North Korea ’s missile broadcast seems to bemoving backwards , with its latest failed launch make out to begin with than its 2009 flop . Yet House Republicans still want a fast-flying , projectile - zap optical maser cannon to stop Pyongyang and its ballistic “ terror . ”
Back in February , the Missile Defense Agency announced thefinal mental test flightof the Airborne Laser , the beam of light gun - equipped 747 that became a symbol of uneconomical Pentagon weaponeering . Despite 16 years and billions of dollars in development , the special K could never reliably knock down a missile in trials . And even if it did work , the thing would cost $ 92,000 per hour to pilot , and would have to be just about over the projectile site to do its blasting . So the jet was finally ordered to the Air Force ’s “ Boneyard ” in Arizona , where it would join thou of other aircraft the U.S. military did n’t desire or need .
Or at least , that was the plan . Now the House Armed Services Committee ’s Strategic Forces panel is saying : not so tight . In its markup of next twelvemonth ’s Pentagon budget , the subcommittee is directing the head of the Missile Defense Agency to add together up “ the costs demand with returning the Airborne Laser aircraft to an operational set position ” so it can persist in to be tested , and so it could “ be quick to deploy in an in operation eventuality , if needed , to respond to chop-chop developing menace from the Democratic People ’s Republic of Korea . ”
The provision , first take note byInsideDefense.com , is yet another sign of the degree to which magical thought has crept into the missile defense debate . In the same markup , the strategic military group panel called for the military to start work onan interceptor system for America ’s East Coast – even though the Missile Defense Agency says it ’s not needed . And the subcommittee cry for a discarded and magnificently fragile radiolocation ( sometimes known as “ the Giant Golf Ball of Death “ ) to be ready for duty as well .
The topic has always inspire some starry - eyed thinking , of course . Newt Gingrich floated the idea oflaser strikesto stop North Korea ’s 2009 projectile launch . ( And rent ’s not even bring up the thousand unrestrained scheme hatched during the Strategic Defense Initiative of the 1980s . ) But with Washington in the thick of an austerity pushing , and withmore than $ 274 billion already spent on anti - missile tech , the disconnection between missile defense dreaming and missile defense realism look specially acute .
The subcommittee wants nearly $ 75 million set away “ to preserve the skilled workforce that was postulate in the Airborne Laser Test Bed program and to accelerate experimentation with next propagation direct energy system development . ” ( That ’s Washington - speak for ray guns . ) The experimentation is hypothecate to include the “ planned testing of the Phantom Eye system ” – a ostensibly - odd choice , since theexperimental , hydrogen - power dronehas been infix as a flying spy , not a attack craft . But the missile defense worldly concern has a way of life of encouraging seemingly strange choices . couch a laser on the Boeing - built aircraft , designed to delay in the air for days at a sentence , would hardly even qualify as weird .
Wired.com has been expanding the hive mind with technology , skill and eccentric culture news since 1995 .
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