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US Missile Defense Test Fails
KingRobot sends news that a recent test of a US missile defense system has failed. The test of the Groundbased Midcourse Defense interceptor apparently had a problem with the sea-based X-band radar. Both the target missile, launched from the Pacific, and the interceptor, launched from California, performed as expected. "Yesterday's test was intended to quell doubters of the entire missile-defense approach, with the target missile deploying countermeasures. Critics of the GMD programme say that tests thus far, which have not included such spoilers, have been too kind to the intercept tech. The [military] isn't disclosing whether the intercepting kill vehicle had simply failed to reach the 'threat cluster' of warhead(s) and decoys, or whether it had reached the cluster but hit a countermeasure rather than the actual target."
Fire Zee Mizzilez!!!!
"Now Commander, that torpedo did NOT self-destruct. You heard it hit the hull, and I was never here."
Sure it failed.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
There is exactly one instance of missile defense working that I'm aware of, namely combating Iraqi Scud missiles back around 1993.
But the important thing to realize about this version of missile defense (and its predecessor, Star Wars) is that they don't need to work to accomplish their real purpose, which is funneling large sums of taxpayer cash to defense contractors.
I am officially gone from
Wow, is that really a quote from Wookieepedia to explain to Slashdot readers the story in Return of the Jedi?
You really know your audience...
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
Did the test fail, or the missle? The difference is that a failed test means you don't get any useful information about the device under test, whereas a successful test means that you found out whatever you wanted to know about the device under test.
Example: a test to determine whether a cellphone fails when immersed in water. If you find that your water has been shut off, you have a failed test, because you can't even try immersing the phone in water. If your water works and you immerse the phone and it stops working, the test is successful and your result is that the phone failed. If it still works, then you have a successful test and a phone that didn't fail.
</pedant>
Well, if the missile defense system *doesn't work*, then the benefits of "visiting giant rocks in space" will clearly outweigh it (and yes, there are benefits, if not necessarily for the Moon in particular, no matter how pithily you dismiss them).
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Maybe if the US stopped wasting money on boondoggles like this, they wouldn't have had to cancel plans to return to the Moon.
Not to mention the side benefit of generating productive tech, instead of just destructive tech. The problem with the moon missions is that the big defense corporations running the US just can't justify such large profits with moon missions. The population (or its politicians) are much less willing to fund if there is no fear factor. Fear does not drive the moon mission development like it does for military expenditure unless you try and use the fear of China doing it first to our exclusion, but even then it's still not the same kind of primeval motivation == less profit.
Few people know the real story behind this, which is quickly being covered up. The sea-based X-band radar failed because it stopped mid-test to install a Windows update. As all available bandwidth was consumed by the critical IE6 patch, the message "Please wait while Windows installs your updates. You will be able to resume your hostilities at the conclusion of this operation."
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Agreed. Fear is a major factor in military spending. Hell, just look at the shopping spree after 9/11...
Living With a Nerd
This system will still force our adversaries to build more complex rockets and delivery systems. Rocket science is tough even for the Russians, Chinese, and North Koreans. So maybe in their attempt to upgrade their rockets to bypass our barely working defense systems, they will make even more mistakes than we did, and their rockets will fail all on their own. Based on resent missile test from Russia and North Korea it might just work.
Maybe we should spend a little more money on literacy and math, since you fail at both.
... your ass will follow.
US medical spending is over $2.5 trillion http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/Washington-Watch/13016
US defense spending is $685 billion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States
Free your mind
some of the biggest gains in tech come during war or threat of war. this technology will undoubtably have beneficial technologies used for non military things. GPS was first created for military purposes. now look at it. just because you don't like the idea of being able to survive/defend against a missile attack because it's some how bad form to live when your enemy wants you dead, doesn't mean that there will be no other gains from it. i'm pretty sure that there is moon shot technology used by the military today. some private sector tech gets used for bad things too.
Perhaps the more important question is assessing whether the future of warhead delivery is fancy ICBMs or cheap-ass panel vans.
ICBMs are cool as symbols of military/industrial/scientific might and are, for the moment, the last word in penetrating the borders of a hostile power; but they are tricky to build, extremely expensive, and (even if difficult to intercept) trackable back to their source.
They are pretty much exactly the weapon that you would expect as a culmination of the US/USSR "two nuclear superpowers staring at each other across well defined, and substantially closed, lines" period. In a period of relatively open trade, assorted third parties, and general proliferation, though, it isn't at all clear that you can expect the next warhead to come by ICBM, rather than by Fedex...
Even if it actually worked, a lot of this missile defence stuff reeks of wrinkly old guys shoving money at their contractor buddies in order to finally have the weapons systems that they wanted during the cold war.
You make an interesting point.
However, I'd like to make the irrefutable counter-argument that missiles and rockets are cool while inspecting ships, planes and trucks is boring.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
Well, if the missile defense system *doesn't work*
To quote Jean-Luc, "Things are only impossible until they are not."
The only real question is whether or not protecting our cities from madmen in Tehran or Pyongyang is a worthwhile investment. I tend to think that it is. Do you really want to live in a world where the United States is held hostage to nuclear blackmail and our only choice if they murder millions of our citizens is to respond in kind?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
***Maybe if the US stopped wasting money on boondoggles like this, they wouldn't have had to cancel plans to return to the Moon.***
Naw. Returning to the moon, while feasible, is pointless, and the chances that you were going to get to Mars were pretty close to nil. That's my idea of a boondoggle ... if not yours. If you ask me, the US manned space program has been stuck on a wrong track for four decades. First, you learn to build cheap reliable transport -- which may take half a century or more. Then, and only then, do you start seriously putting people into space.
This test, on the other hand is a test of a DEFENSIVE system, not another tool for getting into trouble. As a result of stuff I did many years ago in another life, I actually knew something about this stuff at one time. I personally think that it is probably impossible to build an effective anti-missile system -- at least for use against significant opponents. It's simply cheaper for the guys building the missiles (them) to create and deploy countermeasures than it is for the defenders (us) to overcome the countermeasures.
But we don't know that for sure if that's true if we don't do our R&D. And that's what this is -- Research and Development.
What is a boondogle IMHO is the Bush administration initiated deployment of "operational" anti-missile systems that almost certainly would not work worth a damn if called into action. If you ask me (and no one did or will), that never even rose to the level of stupid.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Jeepers dude - give away the whole story why don't you...
Word game?
I know everyone is freaking out about how missile defense is defective by design and this proves their greatest concerns. However, go look up Aegis BMD/SM3, which is one of the other missile defense programs. It's the most successful program so far, having something like 12/15 successful flight tests. And not all the tests are hand-holding exercises, including the satellite shoot-down, which was remarkable since SM3 was not designed for that. I believe THAAD has also had some recent, successful flight tests too. In fact, I'm pretty sure GMD is the one missile defense program that hasn't had any successful tests. I don't know why we still give Boeing money.
Honestly, do you really think that in a time of peace (and probably even at war) someone in charge of running a country would be foolish enough to authorize a nuclear missile strike against another sovereign country? I'm afraid you have bought the hyped up bullshit from the military industrial complex lock, stock and barrel.
As poorly as these leaders are portrayed through the use of propaganda, please bear in mind that they are the leaders of their nations (regardless of whether you like them or not). They are not fools, and definitely not mad men.
Participatory Governance : The only feasible option for a real democracy, where everyone really does have a say.
I dunno, isn't it more credible if some tests DO fail?
It's a government contract - of COURSE it's rife with collusion, padding, selective data, etc. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try to develop the tech.
-Styopa
Honestly, do you really think that in a time of peace (and probably even at war) someone in charge of running a country would be foolish enough to authorize a nuclear missile strike against another sovereign country?
Yes, I do. Is there some rule that says nation-states always make rational decisions? History suggests that they don't. Japan went to war with a nation that had twice her population and almost six times her GDP. Germany went to war with virtually the entire world -- she was fighting twenty times her population and nearly five times her GDP by the end of 1941.
Any logical observer could have predicted the outcome of those choices. Indeed, many people in the defense establishments of both countries warned what the result would be -- but the leadership pressed ahead anyway. Millions of people on both sides died as a result. The only difference between then and now is that it would take a lot less time to run up the body count with modern technology.
It doesn't strike me as wise foreign policy to trust that our enemies will make a rational decision. Not when millions of people will die if they don't. Having a missile defense gives the President a second option. What would you rather see, the geopolitical fall out from a warhead that was shot down over the Pacific or the geopolitical fall out from the warhead that wiped out Honolulu or San Francisco?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Your post is truly ironic.
Yes, I would like to see developments for production sake, but so many production developments came from war/destruction spending.
For example, aren't the rockets that get us into space descended from the ICBM research?
Likewise, automobiles were designed to be productive, weren't they? But without them, we wouldn't have tanks.
It's a two way street. Given the flaw listed here, I can see improvements to GPS as one potential benefit coming out of this system. Maybe it could improve rocket systems as well, something that would help space travel...
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
As an addendum to the "cheap-ass panel vans" notion:
Consider the number of major cities around the world that are near, or have grown around, their airports. Airports that have large numbers of passenger and cargo flights going in and out every day. Flights that, in many cases(discoverable with the aid of any flight-tracking website, or a pair of binoculars and some patience) travel over densely populated, economically important, and/or symbolic areas at an altitude where a nuclear air-burst would seriously ruin the population's day. And many others are situated such that such an overflight could be achieved with a few minutes of course correction at the end of an otherwise routine flight, which should be doable before any but the twitchiest air-defence forces realize something is up and do something about it.
Building missiles is, well, rocket science. Smuggling things, probing for weaknesses in routine shipping mechanisms, and compromising customs and inspection mechanisms in order to move contraband, on the other hand, are widely distributed skills, with large numbers of uses, available to virtually any population which doesn't consist wholly of subsistence mud farmers.
Even for major powers, though, covert "terrorist-style" strikes have their advantages. An ICBM, or even a shorter range missile or military aircraft, is generally visible even when not intercept-able. Having it traced back to you leaves you facing whatever second strike capability the opposition has, general world condemnation, and other unpleasant consequences.
If, on the other hand, the trail of the warhead disappears into a maze of shady import/export companies with probable-but-not-cleanly-demonstrable links to assorted intelligence agencies, criminals, and radicals of assorted stripe, with a trail of losses, "thefts" and whatnot, the country who has been hit is left in a lousy position. Massive public fear and anger, massive demands to Do Something, no clear target. Odds are, they'll end up doing something inchoate and fairly stupid, just for the sake of doing something.
(Addendum to addendum: The analogue for strategically vital ports is, of course, either one of the thousands of perfectly legitimate smallish craft that float around on various business, or one of those sneaky mini-subs that the drug war has driven the development of. There are a lot of people whose days would be ruined if a major container port or oil-tanker loading/offloading site were to be annihilated unexpectedly.)
Funny but that world existed for about 20 years. The US pretty much could have nuked any nation on earth at will from 1945 until around the mid sixties.
The old Soviet Union had no effective to deliver a nuclear weapon to the continental US until the early to mid sixties.
The USSR could have hit Europe, Japan, and Alaska but odds are that maybe one or two bombers might hive gotten through to the US and the few ICBMs the USSR had would have been destroyed on the ground. That is one of the reasons that the USSR put missiles in Cuba so they could have a workable threat to the US.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Well, rather than spend huge amounts of money on a rocket delivery system. I will just put it in a ship and detonate the second it gets to port. Yes getting a nuke onto a US bound ship would be pretty easy, there is a *lot* of shipping. Doesn't even really need to be a nuke either, 20tons of high explosive at a port is going to have economic impacts.
Alternatively i will just find a dumb ass thats prepared to set his underwear or shoes on fire. Saves on getting a nuke too, or even working explosives.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
*sigh*
A mere decade ago, I'd have laughed at your statement. Today? I almost agree with you - and I'm a US citizen! Bush changed things an awful lot when he launched that preemptive war on Iraq. Afghanistan, not so much, but Iraq certainly.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Please don't tell me you believe that bullshit. Look it is really simple, If I am in little pissant country A, and launch a couple of nukes at big heavily armed country B, I just painted a big ass bullseye right on the dead center of my country C that will soon be a nuclear dead zone D.
The leaders of those countries may be douchebags, but they ain't stupid. if you have enough brains to develop nukes then you will have heard of the MAD doctrine which would be even more devastating to a little country like Iran or N Korea due to the fact that the amount of nukes they would be hit with in retaliation would be MUCH more powerful and much nastier than what they launched at the US, Russia, or China. Not to mention to keep from being downwind I'm sure China would roll on N Korea and bring the pain if it even looked like they were getting ready to launch.
No, this is just another excuse to cut really fat checks to defense contractors for worthless shit, ala the F22, which was designed to fight an enemy we no longer had and such lovely problems like the computers fucking up if you crossed a timezone with it. If we spent just 1/4th of this on our troops for pay raises, better gear, and for training interpreters we would be MUCH better off than pouring money down this rat hole. This is just TARP for the defense industry.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Umm, no.
A couple of things. First, one must consider that "countless" innocent civilians were NOT killed by the two atomic bombs. About 240,000 total was the count (over a period of several months - the immediate casualties of the bombs were closer to 150,000). Note that more were killed in one night of routine bombing of Tokyo than in both atomic bombings combined.
Second, the assertion that "Japan was finished by the time USA dropped the bombs". Remember Okinawa? Two months before the atomic bombings, and the Japanese managed to inflist 50,000 American casualties for one small island? Now, imagine extending that to the invasion of the entirety of Japan...
Third, if Japan were indeed "finished" before we dropped the bombs, why didn't they surrender after the first bomb was dropped? It's not like we dropped them on the same day - plenty of time to get to a radio and cry "uncle" if they were so inclined.
We won't even go into the oddity that both cities (and several others) were spared conventional bombing for years. The AAF wanted, if we actually used the Bomb, to get information on the effects of the Bomb on undamaged cities. So they made a list of military targets (Hiroshima's Naval Base comes to mind) that were put off limits for bombing. I understand that the AAF brass had to do quite the song and dance to justify to their subordinates not bombing those cities for years....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
This system has been failing since at least the late 90's (That's when I first started tracking it in the Marine Corps). The few successes it has had have been predefined configurations where they had a known flight path and pre-set intercept path. The entire thing is staged. And what's worse is that it fails even the majority of these staged intercepts.
People balked when Obama talked about dropping the missile shield in eastern Europe but honestly, these missile defense systems are a joke. They would do squat to improve our security and are costing us billion of dollars as they feed the military complex industry.
Scrap the system IMO, use the money to help offset the deficit, and the good will of the Russians to compel Iran to drop its uranium refineries.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Two decades and what have we got to show for it? A bunch of rich industrialists. We've needed to cut spending for decades, let us start here. There won't be much to defend if the government taxes us to death to pay for these useless toys.
Blar.
I really have to wonder if the N. Koreans know what the name of their missile sounds like in English.
I really can't say it's an inappropriate name for a missile, though.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Yeah, you guys are so compassionate, ONLY killing 240,000 innocent people.
There are no innocent people in a total war.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Actually, the reason the Japanese did not rapidly surrender immediately after Hiroshima is more complex. Bureaucratic inertia insured a pretty slow response. (The leaders did not even meet for two days following the attack, and debated the issue for half the day) The Emperor himself had been pushing for peace for some time following the Japanese defeat at Okinawa, but the Allied insistence on unconditional surrender, as well as political subterfuge by Stalin (who played on Japanese hopes of Soviet assistance while preparing his own attack against Japan), fed fire to an already heated debate among Japanese leaders. In an all-too-familiar story, political infighting prevented the country from taking prompt, sensible action.
First of all, one has to give up the idea that missile shield is somehow a weapon of defense. It is only useful if you plan to attack first.
The original cold-war idea of a missile shield is an attempt to block a retaliation strike. No shield would withstand a full-scale missile attack from Russia, but if you successfully attack them first, you may have to block only a handful Russian missiles. That's where the shield shines, it reduces retaliation damage. That's why Russia is so keen on building mobile launch sites -- truly defensive weapons for a nuclear conflict.
Now, I'm not saying that USA is actually planning to nuke Russia like they did in 1949, but US' attempts to place anti-missile systems in Czech Republic and in Poland make an awful lot of sense if you think about it like that (I believe the US military wants to have all the opportunities, including the one to attack, just in case).
The only real question is whether or not protecting our cities from madmen in Tehran or Pyongyang is a worthwhile investment. I tend to think that it is. Do you really want to live in a world where the United States is held hostage to nuclear blackmail and our only choice if they murder millions of our citizens is to respond in kind?
The problem that you aren't considering is that a non-functional or unreliable system is worse than no system at all, because it increases the likelihood that an attack will be launched and will be successful. It emboldens our leaders to make rash decisions that will anger potential enemies while assuming that the ABM system will protect our cities. It convinces potential enemies that a strike with large numbers of missiles is necessary to ensure success.
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Not to mention that the entire system could be disabled by detonating a nuke at apogee ten minutes or so before your attack missile comes over.
Support SETI@home
The NMD was probably sabotaged by leftists in league with the Obama administration. They want the USA to be a giant and defenseless nuclear target so all the third world people can take their revenge upon the evil Americans. There would be nothing that would make the leftists happier than a bunch of white cities in ruins.
This is my sig.
Did I say it was a 'self evident thing'? All I said was that Germany was fighting twenty times her population and five times her GDP by the end of 1941.
Whatever else you might think of the German war plan, declaring war on the United States after Pearl Harbor was the height of insanity. It allowed FDR to get a free (in terms of political capital) pass to fully enter the European war and to implment the "Europe first" strategy that condemned the Third Reich to a slow death by a thousand cuts.
Had I been in Hitler's shoes I would have condemned the Pearl Harbor attack and done everything I could to muddle public opinion in the United States. Imagine FDR trying to explain why he was prosecuting an undeclared war in the Atlantic with resources that could have been used against the Japanese. Imagine trying to sell Congress on the notion of sending supplies to Stalin while the Philippines were being overrun and the West Coast was perceived to be in danger of coming under attack.
The other side of the coin is the Japanese stupidity in going to war with the United States. By most accounts we defeated them with just 15% of our war production, the rest went to Europe. That should give you an idea of just how great of a disparity there was between the Japanese and American economies in the 1940s.
You can say that they were banking on a quick victory and a negotiated peace, but it seems to me that you've already lost if you are relying on your enemy to throw in the towel when he has the resources to beat you. It also ignores history -- the United States had proven itself willing to fight a total war against it's own people during the American Civil War (see Sherman's march to the sea and Sherdian's valley campaign), why would the Japanese or Germans make the assumption that we wouldn't be willing to do the same against them?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
One other thing, sorry to reply twice, but wars are decided by Quartermasters. There's a saying in military circles, "Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics." Having the best military technology and tactics in the world means absolutely nothing if you can't supply your troops with fuel, food and bullets.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Well, here's the thing. You can't just wave your hands and say "of course it's a worthwhile investment". Whether it's worthwhile depends on 1) how much it costs (including opportunity costs - in other words, what other good things could be done with the money), 2) how effective the defense system is, 3) how likely the threat is, and 4) the consequences if the threat actually manifests itself. If the consequence is "a major US city is wiped off the face of the earth"... well, that's pretty bad. But if the chances of that happening are 10^-9 over the next hundred years, the cost to defend against it would consume the entire US GDP for a hundred years, and said defense is only 10% effective anyway (to choose an extreme example), then clearly, this would not be a worthwhile investment.
Of course, in the real world the chances of an attack are probably somewhat higher (although realistically, pretty damn small), and GBM is probably more effective and certainly less costly than the extreme case discussed above. But does that mean it's worthwhile? Not necessarily. Although it's essentially a political question, we ought to at least approach it with facts to the extent we can. Discussing the consequences in isolation doesn't really help anyone make an informed decision about what to do.
Third point (I guess I'm trying to set a record for most replies to a single post), but it's debatable that Germany would have won the war if she had prevailed in the East. For one thing, 'prevailing' on the Eastern Front isn't possible in the conventional sense, unless you can convince Stalin to throw in the towel or fight all the way to Vladivostok.
More to the point though, the Manhattan Project was never aimed at Japan. It was aimed at Germany. The German atomic weapons program was a joke -- they were no where near as far along as we were. Nor did they have the spy network that enabled Stalin to get the bomb years ahead of schedule. Do you think that Germany would have had the political will to continue the war when her cities started being destroyed? Do you think she could have beaten the Allies on the battlefield if they had started using a-bombs as tactical weapons?
Please don't say that German technology would have made the difference either. The British actually beat the Germans to having a workable jet engine. The Allies were ahead of them in terms of radar and electronics technology. We compromised their encryption systems and were decoding their traffic almost as fast as they were. They never came up with a workable proximity fuse for the anti-aircraft role. We had a commanding lead in naval technology. About the only area they had us bested in was rocketry -- but those were terror weapons that had no meaningful impact on the Allied war effort.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
If the USSR couldn't deliver a nuke to US soil, then it is unlikely that the US could've done the reverse
Key difference: The US had forward operating bases. You can't reach the USSR from North America with 1940s/1950s bomber technology but you can reach it from Turkey, the UK, Japan, Italy, Iceland, Norway, etc, etc.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Insightful? Really? Are you saying Leaders of nations only make rational decisions? Explain Hitler.. or Stalin, or half the Monarchy in Europe back during the dark ages. Just because your in power doesn't mean it's because your smart. Hell isn't the next leader of North Korea going to be his son? It isn't because the guy is smart enough. A LOT of leaders of countries in the past are both fools and madmen.
Sorry.. but no.. Expecting the other guy to play nice / civilized is nice in a perfect world, but this most definitely is not.