Friday, April 01, 2011

Close, But No Cigar

Problems with our ground-based missile defense system needs to be fixed:

After years of successful tests, the American GMD (Ground-Based Midcourse Defense) is running into some serious problems. Two tests last year (in January and December) failed because of problems with the warhead. As a result, work on eleven new warheads has been halted, until quality control or design issues can be addressed. Twelve warheads, of the same design as those still under construction, have already been delivered. These may have to be modified.
This isn't horse shoes or hand grenades, so we need to fix it.  Still, this isn't a disaster and will be fixed. the system was pushed into service early so we'd have some capabilities before it is fully developed and tested.