Interesting development:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency on Friday hailed what he described as epochal progress toward putting a high-energy laser aboard a modified Boeing Co. 747 to zap ballistic missiles that could be fired by North Korea and Iran...
...The so-called Airborne Laser has been developed at a cost so far of about $3.5 billion with the aim of destroying, at the speed of light, all classes of ballistic missiles shortly after their launch. If successful in flight testing and deployed, it would become part of an emerging U.S. anti-missile shield that also includes land- and sea-based interceptor missiles.
I recall my late mother, a physicist by training, expounding at length when I was about 13 on how the way to kill a missile is to do it from the air with a laser. Its looks like mom's dream might be coming true.
UPDATE: This news story says we may provide SDI for Tokyo:
The U.S. is considering deploying its advanced Patriot missile defense system near Tokyo after North Korea's recent missile and nuclear tests, a newspaper reported Sunday.
Washington unofficially informed the Japanese government it is considering putting Patriot Advanced Capability 3 surface-to-air interceptor missiles around Yokota Air Base in Tokyo's western suburbs and around Yokosuka Naval Base, south of the capital, the Nihon Keizai newspaper reported without saying how it got the information.
The added defenses would cover critical U.S. military installations on the outskirts of Tokyo.
Posted by Mark Noonan at October 29, 2006 01:22 AM
Comments
Looks like President Reagan's vision of missile defence shield might actually happen. I hope that it is named after the man when it happens, the libs need to be reminded of his vision.
Posted by: kjstrouble at October 29, 2006 01:55 AM
Sweeeeeeeet! SDI rocks!
Also, great idea, Kjstrouble!
Posted by: Freedom1 at October 29, 2006 03:11 AM
As your mother, the physicist, observed, the way to kill missiles is with a laser. I personally ran into a fellow who runs a plant that specializes in precision cutting 17 inch thick stainless steel with 28,000 degree(F) ion beams. No doubt the SDI is theortically possible.
But getting it to work has always been difficult. Given that, I have to question the claimed effectiveness of this weapon in the context of its timing of its announcement.
NK gets nukes after Bush ignores them for 6 years, just before an election. (Blaming Clinton isn't going to stop Kim from getting his toys.) Realizing Bush is powerless to stop them, his PR machine siezes upon a half developed weapons system, and announces that we're ready to deploy it.
If we do, let's test it. If this thing is capable of doing what its creators claim, let's take out a target or 3 in NK. Or the next time NK tests a missile, let's remove it from the sky.
Why stop there? Let's go further. Let's prove it in Iraq. Let that 747 wander the sky and make the insurgents dissapear. Of course, if NK's keep testing their nukes and missiles with impunity, this report will be worth as much as Dick Cheneys statement that "the insurgency is in its last throes."
Perhaps a worthwhile gamble, if that is what it is. But if it's found out, what are we going to do when Iran develops a nuke? Threaten them with an attack ad campaign put together by Karl Rove?
Posted by: Just Another Taxpayer at October 29, 2006 05:05 AM
SDI? What are they thinking? They're gonna start a nuclear war!!!
*sarcasm off*
Posted by: 1H8L1BS at October 29, 2006 07:30 AM
1H8L1BS, the sad thing is that there are some who, without sarcasm, regard our efforts to defend ourselves and our allies as provocative. Congressman Lantos comes to mind.
Posted by: Bigfoot at October 29, 2006 11:29 AM
It sounds to me like this is just another program the Dems can hope will fail.
But just in case it works, they are lining up their feeble attack machine. Evidently it will include the claim that NoKo has nuclear weapons because "Bush ignored them" and not in any way because the United States gave them the material they needed to develop them.
Pretzels....
Posted by: Almiranta at October 30, 2006 06:47 PM
Almiranta,
The feeble attack machine you refer to maybe the Patriot itself. At least relative to the task it is being called upon to do.
Its much ballyhood performance in the First Gulf War couldn't stand up to scrutiny for a very good reason.(Maybe a 43% success rate.) It was an anti-aircraft system, not an anti ballistic missile system. It was used for lack of a better alternative. Like the flak guns before it, it was designed to put an explosive near a slow moving target,(Slow moving relative to a missile.) and explode using concussion and fragmentation to do its destructive work.
The "Patritot Advanced Capability" system was supposed to be an improvement, at least being able to take on the SCUD. Unfortunatly, testing hasn't gone well on this model using only the SCUD scenario. Whatever the NK's are using has (If it ever works properly.) much longer range with higher altitude capability than the SCUD. Patriot is being used here for the same reason it was deployed in the first gulf war: lack of a better alternative. Bush having to publicly inform our Asain allies that they would not get nukes to deter NK proves that the people who have to rely on it see its questionable value.
However, while Bush and his supporters bandy about the value of weapons systems whose reliability is far from proven, nary a word is said about intelligence. Was a single person fired, demoted, reprimanded or otherwise disciplined for 9/11 failures? Was anyone disciplined for failures in Iraq?
In the NYT, it was reported that NK govt was expected to fail in 5 years according to a CIA study completed in 1997. I suppose that's why Bush gave a 95 million in aid to the NK's in 2002 as reported on Fox News Hannity and Colmes. (Sean Hannity did not dispute this report.)
Failure to forsee the fall of the Soviet Union, and how the disposition of its arsenal would affect us, should have been reason enough
to re-evaluate our intelligence agencies. The string of intelligence failures from 9/11 to failure to find WMD or how things would play out in post Saddam Iraq prove Bush is no more interested, (Or, perhaps, no more able.) to put together an inteligence establishment capable of making our enemies believe we know what they're doing.
The only enemies Bush and his operatives understand are his political ones. Unfortunatly, the heads of state in NK and Iran don't give a rats behind about them.
Look forward to your responses.
Have a good day.
Posted by: Just Another Taxpayer at October 31, 2006 12:04 PM
Please report any inappropriate comments to abuse (at) blogsforbush (dot) com. Be sure to include the title of the blog entry, the name of the commenter, and the text of the offending comment.
Post a comment
Looks like President Reagan's vision of missile defence shield might actually happen. I hope that it is named after the man when it happens, the libs need to be reminded of his vision.
Sweeeeeeeet! SDI rocks!
Also, great idea, Kjstrouble!
As your mother, the physicist, observed, the way to kill missiles is with a laser. I personally ran into a fellow who runs a plant that specializes in precision cutting 17 inch thick stainless steel with 28,000 degree(F) ion beams. No doubt the SDI is theortically possible.
But getting it to work has always been difficult. Given that, I have to question the claimed effectiveness of this weapon in the context of its timing of its announcement.
NK gets nukes after Bush ignores them for 6 years, just before an election. (Blaming Clinton isn't going to stop Kim from getting his toys.) Realizing Bush is powerless to stop them, his PR machine siezes upon a half developed weapons system, and announces that we're ready to deploy it.
If we do, let's test it. If this thing is capable of doing what its creators claim, let's take out a target or 3 in NK. Or the next time NK tests a missile, let's remove it from the sky.
Why stop there? Let's go further. Let's prove it in Iraq. Let that 747 wander the sky and make the insurgents dissapear. Of course, if NK's keep testing their nukes and missiles with impunity, this report will be worth as much as Dick Cheneys statement that "the insurgency is in its last throes."
Perhaps a worthwhile gamble, if that is what it is. But if it's found out, what are we going to do when Iran develops a nuke? Threaten them with an attack ad campaign put together by Karl Rove?
SDI? What are they thinking? They're gonna start a nuclear war!!!
*sarcasm off*
1H8L1BS, the sad thing is that there are some who, without sarcasm, regard our efforts to defend ourselves and our allies as provocative. Congressman Lantos comes to mind.
It sounds to me like this is just another program the Dems can hope will fail.
But just in case it works, they are lining up their feeble attack machine. Evidently it will include the claim that NoKo has nuclear weapons because "Bush ignored them" and not in any way because the United States gave them the material they needed to develop them.
Pretzels....
Almiranta,
The feeble attack machine you refer to maybe the Patriot itself. At least relative to the task it is being called upon to do.
Its much ballyhood performance in the First Gulf War couldn't stand up to scrutiny for a very good reason.(Maybe a 43% success rate.) It was an anti-aircraft system, not an anti ballistic missile system. It was used for lack of a better alternative. Like the flak guns before it, it was designed to put an explosive near a slow moving target,(Slow moving relative to a missile.) and explode using concussion and fragmentation to do its destructive work.
The "Patritot Advanced Capability" system was supposed to be an improvement, at least being able to take on the SCUD. Unfortunatly, testing hasn't gone well on this model using only the SCUD scenario. Whatever the NK's are using has (If it ever works properly.) much longer range with higher altitude capability than the SCUD. Patriot is being used here for the same reason it was deployed in the first gulf war: lack of a better alternative. Bush having to publicly inform our Asain allies that they would not get nukes to deter NK proves that the people who have to rely on it see its questionable value.
However, while Bush and his supporters bandy about the value of weapons systems whose reliability is far from proven, nary a word is said about intelligence. Was a single person fired, demoted, reprimanded or otherwise disciplined for 9/11 failures? Was anyone disciplined for failures in Iraq?
In the NYT, it was reported that NK govt was expected to fail in 5 years according to a CIA study completed in 1997. I suppose that's why Bush gave a 95 million in aid to the NK's in 2002 as reported on Fox News Hannity and Colmes. (Sean Hannity did not dispute this report.)
Failure to forsee the fall of the Soviet Union, and how the disposition of its arsenal would affect us, should have been reason enough
to re-evaluate our intelligence agencies. The string of intelligence failures from 9/11 to failure to find WMD or how things would play out in post Saddam Iraq prove Bush is no more interested, (Or, perhaps, no more able.) to put together an inteligence establishment capable of making our enemies believe we know what they're doing.
The only enemies Bush and his operatives understand are his political ones. Unfortunatly, the heads of state in NK and Iran don't give a rats behind about them.
Look forward to your responses.
Have a good day.