Word: ballooners
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...launchpad at Vandenberg Air Force Base, 125 miles up the Pacific Coast from Los Angeles, a 63-ft.-tall gleaming white rocket sits and waits. Secreted in the nose of the 37-year-old Minuteman II is a 5-ft.-long cone--a mock warhead--and a deflated Mylar balloon. Let's say they are part of an incoming missile from North Korea or Iran. Meanwhile...
Five minutes into its launch, the California rocket will release its mock warhead. The accompanying balloon will quickly inflate to its 6-ft.-plus diameter. Traveling less than a mile away from the mock warhead, the balloon is supposed to lure the interceptor away from its intended target. The warhead and the balloon, along with the container in which they rode into space, will reach a top speed of 14,700 m.p.h. and a peak altitude nearly 1,000 miles above the earth...
...stored in its memory chips. Having fixed its own location, the interceptor will turn its telescope toward the target's expected location. As the interceptor and mock warhead travel to within 500 miles of each other, the interceptor should pick up the warhead, along with the decoy balloon and launch container. From here on out--in the final 100 seconds--the interceptor will be on its own, getting no guidance from the ground. But it will still be getting help. At this point, the balloon, the designated hindrance, will become the sly helper...
...Friday's test, the big, bright balloon will be the major decoy. (The launch container will play a similar but subordinate role.) But even Pentagon officials acknowledge that the balloon will act more like a beacon that alerts the interceptor to the nearby presence of the real target. The Pentagon concedes the October test might not have succeeded if the decoy hadn't appeared so vivid to the interceptor's sensors. "The large balloon aided in acquisition of the target," Coyle says. "It is uncertain whether the interceptor could have achieved an intercept in the absence of the balloon...
...once you start, the series of strange, colorful pictures and patterns that flash before your eyes will keep you amused and intrigued. For more pointed fun, check out the minigames on shockwave.com which require a quick download of the Shockwave player. I got hooked on Water Balloon Drop, but there's also online poker, trivia games and even an Austin Powers dancing game...