You do realize that this was just a test, right?

NEWS FLASH: TEST OF PROTOTYPE NOT PERFECT YET NEWS AT 11...

I love how the "make love not war" hippie crowd points to every little setback in the test and development phase as evidence that a program- in this case one that could potentially save millions of lives- is a "waste of money"

Actually, the test interceptor missile shutting itself down instead of failing in flight saves money and shows the software at least found something wrong before it was too late. Like HP pointed out, this is a test. If you look at the development of any missile system you will say countless failed attempts. This is one of those cases when you err on the side of caution and program it to simply abort at any small problem.

In my opinion I'd rather spent 100 billion on a system that has a 1 percent chance of knocking out a North Korean or Iranian missile (NK already has ones that can reach the US and Iran is in advanced testing of one that can in the next couple years) with a nuclear warhead than just sit back and watch it come. Whats money when talking about protecting against nuclear war?

Yes, I know it was a test. I am pretty sure we were not being nuked by the Marshall Islands

An interesting point, in light of the fact that a country with a hint of a possibility of nuclear weapons is worth invading. But for the other countries that pose a more concrete threat, lets just design counter missiles. Sounds like its better for all involved if the axis of evil is nuclear armed.

Well, in a way you are right. Its better to prevent someone from finishing their nuclear weapons if you can, but once they already have them, invading would just result in many (tens of thousands guarenteed at at the minimum) deaths and nuclear contamination. Sadly, this is why millions are starving to death in North Korea. After all, had China not backed NK causing the split of Korea, the north would have been like the south, you know, starving, no money, no economy...oh wait a minute.

In all actuality I feel Iran is more of a threat than NK is. They've quoted the leaders of Iran saying as soon as they get a bomb they want to use it against Israel or US interests in the middle east. NK just wants food and money, Iran on a Jihad.

Either way, I have no problem spending money on a defense system that may or may not work. Being over in Cali which is well in the range of NK missiles, I'd figure you'd be happy with one too.

A short and sweet press release from the Missile Defense Agency... and the less said, the better

Generally, when dealing with extremely sensitive systems like this, you don't go into details. You'd need a security clearance for more information.

I'm not seriously worried about NK using nukes on california, since it would only ensure his country's annihilation to use them. We're supposed to be worried about them selling nukes to unretaliatable terrorists, who then wouldn't fire them from a parent country. But it is ironic to think our own troops would have been safer if Iraq had gotten nukes and made it unsafe to invade and to force Bush to pursue the diplomatic solutions he pursues with NK. I really don't give a shit about liberating Iraq, Saddam controlled the religious fanaticism a lot better than its being controlled now. The middle easts problem is on a societal level, religious hatred is culturally ingrained in them and democracy doesn’t fix that, it’s the other way around. If we're supposed to take Bush's reasoning at face value, he has one hippy ass way of looking at the world. Instill democracy in Iraq and freedom/liberty will just bloom all over the middle east like flowers in spring? Please, i thought you conservatives hated that kind of attitude.

Well, I'm sure this test wasn't put forth to show everyone how well it shuts down when something goes wrong.

Sounds like there is bigger trouble than they are letting on to. Anomaly?

Hey, at least the test missle got off the ground without an anomaly!

Ha! Saves money? Something going wrong saves money? I understand you logic, but please.

This sounds like a major malfunciton. But at least we saved a buck or two during the call to the president to tell him it didn't work.

Sure did! Saved a buck by dialin down the center with 1-800-CALL-ATT

Being in the test phase, the problem could have been so minor it normally wouldn't even effect anything, but to build a new interceptor missile is very expensive and its not worth the risk. We have plenty of test missiles to shoot at so losing one of them is no big deal.

Maybe next time we can invest in gigantic nets hanging from balloons to catch the missiles! ;)

This is not good, we agree with each other on North Korea!

The whole Iraq thing is not really worth arguing about anymore. I still feel it needed to be done and I don't think anyone is really sad saddam is gone, but it was sold to the world under shaky claims of nukes because as we see in Sudan, no one cares about civilians deaths, only direct threats to their country.

That drone was written off the moment it was fired. One way or another, that drone was going to be destroyed. The drone was also (probably) just an old surplus weapon we simply didn't want/need any more. Whether it gets blown up over the pacific or chopped to pieces, it's no big deal.

If the missile had fired and then malfunctioned, we'd of lost a huge amount of money to build a new one.

I suppose the big question is this, though - couldn't they have done something to detect this error BEFORE the launch? If (and that's a big if, because we don't know) it was the result of someone simply forgetting to run a quick diagnostic test on the rocket or someone skipping over some basic maintenance, then there's a big problem.

I'm sure they built just one and don't want to waste it.