It's Back!!

And as expensive as ever. Knight-Ridder (07.21.05):

"Flight tests of the multibillion-dollar missile defense program will resume in the fall for the first time since they were halted in February after three in a row failed, the general in charge of the program said Thursday." Missile defense tests to resume in the fall

Missile Defense Agency head Lt. Gen. Trey Obering III, said they have it figured out. The previous problems "have been addressed, and 'the odds that we would have the kind of failures we've had with two interceptors in a row are very low,' he said." What he didn't mention is they thought the odds of the stuff that actually happened were very low too. More naysayers. "'This system cannot deal with simple balloon decoys," said Stephen Young, a senior analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists. 'In the real world, anyone who could put a missile together with a nuclear warhead could also put a balloon decoy on that missile as well. Once it gets into space, you could have 40 decoys and one real warhead and this system has no way at all to tell those apart.'" The article notes that General Obering "didn't address the issue of decoys."