THE controversial defensive shield against long-range missiles proposed by
the US is fundamentally flawed, warns a panel of physicists and engineers. They
say that simple decoys such as Mylar balloons could confuse the system and
prevent the missile hitting its mark. “It’s crazy to say we’re going to start
this whole deployment,” says David Wright, a senior scientist with the
Massachusetts-based Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which commissioned the
report.
Unlike Ronald Reagan’s ambitious Star Wars programme, which would have fought
the Soviet Union in space, the new National Missile Defense (NMD) system is a
scaled-back version designed to protect…
