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.

save preference

Comments (4 of 4)

Kodiak missile launch also a boondoggle

by Mike Sirofchuck - Kodiak Rocket Launch Information Group

Fri Dec 17, 2004 18:57

I live in Kodiak where the "target" missile was fired for the last failed Missile Defense test.
This test cost 85 million dollars and proved only what most of us already know - the program doesn't work and it's a gigantic waste of money.
Here in Kodiak, access to one of our most important recreation areas (hiking, hunting, whale watching, etc) was prohibited for over a week while they tried to get their missile ready to launch.
Over 50 million federal dollars have been spent to build the Kodiak Launch complex which has only fired some seven missiles since 1995 (and one of those blew up one minute after launch.)
The community here does not support the facility or the NMD - we've seen firsthand the waste of money.

Any failure of Star Wars technology is good news

by T

Fri Dec 17, 2004 19:51

That is good news of another failure of this totally misconceived Star Wars project

Anything that makes it harder for the terrorists in power to make use of such technology to terrorize the rest of us is good news.

Bush 2 gave 1 billion dollars (old value $=€)

by anthony

Sun Jan 02, 2005 20:42

to evangelical X-ians in 2003.
only a tenth of what he spent on Star Wars.

Old Mother hubbard...

by woof woof woof

Wed Jan 05, 2005 17:34

"Highly-satisfied NASA boffins donned their party hats on Monday to celebrate the first anniversary of their Spirit rover's martian adventure.

Spririt touched down on the Red Planet on 3 January 2004, closely folowed by Opportunity on 24 January. Although both completed their three-month primary missions back in April 2004, they have continued to do sterling service well beyond their expected lives. At present, according to the NASA press release, Spirit is "exploring the Columbia Hills within the Gusev Crater", while Opportunity is "driving toward the heat shield that protected it during descent through the martian atmosphere" so that scientists can examine the effects of atmospheric frction on the same."

Great isn't it?

they're at their little computer screens anaylsing the data being kept safely out of harms way in their party hats.
See? we are all happy now.

I think we should encourage the Americans to explore the universe, and put all their best boffins to the task of reading the computer readouts from the little machines they send into space.

But First we want to feed the hungry.
and end 3rd world corruption, exploitation, desiese and convince them that we are not the Great Satan.

Leonardo di Caprio, (whom you may remember from such movies as gangs of NYC where he played an irishman) has donated an unspecified sum of money to the Tsunami disaster saying "phi phi island was the most pristine beautiful place I've ever seen" (he made a movie there)-
Well done Leonardo! We hope you are happy in your marriage, and look forward to seeing you again on the silver screen soon. Thank you for the calenders.

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

Comments (4 of 4)