The Latest Star Wars Woes: Launching Fake Targets -- Time MagazineThe Pentagon's missile-defense program has already cost $100 billion and strained relations with the Russians, and it has yet to prove its real-world value. Hitting a bullet with a bullet — the heart of the system — is a difficult enough task. But a new report reveals that the Pentagon is even having problems launching the practice targets needed to test the system.
Until now, the military has relied on relics, some of them 40-year-old rockets, to launch its test targets. And that has led to a growing number of failed tests. The Government Accountability Office, in a study released last Friday, reports that the rate of target failure rose from 7% between 2002 and '05 (3 out of 42), to 16% between 2006 and '07 (6 of 38). After all, the Pentagon can't shoot a fake warhead out of the sky if the rocket designed to put it there fails to do its job. Even more distressing, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency appears to be bungling a $1 billion program to develop a new generation of test targets. In 2003 the Pentagon hired Lockheed Martin Corp. to build several kinds of new test-target missiles to help perfect the system. The GAO says that while the test which incoming missiles used between 2002 to '06 cost an average of $6.5 million each, those slated for use over the next two years carry an average price tag of $48.5 million apiece.
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My Comment: I am speechless. After spending all of this money on a SDI program, they do not have the targets to practice on. Hmmmm ..... someone has not been paying attention on the big picture.