Political Quotes

“there have been two important events relating to missile defense programs that occurred last week, which I would like to bring to the attention of the Senate. First is the successful test last Friday night of our Nation's long-range missile defense system. This was the fourth successful test against an intercontinental ballistic missile and it was much more complicated than earlier tests have been, in that the target warhead was accompanied by three decoys. Despite the presence of these countermeasures, the interceptor was able to destroy the ICBM warhead. The target warhead was launched on a missile from California, nearly 5,000 miles from the interceptor. The target warhead itself was a cone about 4 feet high and 2 feet wide at its base. The decoys were about the same size. Sensors were able to track these objects along their flightpath and give their location to a battle management system. The battle management system computed an intercept point and launched the interceptor. The interceptor missile received information about the target's position and characteristics, and while it was still several hundred miles from the target warhead, the kill vehicle separated from its booster rocket, its infrared sensors then detected the target, and its guidance system fired small rocket motors to guide the vehicle into a collision with the warhead. The target was destroyed by the force of this collision.”