Anthony D'Amato (Law, Northwestern) has shared with me a letter he has sent on the subject of our new missile defense [sic] system; I thought other readers might find it of interest:
To: General T.W. Khastoffkey
U.S. Missile Launch Pad
Kodiac, Alaska
From: Tony D'Amato
Taxpayer
Chicago, Illinois
Date: February 14, 2005
Dear General:
Allow me to quote today's New York Times: "The nation's fledgling missile defense system suffered its third straight test failure when an interceptor rocket failed to launch Sunday night from its base on an island, leaving the target rocket to splash into the Pacific Ocean." We are told further that "The target rocket was launched from Kodiak, Alaska, at 9:22 p.m. Sunday, but the interceptor that was supposed to go up 15 minutes later remained on its pad in the Marshall Islands"
The late President Reagan assured us that the new anti-ballilstic missile technology ("Star Wars") would protect this nation from a rain of missiles from the Soviet Union.
Now, I'm just as much opposed to being blasted to smithereens by a rain of incoming nuclear missiles as the guy next door. I don't mind the fact that each of your tests costs the American taxpayers $85 million, because most of that money helps pay for the high costs of our democratic elections when some of it is re-channeled into political campaigns via the Aerospace Industry.
What bothers me is not the money, but the success rate of your program, which I take it so far is nil. I'm not just talking about the three most recent failed tests, because I seem to recall a whole lot of previous tests that also failed. Maybe those tests were part of a different series so they don't count.
Do I remember correctly that on one of those previous tests you sent a decoy missile along with the regular one and that the team on the Marshall Islands shot down the decoy and let the target missile get through? I think you or one of your associates at that time told the press that it was a "limited success."
Since then I haven't heard any more about decoy missiles. Maybe they just work too well, dooming your valuable tests from the outset. Or perhaps omitting them is mandated by budgetary constraints. But from what I've been able to figure out, an attacking nation can send along 20 or so decoy missiles for every one of the payloaded missiles, and the cost of the 20 decoys is no more than the cost of one payloaded missile. Hence, with a sky full of decoys coming at us, how could we afford to send up enough interceptors to shoot down every one of them?
Of course, President Reagan's answer was to advocate the use of laser beams to dissolve the incoming missiles. The laser technology would be significantly cheaper than sending up interceptor missiles. From what I gather by looking at a military article or two every once in a while, it took the United States about fifteen years of concentrated R & D on laser-beam anti-missile technology to confirm the scientific objection made within twenty-four hours of President Reagan's Star Wars announcement. That objection was that laser beams are blocked by clouds. Maybe during the 15 years of R & D the working assumption was that our enemy would not be smart enough to launch its missiles only when the skies are overcast.
So now we are back to the present day. No laser beams, just the old-fashioned idea of shooting a bullet to stop a bullet. Our technicians create a target missile (the one you launched) and an interceptor missile (the one launched from the Marshall Islands.) These missiles "speak English" to each other; they are aware of each other's regular codes as well as each other's evasive codes. In fact, target and interceptor are two sides of the same technological coin. Yet your team seems unable to "shake hands" with the folks in the South Pacific. Our targets go one way while the carefully aimed interceptors from the Marshall Islands go another way or just stay at home.
I know that you must operate under the philosophy that we have to start somewhere, and it's no use getting bogged down in theories. But what if a real missile war breaks out and the payloaded missiles are speaking Korean or Chinese while our interceptors speak English? Perhaps we could insist at the United Nations that they program their target missiles in English.
I realize that these are complicated issues, and none of us might last long enough to sort them all out. In the meanwhile, eat lots of chicken soup as I hear that despite global warming it's pretty cold up there in Kodiac.
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