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US successfully tests anti-missile shield

Goobieman

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US successfully tests anti-missile shield
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military conducted a successful test of its system built to knock out long-range missiles that could be fired by North Korea or Iran, the Pentagon said on Friday.

The target missile for the test over the Pacific was launched from Kodiak, Alaska and an interceptor was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, officials said. The intercept took place at 3:29 p.m. EST (2029 GMT).

U.S. says missile defense test successful | Reuters

Here is the lead-in story:

U.S. military sets high-stakes missile-shield test | U.S. | Reuters

U.S. military sets high-stakes missile-shield test
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military is set to run a "realistic" test Friday of a system built to knock out long-range missiles that could be fired by North Korea or Iran, the Pentagon said.

The drill, over the Pacific, will be the first since September 2007 involving an attempted intercept by the sole U.S. shield against long-range ballistic missiles.

Boeing Co is prime contractor for the system, called the ground-based midcourse defense. It is part of an emerging, layered shield against missiles that could be tipped with chemical, biological or nuclear warheads.

"Target is representative of the type we would expect from a country like North Korea or Iran," said Richard Lehner, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency.

"It is also realistic in terms of distance involved, trajectory, speed and timeframe, i.e., about 30 minute flight of threat missile," he said in an emailed reply to Reuters.

So... 10 tests, 7 kills, 2 misses due to failures in surrogates not part of the NMS system.

Clearly, it will never work.
 
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At least this proves it's not a complete money sink.

Is this system really necessary to our current conflict? Our enemies are incapable of striking us with missile weapons (don't bring up Russia or China, they are boogeymen). I really think this money could be spent more effectively in other areas.
 
if you wait until they can shoot missiles at you it's too late.

At least this proves it's not a complete money sink.

Is this system really necessary to our current conflict? Our enemies are incapable of striking us with missile weapons (don't bring up Russia or China, they are boogeymen). I really think this money could be spent more effectively in other areas.
 
who knows, but we do know that missiles exist so don't u think it could be possibly beneficial to be able to shoot them down?

Who's going to be shooting them? China? Russia?

MAD is an effective deterrent against that.
 
who knows, but we do know that missiles exist so don't u think it could be possibly beneficial to be able to shoot them down?

Could be beneficial, but it certainly doesn't pass a cost/benefit analysis given the needs of the current military situation.
 
At least this proves it's not a complete money sink.

Is this system really necessary to our current conflict? Our enemies are incapable of striking us with missile weapons (don't bring up Russia or China, they are boogeymen). I really think this money could be spent more effectively in other areas.

Why do you think this technology is limited to shooting down just WMDs?
 
Clearly, it will never work.

It won't. The missile shield lacks sufficent resources to deal with cheap countermeasures like Mylar balloons or simply just overwhelming numbers of missiles. And MAD is functioning.

And RightOfCenter is correct. There are more pressing concerns we should be allocating money towards. Like securing the borders and inspecting the millions of containers that enter the country every year.
 
weakest argument for something "never working" ever. the system could never be improved upon to bypass countermeasures. NEVER!!!!! your second point might be valid.


It won't. The missile shield lacks sufficent resources to deal with cheap countermeasures like Mylar balloons or simply just overwhelming numbers of missiles. And MAD is functioning.

And RightOfCenter is correct. There are more pressing concerns we should be allocating money towards. Like securing the borders and inspecting the millions of containers that enter the country every year.
 
weakest argument for something "never working" ever.

We do have a way around it. It's called a nuclear interceptor. The problem is that we are blind to the second salvo. That's why the US abandoned them. It was the only way to get around that counter measure. And it still is. Furthermore, the sheer number of interceptors we'll need to stop all potential missiles is likely in the thousands. That's insane.

And your argument is essentially to keep throwing money at it until it works. Do you suggest the same thing for our schools and for our health system?
 
We do have a way around it. It's called a nuclear interceptor. The problem is that we are blind to the second salvo. That's why the US abandoned them. It was the only way to get around that counter measure. And it still is. Furthermore, the sheer number of interceptors we'll need to stop all potential missiles is likely in the thousands. That's insane.

And your argument is essentially to keep throwing money at it until it works. Do you suggest the same thing for our schools and for our health system?

i'm sure you would've said the stealth bomber was a waste of money and wouldn't work either. money doesn't fix schools, it pays for r&d for designing cool ****. whoever thought up the idea of the computer was an idiot too, whoever was funding that was a ****ing jackass.
 
i'm sure you would've said the stealth bomber was a waste of money and wouldn't work either.

Why? The wobbly goblin was a success. The bomber is effectively just taking the lessons from that and applying it to a flying wing, another proven design. And given the increasing air defenses during the cold war over Russia, the big uglies could not deliver the necessary weapons to ensure MAD. Therefore there was a clear need for a heavy bomber that could slip pass Soviet air defenses.

And we should cut programs we don't need. Like the Comanche. The upgrades to the Apache can do the job cheaper. Did we really need the Valkyrie bomber? No. Do you still support that?

money doesn't fix schools, it pays for r&d for designing cool ****. whoever thought up the idea of the computer was an idiot too, whoever was funding that was a ****ing jackass.

lol. Keep that up. You'll get banned soon.

So you're okay with pouring infinite money into defense, but not a cent for education? :confused:
 
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who knows, but we do know that missiles exist so don't u think it could be possibly beneficial to be able to shoot them down?

Not when it takes money away from securing the likely sources of which terrorists will use to attack us. What good is a missile shield when the only people going to nuke us will use nukes inside U-Hauls?
 
Why? The wobbly goblin was a success. The bomber is effectively just taking the lessons from that and applying it to a flying wing, another proven design. And given the increasing air defenses during the cold war over Russia, the big uglies could not deliver the necessary weapons to ensure MAD. Therefore there was a clear need for a heavy bomber that could slip pass Soviet air defenses.

And we should cut programs we don't need. Like the Comanche. The upgrades to the Apache can do the job cheaper. Did we really need the Valkyrie bomber? No. Do you still support that?



lol. Keep that up. You'll get banned soon.

So you're okay with pouring infinite money into defense, but not a cent for education? :confused:

when you prove that pumping money into education makes it better then we can start doing it.
 
when you prove that pumping money into education makes it better then we can start doing it.

Lol.

You're one of those. Those who refuse to answer questions about the inconsistencies in their beliefs.

I never said that throwing money at education makes it better. But by logic, your argument does.
 
Lol.

You're one of those. Those who refuse to answer questions about the inconsistencies in their beliefs.

I never said that throwing money at education makes it better. But by logic, your argument does.

i never said i agreed with pumping infinite money into a missile defense system either.
 
At least this proves it's not a complete money sink.

Is this system really necessary to our current conflict? Our enemies are incapable of striking us with missile weapons (don't bring up Russia or China, they are boogeymen). I really think this money could be spent more effectively in other areas.

Why would you think that Russia and China are mere boogeymen?
 
No one else is a threat.

MAD assures our safety.

I would argue that MAD assures mutual destruction while the anti-ballistic missle system offers an alternative that would not requires the complete assured destruction of mankind.

::shrugs::
 
And your argument is essentially to keep throwing money at it until it works. Do you suggest the same thing for our schools and for our health system?

You're kidding me right? You don't think we are already throwing money into the sinkhole called public education and getting nothing for it?? :shock:
 
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