The Huntsville Times July 14, 2006
Experts Question Whether Nation's Missile Defense System Is Ready
By Shelby G. Spires
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. _ In the wake of North Korea's recent test firings of long-range missiles, many are wondering whether the U.S. missile-defense system is ready to go. The short answer is nobody knows for sure.
Air Force Gen. Henry A. Obering III, head of the Missile Defense Agency, says the complex system of radars and interceptors is ready to take on an incoming missile.
But John Pike, a defense expert who runs GlobalSecurity.org, said that based on test results, the missile-defense system seems limited.
"It can't really take on decoys, and it hasn't been all that stressed in testing," Pike said.
For more than four decades engineers have been developing and testing variations of a missile defense shield to protect U.S. cities from nuclear combat.
But even with missile expertise here in Rocket City dating back almost 60 years, experts agree missile defense is a difficult, seemingly impossible, challenge.
It's something Dr. Wernher von Braun, head of the German rocket team brought to Huntsville's Redstone Arsenal by the Army in 1950, once said was like "hitting a bullet with another bullet."
Brig. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly, head of the Ground-based Midcourse Missile Defense Joint Program Office, likened the complex challenge of detecting and hitting a missile with a missile to the 1940s Manhattan Project that developed America's first atomic bomb or von Braun's 1960s Apollo program to put astronauts on the moon.
"Both are very correct analogies given the challenges," he said.
Von Braun's "bullet hitting a bullet" description was apt, but perhaps understated given that the two "bullets," or missiles, are approaching at combined speeds of about 20,000 mph.
"The margin for error sometimes is not in the seconds," said Scott Fancher, Boeing Co. vice president and Ground-based Midcourse Defense Program director in Huntsville. "It's in the milli-seconds. It's a difficult challenge."
Since 1999 there have been 12 flight tests of the ground-based missile defense system.
Of those, eight tests were flown against targets between 1999 and 2002 and five were successful intercepts, according to Missile Defense Agency and Boeing figures.
The most recent successful ground-based missile defense launch was a Dec. 13, 2005, test of a new Orbital Sciences-built booster rocket.
The program suffered several setbacks in 2004 and early 2005 when two interceptor rockets did not launch from silos at Kwajelein Atoll in the South Pacific.
That forced the ground-based program into what Obering called "a building year."
One test failed because silo doors did not close properly and another had a software glitch.
"We learned from those test results and have made changes and enhanced the testing program," Obering said. "We spent the year restructuring for better results."
An actual North Korean nuclear-tipped missile launch on the United States seems "highly unlikely," said Victoria Samson, a missile defense expert with the Washington-based Center for Defense Information.
"You know where the ICBM came from, and, frankly, it would be a last resort for North Korea to launch a nuclear attack on the United States because of massive retaliation," Samson said. "There would be no North Korea if they launched a missile at" the United States.
Samson questioned the reliability of missile defense shield testing because "the Missile Defense Agency uses beacons to track (targets) in flight. That makes it much easier to find and identify the target for an intercept."
When the system is complete, Samson said, the Air Force is supposed to have a network of satellites in place to track the target and help guide the interceptors. The target beacons emit a signal that makes up for the current lack of targeting satellites. "They really can't track them in flight without the beacons, but it's not a good, solid test of the system either, in my mind."
Samson said the $50 billion missile defense program has limitations. "It can't detect nonconventional nuclear weapons such as a suitcase-sized bomb, and it can't destroy an incoming solid-fueled rocket because of the speeds involved," she said.
Pike said the money might be better spent on a ship-based missile defense system that would be highly mobile and able to shoot down a missile as it launches.
The Missile Defense Agency and Boeing are planning a series of improvements to the ground-based system over the next decade, Boeing's Fancher said. "Each block of improvements adds a capability to the missile defense system."
This year new radars, including a giant sea-based floating detection radar, are being added to the system. In coming years, upgraded detection radars and additional missiles will be put in new silos in Alaska and California.
"Also, the program is preparing for a third site, possibly in Europe," Fancher said. "That would give (missile defense) an extended capability."
© Copyright 2006, The Huntsville (Ala.) Times
