Friday, June 23, 2006

It's a hit!

Story: "A US warship successfully shot down a target missile warhead over the Pacific in a test of a sea-based missile defense system, the US military said.
A Japanese destroyer performed surveillance and tracking exercises during the test, marking the first time any US ally has taken part in a US missile defense intercept test, the US Missile Defense Agency said.
...
The sea-based system tested off Hawaii is designed to counter only short or medium range missiles, but the cruisers and destroyers that took part are capable of tracking long-range missiles as well.
The mock warhead was launched over the Pacific atop a medium range missile and destroyed in a direct hit six minutes later with an SM-3 missile fired by the Aegis cruiser USS Shiloh, the agency said.
The missile successfully intercepted the target warhead outside the earths atmosphere more than 100 miles above the Pacific Ocean and 250 miles northwest of Kauai," the agency said in a statement.
We are continuing to see great success with the very challenging technology of hit-to-kill, a technology that is used for all of our missile defense ground- and sea-based interceptor missiles," Lieutenant General Trey Obering, the agency chief, said in the statement.

Sitting in the middle of the ocean, tracking and hitting a missle screaming past at hundreds of miles per hour... That is what the US Navy does. Extreamly impressive.

And perhaps thats why we get this story:
"for most, a missile was too distant, too unlikely a threat to interrupt their daily lives.

"A better question is when's the next earthquake," Ernie De Matteis said as he flipped through a newspaper in San Francisco."

Americans either trust the US military, or they compleatly don't know what North Korea has and may do. I think its likely the trust of the most powerful military in the worlds history.