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Missile Test a Step Ahead |
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July 8, 2000 WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon's rocket scientists lit the fuse on a $100 million missile defense test early Saturday. If successful, the test could move the United States a step closer to building a nationwide anti-missile shield. Congress says it is urgently needed; critics decry it as unworkable. After fixing a last-minute technical glitch that delayed the start of the test by about two hours, a modified Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile with a dummy warhead atop its third stage rocket blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., at 12:19 a.m. EDT, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said. The rocket headed toward the central Pacific. Within 20 minutes of liftoff, an interceptor missile carrying a warhead-blasting ``kill vehicle'' was to launch from Kwajalein Atoll. If all went according to plan, the ``kill vehicle'' would use target data gathered from ground-based radars to maneuver itself into the path of the dummy warhead 140 miles above the Earth. The goal was a 16,000-mile-an-hour collision that would disintegrate the warhead by sheer force of impact. At stake is the future of a multibillion dollar project that has upset Russia and China and caused many of America's closest European allies to wince at the prospect of a U.S.-only defense against a missile attack. Although President Clinton says he will decide soon whether to keep the project moving toward an anticipated deployment in 2005, it will be up to his successor to make the final steps to build and deploy it. This fast-approaching decision deadline for Clinton gave Saturday's test extra urgency and public attention. The last-minute technical glitch was a weak battery that supplies power to a telemetry system which is needed to help engineers on the ground record the exact point of impact between the dummy warhead and the ``kill vehicle.'' The battery was recharged and all other systems appeared normal prior to liftoff, officials said.
If Saturday's test worked, Defense Secretary William Cohen seemed likely to recommend to Clinton that he take the first steps in a phased building plan that would have the missile defense system ready to use by December 2005. If it failed, Cohen could still recommend going ahead, but it would appear more likely that he would favor another option such as stretching out the timetable to allow for more flight tests. The Pentagon's independent advisers have said the 2005 timetable may be overly ambitious. Cohen said in an interview Friday with National Public Radio, before the missile test, that he did not expect to make his recommendation for another three or four weeks and he could not predict what it would be. This was the third in a series of missile intercept tests. The first, last October, succeeded. The second, in January, failed. Saturday's test was delayed more than two months to fix the problem that plagued January's test. The anti-nuclear activist group Greenpeace had hoped to halt Saturday's test by placing a ship in the Pacific where a rocket stage is expected to splash down about 110 miles offshore from Vandenberg, said Steve Shallhorn, the group's campaign director. Greenpeace also set up camp outside Vandenberg's main gate. At the White House before Saturday's test, spokesman P.J. Crowley said that even if the missile hit its target there would be weeks of detailed analysis before the Pentagon could verify that everything worked properly. ``I would say a hit doesn't automatically suggest success, nor does a failure automatically come with a miss tonight,'' Crowley said. One of the biggest backers of missile defense in Congress, Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., said in an interview Friday that he believes America can afford a missile defense even though defense dollars are tight. ``Without a doubt, Congress will approve the funding for a missile defense system'' so long as U.S. military leaders feel confident it is technologically ready for deployment, Cochran said. Cost estimates range from the Pentagon's $36 billion to the General Accounting Office's $60 billion. By law, the Pentagon must deploy a national missile defense as soon as it is technologically feasible. Feasibility and cost are two of four factors Clinton has said he will take into account in deciding whether to give the Pentagon the go-ahead to begin preparing a construction site on Shemya Island in the Aleutians. A high-powered ``X-band'' radar would be built there to track a missile in flight toward the United States. The other two factors Clinton will consider are the urgency of the missile threat against the United States and the implications of building a missile defense for U.S. foreign relations. On the Net: Ballistic Missile Defense Organization: http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/html/ Union of Concerned Scientists: http://www.ucsusa.org/ CIA assessment of missile threat: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/nie/nie99msl.html
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