Suzanimal
04-06-2015, 10:55 AM
The US wasted $10 billion on missile defense projects which were doomed for failure from the beginning, due to a lack of analysis, a report by the Los Angeles Times says. Aside from the astronomical costs, the failures appear to also threaten US security.
America’s maritime based X-Band Radar (SBX) was hailed by the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) as having the potential to become the most powerful radar of its kind in the world.
Henry A. Obering III, a retired director of the Missile Defense Agency, said at a Senate hearing in April 2007 that “if we place it in Chesapeake Bay, we could actually discriminate and track a baseball-sized object over San Francisco.”
However, despite all the hype, the SBX proved to be a flop and an expensive one at that. A report by the Los Angeles Times revealed the project eventually cost $2.2 billion and was doomed to fail from the very beginning, due to insufficient early testing. The system, which was supposed to have been operational in 2005, is now lying idle in Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
The failure of the SBX was just the tip of the iceberg. It was one of four projects which were abandoned and caused embarrassment for the MDA, while they ended up costing the US tax payer $10 billion.
The SBX, which is a floating radar system, was designed to spot incoming missiles and track them through space, while it would also guide rocket interceptors to eliminate the threat. The project was so advanced that it could tell the difference between actual missiles and decoy rockets.
The problem with the sea-based radar was its field of vision (25 degrees compared to 90 and 120 degrees of conventional radars) cannot be relied upon to track a number of incoming missiles at the same time.
“Although it can powerfully magnify distant objects, its field of vision is so narrow that it would be of little use against what experts consider the likeliest attack: a stream of missiles interspersed with decoys,” the report says.
Another big error of the project designers - they forgot to take into account the earth’s curvature. Due to this factor, the SBX would not be able to see a baseball around 2,500 miles away, unless the ball was travelling at an altitude of 870 or more miles above San Francisco. Technical experts told the Los Angeles Times that this is about 200 miles higher than a conventional missile would travel at if it was heading for the US.
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http://rt.com/usa/246973-defense-usa-billions-wasted/
America’s maritime based X-Band Radar (SBX) was hailed by the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) as having the potential to become the most powerful radar of its kind in the world.
Henry A. Obering III, a retired director of the Missile Defense Agency, said at a Senate hearing in April 2007 that “if we place it in Chesapeake Bay, we could actually discriminate and track a baseball-sized object over San Francisco.”
However, despite all the hype, the SBX proved to be a flop and an expensive one at that. A report by the Los Angeles Times revealed the project eventually cost $2.2 billion and was doomed to fail from the very beginning, due to insufficient early testing. The system, which was supposed to have been operational in 2005, is now lying idle in Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
The failure of the SBX was just the tip of the iceberg. It was one of four projects which were abandoned and caused embarrassment for the MDA, while they ended up costing the US tax payer $10 billion.
The SBX, which is a floating radar system, was designed to spot incoming missiles and track them through space, while it would also guide rocket interceptors to eliminate the threat. The project was so advanced that it could tell the difference between actual missiles and decoy rockets.
The problem with the sea-based radar was its field of vision (25 degrees compared to 90 and 120 degrees of conventional radars) cannot be relied upon to track a number of incoming missiles at the same time.
“Although it can powerfully magnify distant objects, its field of vision is so narrow that it would be of little use against what experts consider the likeliest attack: a stream of missiles interspersed with decoys,” the report says.
Another big error of the project designers - they forgot to take into account the earth’s curvature. Due to this factor, the SBX would not be able to see a baseball around 2,500 miles away, unless the ball was travelling at an altitude of 870 or more miles above San Francisco. Technical experts told the Los Angeles Times that this is about 200 miles higher than a conventional missile would travel at if it was heading for the US.
...
http://rt.com/usa/246973-defense-usa-billions-wasted/