Austerity? Not for Useless Missile Defense systems!

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Shoot the Moon: Missile Defense Costs as Much as Apollo Program

By Adam Rawnsley August 4, 2011 | 3:20 pm | Categories: Weapons and Ammo


America’s budget woes may have the Obama administration eyeing $400 billion in cuts to the defense budget. But, for now at least, there’s one program that appears relatively safe: the star-crossed missile defense effort.

Congress plans on increasing missile defense spending 1.2 per cent to $8.6 million for fiscal year 2012. Bloomberg Government tallied the increase up along with 27 years worth of missile defense spending and found the price tag to be roughly $150 billion. That’s roughly the same amount spent on the Apollo space program. The man-on-the-moon level spending comes despite technical challenges and other setbacks faced by missile defense programs over the years.

Smith and Ratnam point to an additional $1.16 billion needed for the Ground Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program at Ft. Greely, Alaksa as an example. The idea behind GMD is to knock out a ballistic missile headed to the U.S. using interceptor missiles. As Bloomberg notes, it has failed 7 out of 15 tests.

Leaky pipes, toxic mold and “significant infrastructure reliability issues” now plague one of Greely’s missile fields, according to the most recent defense budget bill passed by Congress. The mold has forced some workers to don hazardous materials suits. As a result, the Missile Defense Agency needs the $1.16 billion in part to build a new missile field.


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http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/08/shoot-the-moon-missile-defense-costs-as-much-as-apollo-program/

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