Tuesday, June 20, 2006

The Empire Strikes Back: If North Korea goes through with testing its ICBM, we may try to shoot it down with our missile defense technology.

That sounds like a great plan, if it works. But if I recall, we have only had limited success "hitting a bullet with a bullet". We have done it before, but usually we miss. Striking Korea's missile would be a perfect response. But trying and missing would be rather embarrassing.

Korea's recent threats give some credence to President Bush's insistence that we need a missile-defense shield. I don't know whether that technology is worth the money or not. But I'm tired of critics who condemn the program on the fact that it doesn't work. That's the entire reason of experimenting with the program -- to make it work. I'm glad these people weren't in charge of the American space program early on. A couple failures, and they would have called it quits.

Even if we never need our missile-defense technology, national defense innovations often lead to amazing inventions for the average consumer. Just take a look at the Internet. The question now is how much we are willing to spend on this technology.

P.S. Fox News linked to the Washington Times article. I guess the conservative-leaning press is trying to band together against the liberal-leaning media.