[ExI] The Doomsday Clock

[Adrian Tymes]

On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 2:12 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> Adrian, you grossly underestimate the capabilities of the military sir.
> Perhaps you heard of THAAD?  An excellent product it is indeed, built by a
> fine company:
>
> http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/thaad.html
>
> THAAD prevents a crazy dictator with a handful of nuclear missiles from
> triggering World War 3.

Assuming it works in practice - and is turned on when the ICBMs come.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_High_Altitude_Area_Defense only
lists tests, not actual uses so far.  (There are a few "deployments",
but a quick scan of the article found no mention of shooting down a
non-test missile.)  You'd think it would have been deployed in Israel
to intercept Hamas rocket attacks by now.

Hitting a missile with a missile, when the incoming missile makes no
concessions to make the outgoing missile's job easier, is difficult.
Staging a series of successful tests, especially after the program's
funding was already cut for failed tests, is much simpler.