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Critics Say US Antimissile Defense Flawed, Dangerous
Hugh Pickens writes "The New York Times reports that President Obama's plans for reducing America's nuclear arsenal and defeating Iran's missiles rely heavily on a new generation of antimissile defenses which last year he called 'proven and effective.' Now a new analysis being published by two antimissile critics at MIT and Cornell casts doubt on the reliability of the SM-3 rocket-powered interceptor. The Pentagon asserts that the SM-3, or Standard Missile 3, had intercepted 84 percent of incoming targets in tests. But a re-examination of results from 10 of those apparently successful tests by Theodore A. Postol and George N. Lewis finds only one or two successful intercepts, for a success rate of 10 to 20 percent. Most of the approaching warheads, they say, would have been knocked off course but not destroyed, and while that might work against a conventionally armed missile, it suggests that a nuclear warhead might still detonate. 'The system is highly fragile and brittle and will intercept warheads only by accident, if ever,' says Dr. Postol, a former Pentagon science adviser who forcefully criticized the performance of the Patriot antimissile system in the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Dr. Postol says the SM-3 interceptor must shatter the warhead directly, and public statements of the Pentagon agency seem to suggest that it agrees. In combat, the scientists added, 'the warhead would have not been destroyed, but would have continued toward the target.'"
Protection Against Threats Real, Imagined or Theoretical.
The Antimissle Defense system prolly runs on Mac, since Jobs has told the US Govt that the Guidance System uses far too many resources and battery usage they opted out of implementing therefore impeding the system's accuracy...
Thanks for the Offtopic post Rupert.
Don't forget to set a password, in case some UFO loon goes poking around.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Wait, so are you saying they missed the point, or missed the warhead, and isn't the warhead in the pointy bit anyway? I'm confused.
Conservation of angular momentum makes the world go round.
Atari, actually; the targeting system is called "Missile Command" and most of the problems stem from the fact that it can only intercept missiles moving inside a single two-dimensional plane.
Apple's approach was to make the United States so shiny and expensive that nobody in their right mind would fire a missile at them. Also, they would've replaced the American airspace with a robust aluminum shell. This plan was rejected because citizens would have had to go through a boot camp before they could use Windows software. Okay, and some naysayers complained about the unibody shell making air travel impossible and causing massive damage to nature and agriculture by completely shutting out the sun.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Dude, UPS doesn't allow shipping of nuclear bombs. I think radioactive material is also on the forbidden list at the USPS. So, no problem.
Do you have ESP?