U.S. Missile Shield Won't Work: Scientist Group

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The multibillion-dollar U.S. ballistic missile shield due to start operating by Sept. 30 appears incapable of shooting down any incoming warheads, an independent scientists' group said on Thursday.



A technical analysis found "no basis for believing the system will have any capability to defend against a real attack," the Union of Concerned Scientists said in a 76-page report titled Technical Realities.

snip

The Missile Defense Agency "appears to be picking numbers out of thin air," the report said of past Pentagon assertions of a high probability of shooting down targets.


"There is no data to justify such an assumption," added the scientists' group, which is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its findings dovetailed with an audit last month by Congress's General Accounting Office (news - web sites) that said the system's effectiveness would be "largely unproven" when the initial capability goes on alert.

more

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/arms_missile_usa_dc

mastered.

They also appear to have mastered pissing of scientists.

False job report numbers, false numbers about the cost of war, number of troops needed, missile defense success...

Isn't this the fuzzy math dumbya was so against in 2000?

Kerry should find an ad out this.

This crap never has worked. Just a way to channel money to the BFEE.

so the concept is valid. This larger scale system has it's flaws, but honestly, if you never build it, you'll never perfect it. Kinda like any emerging tech.

The Patriot missle system totally failed in the first Gulf War. There was not even one confirmed hit--despite the media/propaganda effort.

The Patriot II system is little better. It might hit a SCUD on occassion or other 1960's technology missle. It wouldn't hit anything built by a sophisticated opponent. Patriot is a theater defense system anyway, so it's targets are much easier to detect and hit; ie low trajectory, low speed objects. These aren't ICBMs.

And honestly, do you really endorse building a Trillion $$$ system that you know won't work, just to get the bugs out? Especially when the whole thing will probably have to be scrapped before arriving at something that might work?

The PII worked brilliantly. Just look at all the coalition aircraft we shot down with it.

Jay

Thanks again Jay.

Did 'ya get a chance to listen and read the news at this site? Ck. it out if 'ya haven't already.

edited to add; http://www.kyw1060.com/news_story_detail.cfm?newsitemid=37563

Hey, it has it's flaws, but honestly, if you never build it, you'll never perfect it. Kinda like any emerging tech.

Not to mention the worldwide political impact of deploying such a system (whether it works or not) We could see a conventional and nuclear arms race that make the "Cold War" look small by comparison as China, Russia, France etc; scramble to to produce enough capability to defeat the system.

Jay

How the TARDIS actually travels through space time is a mystery.

The TARDIS is almost indestructible.


Well how much is this going to cost the tax payers? Maybe we could all go back to the time before there was an income tax and then it wouldn't cost us a thing! But how to pay the contractors?

- It is easily defeated even if they developed a working prototype, which they won't. The Russians already have a missile to defeat it. Why do you think they went along with scrapping the ABM treaty? They WANT us to waste money on this stupid project.
- The enormous cost takes away from other more important needs, such as the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Homeland Defense, etc.
- It sure won't stop a barge coming into Baltimore Harbor with a device. Even if Star Wars worked 100%, a "rogue nation" has many other options for a strike. As mentioned before, the enormous expenditure on the project would weaken defense in these other areas (e.g. port security) greatly.
- The US does not have infinite resources, in spite of the reckless spending by the Bush cabal. We have choices to make. Star Wars is a terrible choice to pursue by any rational analysis.

- The Bushies are lying by saying that this system could work to 'protect' America. Scientists have always been against this 'bullet hitting a bullet' type of system because the failure rate is so high as to make it useless...especially against decoys.

- An untested system should never be deployed in the field. All this does is give a false sense of security and cost the taxpayers billions of dollars that go to Bush* supporters/defense contractors who don't earn it.

Vandenberg would send up a rocket with a homing beacon saying "here I am" and from the Pacific they would sent up a rocket that homed in on the beacon. They once called a near miss a successful hit. Once the missile from the Pacific failed stage and they said that it would have been a success if the staging would have worked. Also we had to wait for good weather to launch. The target rocket made a really neat green glow in the sky that lasted for almost and hour. We feel we got our money's worth. Now on with deployment!

for at least twenty years now, and the "fiscally responsible" Republicans have never listened. International diplomacy aiming at verifiable disarmament would be more effective, but of course that wouldn't funnel billions to the aerospace industry.

everyone said SupplySide Economics wouldn't work, but look what happened.
Everyone said invading Iraq was a bad idea, and look what happened.

But George BELIEVED and look what happened!

oh, wait a minute.

50% prayer, %50 elbow grease!

Seriously, this program is fraud. It has been pushed through now as a result of the hysteria and paranoia of 9/11. What few "tests" that have been performed have failed and these were performed under the most controlled conditions. Even the failed tests have be declared successes, probably as time-of-war disinformation psyops.

on things that don't work. Why stop now.

What about then?

:eyes:

File this under D'uh!

Since when did ChimpCo give a sweet shit about "sound science"???

The Sept 30th initial operation date is another Karl Rove election year stunt.

The last time the US deployed an ABM system, it was deactivated 6 months later - cuz it didn't/wouldn't work.

Deja vu all over again....

All it is, is a transfer of wealth from our pockets to the Bush supporters. You give enough money to Bush you get a government contract to build tinker toys.

The nerve of them wanting to get rid of social security and Medicare while wanting to build a boondoggle!

....provided our "enemy" tells us precisely when they will launch the missile, where it will be fired from, at what time, in what direction, and what the target is. with this our trusty SDI system will have at least a one in a hundred chance at hitting the single missile.....oh yeah, and tell whoever might be launching the missle at us that its not fair to attack us as night, in the rain or use decoys.....

What they falil to see and in fact cannot see, with all their education and degrees is that the Missle Defense system is a "God Shield".

This shit is biblical man.

<end sarcasim>

but engineers. Many scientists (including me as a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists that did this study) have been speaking out against star wars since the days Ronald Reagan was talked into it by Edward Teller and others at the weapons labs. Many of the leading opponents, including Ted Postol at MIT, are scientists, so please don't lump us all into the pro-star wars camp.


Missile Defense System Won't Work
by David Wright and Theodore Postol

The United States is on the verge of deploying a national missile defense system intended to shoot down long-range missiles. The Clinton administration is scheduled to decide this fall whether to give the green light to a system that is expected to cost more than $60 billion, sour relations with Russia and China, and block deep cuts in nuclear arsenals.

But the real scandal is that the defense being developed won't work - and few in Washington seem to know or care.

The chief difficulty in trying to develop missile defenses is not getting vast systems of complex hardware to work as intended - although that is a daunting task. The key problem is that the defense has to work against an enemy who is trying to foil the system. what's worse, the attacker can do so with technology much simpler than the technology needed for the defense system. This inherent asymmetry means the attacker has the advantage despite the technological edge the United States has over a potential attacker such as North Korea.

We recently completed, along with nine other scientists, a yearlong study that examined in detail what countermeasures an emerging missile state could take to defeat the missile defense system the United States is planning. That study shows that effective countermeasures require technology much less sophisticated than is needed to build a long-range missile in the first place - technology that would be available to the potential attacker. This kind of analysis is possible since the United States has already selected the interceptor and sensor technologies its defense system would use. We assessed the full missile defense system the United States is planning - not just the first phase planned for 2005 - and assumed only that it is constrained by the laws of physics.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/051100-101.htm

and "whore" engineers who will build it for them.

There are whores everywhere, in all walks of life.

but if you polled most Americans I bet they think this sort of technology is worth pursuing AND would prevent another 9/11 attack (with planes)

...could we have purchased with the money that went into this ridiculous program?

And I still haven't heard why the administration thinks this is such a pressing matter of national security. Chances are, terrorists are not going to deliver a WMD payload strapped to the tip of an ICBM!!!

Has anyone had the cojones to ask them how this missile shield will stop a suitcase bomb?

-MR

...and armoured humvees if they had been purchased from halliburton or kellog, brown and root. yessiree, if the right people are selling dog shit, this country would be buying, IN TRUCKLOADS!

...just fill the pockets of Bush* campaign donors.

He's said this from day one.

He worked on many top secret missile programs for the Pentagon in his career.

He is a total right-winger, neo-con evangelical Bush supporter.

And he says this thing can never work.

It's about fucking time somebody pointed this out.

The only people who have EVER wanted this thing are politicians.

It's pure corporate welfare, nothing else.

Worse, it's DANGEROUS AS ALL HELL.

Because one way to make it fail is to overwhelm it. If it's designed to shoot down 20 missiles, you send 40. If they make it so it can shoot down 40 missiles, you send 80.

Can you say "arms race?"

I talked to a relative, MIT grad, rocket scientist type running a company with DoD contracts right after Congress appropriated the $$$.
They all broke out in contemptuous laughter AFTER breaking out the champagne...

or was it 9/11 on the importance of a missile system threats...

"...Overstating the defensive capabilities of the ground-based defense is dangerous, the group said.

"If the president is told that the system could reliably defend against a North Korean ballistic missile attack, he might be willing to accept more risks when making policy and military decisions," the report said..."

Of course, this assumes that George's advisors would give him bad information about system reliability, and that George would believe them. It also assumes that a little ol' nuclear war with N. Korea might be just the thing to boost Georgie's poll numbers...

We are so fucked.

his fingers and make himself invisible.

...the important thing is to SPEND THE MONEY to build it and of course, and to make sure the right people and companies GET THE MONEY SPENT. It's analogous to no exit strategy for Iraq. To paraphrase the black-hearted bastard cheney: it doesn't matter if we don't have an exit strategy, we're already there.

no, republicans would NEVER be for corporate welfare. They are AGAINST welfare!! Haven't you been paying attention?

The transference of wealth, however, is deadly accurate and in proper working order.

in the midst of all of this controversy and weakening of the admin's iron grip on the media, maybe these clear-headed voices will be heard by a few more people...

rove used to be able to issue immediate attacks on these kinds of statements, but he's got his undies in a bunch these days.

its real purpose is to soak up taxpayer $$s, Im sure its
very effective at it.