Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. how we wonder what anomaly that was...

Friday December 17, 2004 14:23

by nerd

Star Wars failure 23 seconds into booting.

No one expects Mr Bush to weaken his support for a project that has become an article of faith among many Republicans. But analysts said that they expected sceptics in Congress and in the Pentagon to try to whittle down the vast sums being spent on the project, some $10.2bn this year alone.

It is the largest item in the Pentagon's budget. "This is a programme marked by failure," said Joe Cirincione, the director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"Every single part of the system is over budget, behind schedule and under-performing. There's not one success story. At a certain point that catches up with a programme."

The Pentagon had no immediate answers to what was behind this week's failure.

The Pentagon had no immediate answers to what was behind this week's failure.

The interceptor - a booster rocket and a 'kill vehicle' supposed to detach itself and explode the enemy missile - was housed on Kwajalein Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands in the Central Pacific.

It was expected to blast off 16 minutes after the 'enemy' warhead was fired from Kodiak Island, Alaska.

But 23 seconds before blast-off, an undetected anomaly prompted the automatic system to shut itself down.

It was to have been the ninth test. Three of the previous eight also ended in failure.

Yesterday's test was delayed seven times because of technical difficulties.
(© The Times, London)

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Also: Canada won't fund missile shield: PM
from the Windsor Star, December 15, 2004

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Firing ICBM's is very bad for the environment.
They leave lots of bad smoke in the higher atmosphere and piss off the birds.
Francis of assisi will get you for that.