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(Sarcasm intended.) It's a good thing that these problems were found in defensive systems, thus ensuring that Mutually Assured Destruction can continue to be our world security policy.

Even though this security audit found numerous problems, surely none of this kind of stuff is going on in our country's offensive ballistic missile systems. ...and it's not as if we have a President that goes around goading other country's rulers to lob a nuclear missile or few in our direction, so we have nothing to really worry about.

On North Korea, it's clear that we have a very decisive and insightful President who is doing a great job staying on top of their development of new sites for launching nuclear weapons: "Maybe they are. Maybe they’re not. I don’t believe that. I don’t. And, you know, could. And which is — if it — if that’s the way it goes, that’s the way it goes. You know, I go with the way we have to go," [ Trump interview on Fox News with Chris Wallace, November 2018 https://www.foxnews.com/transc... ]

Besides, these defensive systems already fail about 20% of the time on carefully structured tests where everything is tuned up and the brass is watching, so we already knew we couldn't depend on them. https://www.mda.mil/global/doc...

An "an unequivocal waste" you say? That's funny, since the US seems to have a small scale working ballistic missile defense system in operation NOW. Elements of that system are being deployed to Europe to protect them from Iran.

Do you think that system was created without research?

The Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS)

So, has Senator Cruz not heard of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA)? Still alive and kicking, although they do have their own problems. However, one very big reason for MDA and its presence in Alaska is our good buddies in North Korea.

Any ballistic missile they would have would be trivial for our military to shoot down

There is nothing trivial about shooting down a ballistic missile.

They'd need thousands to overwhelm our defenses

This is dangerously incorrect. We only have, for instance, 30 GBIs in our entire inventory (see http://www.mda.mil/system/gmd.html). Nothing else we have will stop an ICBM. You are right about to be worried about unconventional delivery mechanisms though

They're only capable in the sense that the missile could travel that distance and ignores the reality of the situation. North Korea has essentially no chance of actually hitting the US with a nuclear ICBM. And any ATTEMPT to do so would result in the immediate removal of DPRK from the planet.

And while no one really likes DPRK, it is still propped up by China to a certain degree for strategic reasons (keeping the US away from Chinese borders via North Korea). OP is right, China typically abstains from these otherwise unanimous UN votes for sanctions to appear neutral. They are the best friend the DPRK has in the world.

The United States is incredibly dependent on its space assets in support of national objectives. Directed energy weapons can not only provide offensive ASAT capabilities, but can serve as a significant defense against missile- or even space-based kinetic ASAT weapons. The advantage of a directed energy weapon is that it has the ability to travel at the speed of light and target missiles during their vulnerable boost phase within seconds. During the 1990s and 2000s, the United States pursued directed energy weapons based on megawatt-class chemical lasers. Two of systems, the Airborne Laser (ABL) and Space-Based Laser (SBL), were complementary, but never made it beyond the early testing phase.

The concept of the Airborne Laser came to fruition on a modified Boeing 747 known as the YAL-1A Airborne Laser Testbed (ABLT). In early 2010, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) announced that ABLT successfully destroyed two test missiles, saying at the time that "The revolutionary use of directed energy is very attractive for missile defense, with the potential to attack multiple targets at the speed of light, at a range of hundreds of kilometers, and at a low cost per intercept attempt compared to current technologies." Unfortunately, ABLT was $4 billion over budget and eight years behind schedule. Political and economic realities meant that the US could "no longer continue to do everything and explore every potential technology". On February 14, 2012, MDA announced that the ABLT program was terminated, transitioning into long-term storage at the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group at Davis Monthan AFB — "the Boneyard".

The Space-Based Laser (SBL) concept is the notion of locating a high-powered laser in space, with a similar ability to target missiles in their boost phase. A constellation of 20 SBLs would be able to provide continuous global coverage, and target nearly any launch -- including ASAT weapons. A test firing of a Space-Based Laser Integrated Flight Experiment (SBL-IFX) was originally schedule for 2012 to demonstrate SBL's capabilities. This project became so complex and expensive that MDA suspended research and development in 2002 — another victim of economic priorities, and a desire to focus resources on existing, proven kinetic systems.

If such systems are thought to have so much potential and capability, why are they no longer pursued? The answer is primarily one of cost. Further, if the US possessed such a comprehensive anti-missile and anti-ASAT capability, it is unlikely that an adversary would use a kinetic ASAT weapon. As adversaries such as China, Russia, and Iran turn to cyber, it becomes more likely that cyber, conventional jamming, and EW capabilities would be used to target US space systems. It is reasonable that the US response should be in kind. One example: China is currently fielding the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM). Instead of using complicated missile defense systems or directed energy weapons to target it, and the current US strategy is indeed one of jam, spoof — and then shoot, if necessary, with the idea being to "break as many links as possible" in the chain, including via cyber and EW. Cyber can act as a significant force multiplier against even conventional weapons systems — which can work both for and against us. China has already demonstrated the potential effectiveness of cyber capabilities against US space systems. Resources devoted to enhancing our offensive and defensive cyber capabilities in the context of space systems and missile defense is money well spent.

Not a drone, but the US Navy's Sea-based X-band RADAR (SBX-1) — a completely self-propelled (max speed: 8 knots), semi-submersible modified oil platform designed for use in high winds and heavy seas — is also part of the Missile Defense Agency's Ballistic Missile Defense System. It can track an object the size of a baseball from about 3000 miles away. SBX-1 sailed to the region to monitor the North Korean launch:

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/29/navy-ships-out-radar-system-ahead-of-north-korea-launch/

A brief history of SBX-1 — great pictures: http://www.mda.mil/global/documents/pdf/sbx_booklet.pdf

If you mean an automated system that can shoot down ballistic missiles then no.

Um...

http://www.mda.mil/system/system.html

That isn't experimental. It's in operation now. And it works.

http://www.mda.mil/news/10news0002.html

Airborne Laser Test Bed Successful in Lethal Intercept Experiment

According to this press release, they shot down a solid fuel missile on Feb 3: "Less than one hour later, a second solid fuel short-range missile was launched from a ground location on San Nicolas Island, Calif. and the ALTB successfully engaged the boosting target with its High Energy Laser, met all its test criteria, and terminated lasing prior to destroying the second target. The ALTB destroyed a solid fuel missile, identical to the second target, in flight on February 3, 2010."

A liquid-fueled missile was destroyed. A solid-fueled one was also engaged but the test stopped short of destroying it (probably for safety reasons.) A previous test did destroy a solid-fueled target See: the article at mda.mil.

Deeply deeply misinformed. The Missile Defense Agency press release is better than the Reuters article and a thousand times better than the Slashdot headline blurb. Some corrections:

1. Two targets were destroyed - one liquid and one solid fueled. This puts the lie to the above comment, and the Slashdot article that implies that they only shot a liquid-fueled target because it was easier. Furthermore, the solid-fueled target was identical to one that the ALTB had destroyed in flight a week earlier.

2. The first target was launched from a "sea platform", not a submarine, and is much more likely to have been a SCUD or SCUD simulator on a barge. The U.S. Navy has never permitted liquid-fueled missiles aboard their submarines because a fuel or oxidizer leak could kill the crew.

Nothing was destroyed or shot down and the laser weapon was not fired.

This article says that you are wrong.

Finally, the ALTB fired its megawatt-class High Energy Laser, heating the boosting ballistic missile to critical structural failure...

Less than one hour later, a second solid fuel short-range missile was launched from a ground location on San Nicolas Island, Calif. and the ALTB successfully engaged the boosting target with its High Energy Laser, met all its test criteria, and terminated lasing prior to destroying the second target. The ALTB destroyed a solid fuel missile, identical to the second target, in flight on February 3, 2010.

Summary: the ALTB engaged and destroyed a liquid fueled target and then engaged, but did not destroy, a solid fueled target. The megawatt class laser was fired in both cases.

The U.S. government has NO money. It is deeply, deeply in debt because for many years it spent money it doesn't have.

Perhaps the real purpose of the "US Missile Defense" is making money for the people who build it.

The U.S. government is extremely corrupt. One example is that bad news is kept secret from the taxpayers: "The [military] isn't disclosing..." Look at the news from the U.S. government directly: Missile Defense Test Conducted. The short public relations piece says:

1) "A target missile was successfully launched..." A trivial success, that is only a missile launch of a missile designed to be destroyed.

2) "... a Ground-Based Interceptor was successfully launched..." That is another trivial success.

3) "However, the Sea-Based X-band radar did not perform as expected." Note that there is no information about the extent of the failure. The real news is presented in an intentionally confusing manner, in the last sentence of a paragraph.

The U.S. government hides what is being done with the taxpayer's money. That benefits the rich and powerful companies that get money from the government, and hurts the nation and every citizen. If you let the corruption happen, expect that life in the U.S. will get much worse than 15% of people being out of work, stopped looking for work, or underemployed.

Actually, you're wrong.

In the first place, the Patriot missiles were only partially successful. Since they weren't intended for the purpose of defending large areas, that is acceptable, and they've been improved since them. But the Patriot missiles are a short range defense.

There have been previous successful tests. A simple google search turned up the following:

Reuters
Military Defense Agency
Heritage Foundation

Umm...its a vehicle for use in space, not on in a theatre or tactical sense.

http://www.mda.mil/mdaLink/html/asptmkv.html

"The Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV) system allows more than one kill vehicle to be launched from a single booster. The system consists of a carrier vehicle with on board sensors and a number of small, simple kill vehicles that can be independently targeted against objects in a threat cluster. The integrated payload is designed to fit on existing and planned interceptor boosters."

"The MKV system includes a carrier vehicle with on-board sensors and kill vehicles weighing approximately 10 pounds."

http://www.mda.mil/mdalink/html/aboutus.html
MDA Mission
To develop and field an integrated, layered, ballistic missile defense system to defend the United States, its deployed forces, allies, and friends against all ranges of enemy ballistic missiles in all phases of flight.
1. Retain, recruit, and develop a high-performing and accountable workforce.
2. Deliver near-term additional defensive capability in a structured Block approach to close gaps and improve the BMDS.
3. Establish partnerships with the Services to enable their operations and support of the BMDS components for the Combatant Commanders.
4. Substantially improve and demonstrate the military utility of the BMDS through increased system integration and testing.
5. Execute a robust BMDS technology and development program to address the challenges of the evolving threat through the use of key knowledge points.
6. Expand international cooperation through a comprehensive strategy to support our mutual security interests in missile defense.
7. Maximize mission assurance and cost effectiveness of MDA's management and operations through continuous process improvement.



Because, when an organization is going to burn through more cash than you or I will see in several lifetimes, you can bet your bippy they'll have some fancy words out front. ;)

There have been multiple tests of different ABM systems in the past few years. Hell, the government is even posting videos of the shots and the specifics of the tests on the internet. Not really a secret.

I suggest you review the entire program before you ask further irrelevant questions about the THAAD test. THAAD is just one part of the entire program. Specifically, look at Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS).

It's sort of like the difference between underground and atmospheric nuke tests. The US anti-missile tests are (so far) relatively low altitude, and usually on descending tracks. That's not exactly ASAT, I know, but it's an effort to minimize orbital debris.

I wonder if there's push and pull within the Chinese space community? China is a member of the IADC, which has one goal of reducing junk. NASA and the DoD sometimes argue over debris-producing "events", though I think the DoD wins those matches. Debris threats to the Shuttle, ISS, and commercial space are a big deal, and the DoD doesn't want its junk to punch a hole through someone's crew module.

The Program and its derivative work will neither be modified or executed to harm any human being nor through inaction permit any human being to be harmed. This is Asimov's first law of Robotics.

Not that I'm into starting a conspiracy, but
maybe you finally got a hit ;-)

http://www.mda.mil/mdalink/html/mdalink.html

The main threats come either from dictatorships (think N. Korea) or terrorism.

For now. Who knows how our relations with China, Russia or even the EU are going to be in 10, 20 or 50 years from now? Fighting over a little oil in Iraq has already tremendously strained our international relations. Imagine the situation when resources are much scarcer than they are now in a few years!

Developing space weapons takes time too. Wouldn't it be better to be safe rather than sorry, when the next big conflict erupts?

Neither kind of enemy can be deterred with nuclear weapons.

Right. But at least dictators could be prevented from launching missiles at us or at our allies. It wouldn't prevent terrorists carrying germs in a suitcase from launching deadly attacks though...

They are probably trying to revive SDI (i.e. place energy/kinetic antimissile weapons in space), but they may have plans for space-to-ground weapons that are not WMD.

Why should they revive a project that's alife and kicking? Check out the Missile Defense Agency's agenda; and that's just the (public) tip of the iceberg.

If it were only SDI: there are a lot of passive interception techniques that can be used in space. Many of these techniques are not classified as weapons, so we can't talk about militarization of space here. Deploying active weapons like "killer satellites" in Space would require special permission from the President though. That's probably what's going on here.