As we all know by now, during the campaign President Obama said he would “cut investments in unproven missile defense systems.”
Since then, that thought process has evolved into “the U.S. will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven.”
As Ed Morrissey at Hot Air states so well:
There has always been an air of absurdity about the opposition to missile-defense systems. No one argues that missiles aren’t a threat, but somehow defending ourselves against it is illegitimate unless one stumbles on a complete, perfect defense immediately. That we have never found a perfect defense against any weapon on the first throw doesn’t appear to faze people at all.
When Germans introduced U-boats in World War I, we answered with depth charges. Did that kill every submarine? No. Did that make depth charges a waste of effort and money? Not at all.
Well, as of this past weekend we’ve now learned, yet again, what an incredible success the missile defense program has become with the destruction of a mobile target[read: missile] during testing. Props to a reader within the Boeing organization that forwarded this great news:
This past Saturday, our teammates on the Advanced Tactical Laser achieved another first for that program. At White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the ATL aircraft successfully damaged a mobile target with several direct hits from the air. This achievement comes less than three weeks after a successful test by ATL against several stationary targets. These tests demonstrate that an airborne directed energy system can fire a high-energy laser in flight and precisely track and hit both stationary and mobile ground targets.
Below are pictures from the development and testing of the laser.***
*** – Not really. But Real Genius is an awesome movie and considering the great news this was too perfect not to share.
