicken Hawk" as a slurred referance to Jayhawks from the bloody Kansas days of slaver raids into Kansas, sometimes led by Quantrell. I sorta make that connection when I see a person from Mahsourah wielding one of their stock slurs.
 
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