WHAT'S NEW Friday, March 12, 2004

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 12 Mar 04   Washington, DC

1. MISSILE DEFENSE: DEPLOYMENT IS ON SCHEDULE, BUT WILL IT WORK? 
A GAO report released yesterday points out that the components of
the mid-course ground-based system have not been tested in "its
deployed configuration."  Many problems, such as finding warheads
in a field of decoys, multiple interceptor launches, nighttime
intercepts, adverse weather, and finding missiles without homing
beacons have not been tested at all.  Nevertheless, the Missile
Defense Agency says it will put a covey of interceptors in Alaska
as early as July.  The General Accounting Office is the
investigative arm of Congress, which is controlled by the
Republicans.  But yesterday it was Democrats on the Senate Armed
Services Committee who focused on the testing issue. The Director
of Operational Test and Evaluation in the Pentagon admitted that
the system is not even far enough along to use Pentagon computer
programs that would indicate whether it would actually work. 

2. DEPLOY NOW, TEST LATER: WE CAN'T SIT AROUND UNTIL THINGS WORK.
With the administration requesting $10.2B for missile defense
next year, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI)questioned whether deployment
would violate a 1983 federal law passed after Ronald Reagan
announced his Strategic Defense Initiative.  The law requires new
weapons systems to be tested under realistic conditions before
going into mass production.  The Soviets had vast fleets of
sophisticated ICBMs armed with hydrogen warheads.  SDI never came
close to being a credible defense.  But what's the urgency now? 
The Alaska site could only defend against North Korea, which
might be able to set off a nuclear explosion, but would be hard
put to build a warhead for an ICBM -- if they had an ICBM -- and
they know they'd be toast if they tried to use it.  Against this
awesome threat we need to spend $100B on an untested defense? 
               
3. HUBBLE REPRIEVE?  NASA ADMINISTRATOR SAYS "NOT ON MY WATCH." 
There was brief joy among astronomers yesterday when they heard
the news that NASA had agreed to have the National Academy of
Sciences consider the decision to cancel another Hubble repair
mission on safety grounds.  But later in the day, Sean O'Keefe,
the NASA Administrator, punched a hole in their canoe.  He made
it clear that while he was willing to have experts look at the
decision, there was nothing they could say that would change his
mind.  I called Ann Thropojinic, a veteran astronaut at NASA
Headquarters, to help me understand this.  "You scientists just
don't get it, do you?" she sighed.  "People don't care what's
going on 13 billion light years away.  They want to know how you
eat spaghetti in zero gravity.  You should have thought about
that before you let Hubble go up without a permanent crew."   


THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.  
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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