Why is MDA Moving So Slowly on Space Sensors?

摘要

The news on the nuclear proliferation front is not good. Pakistan's arsenal turns out to be bigger than previously thought. Iran will soon have enough fissile material for a bomb. And now Defense Secretary Robert Gates says North Korea may be capable of targeting U.S. territory in five years. So the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is moving out fast to deploy all the elements needed for an effective defense of America and its allies, right? Well, not exactly. Three decades after engineers in the Ronald Reagan era developed the first plan for how orbital sensors could be used to track ballistic missiles, the MDA still can't make up its mind how it wants to proceed.