Word: interceptor
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This Friday, sometime between 7 and 11 p.m. Pacific time, the Pentagon plans to fire the rocket from California, then fire the interceptor from the Pacific. It hopes the resulting collision will persuade President Clinton to give the order to start building a $30 billion system to protect the U.S. from missile attack. Success could signal the most profound change in U.S. national security since Washington decided to contain Soviet expansionism in 1947. That is why so much is riding on this week's test for the military, its contractors and the space shield's many proponents in Washington...
...projected National Missile Defense system. While Pentagon officers insist there will be future chances to halt its construction, a success this week could make that politically all but impossible. Congress is chafing to fund the system (see following story) and was heartened by the first test, in which an interceptor pulverized a fake warhead last October. In a second test in January, however, the interceptor missed its target by 241 ft. when a cooling line clogged and shut down its heat-seeking sensors. As a TIME investigation shows, little is being left to chance this time. So little, in fact...
...virtually no unknowns in the procedure. The Pentagon knows the type of rocket launching the target as well as the nature of the target; it knows how powerful the rocket's engine is, where it is coming from and when it is being launched. The crew launching the interceptor will even get to listen in on the countdown of the warhead's rocket as it takes place. All that is valuable intelligence--and much, if not all of it, would be denied to the U.S. if a rogue state decided to strike. Such advantages "place significant limitations" on the value...
...test favors a positive outcome in other ways. Much of the gear now being tested won't end up in the operational system. The rocket that will ultimately be deployed to lift the interceptor into space--still in development--will shake 10 times as violently as the more gentle boosters scheduled for the first seven tests. While the Pentagon says the shield will defend against "tens" of incoming warheads, all 19 of the Pentagon's tests are against a lone incoming warhead. Jacques Gansler, the Pentagon's top weapons buyer, told Congress last week that the testing program will grow...
...system has an inherent inability, in battlefield conditions, to distinguish an enemy warhead from a cone-shaped traffic beacon. Advocates counter that the tests are simply trying to establish whether the system can walk before trying to make it run. It doesn't help their case, though, that the interceptor system isn't even managing to stay on its feet...