WOOHOO! 'nother successful BMD shot in the bag!

Jstas

BMD = Ballistic Missle Defense

sntnsupermen131

ummmm...nevermind...
-Cody

Jstas

Nevermind what?

PoweredByDodge

-- hey john -- elaborate, cuz i have no idea what you're talking about dude

did we shoot one down on iraq or something?

sntnsupermen131

yeah..what he said...lol
and you dont have to kill us for knowing to much do you?...lol

-Cody

Jstas

I can't say much about it. BMD was TBMD which failed miserably and never got off the ground. The Navy cancelled the TBMD program but kept around ALI which was a small part of TBMD.

Some acronyms:

TBMD = Theater Ballistic Missle Defense
ALI = AEGIS LEAP Intercept
LEAP = Light Exo-Atmospheric Projectile
BMD = Ballistic Missle Defense

So basically, ALI soldiered on and was meant as a program for defending Naval fleet activities from medium and short range ballistic missle threats. About 2 years ago, I had the opportunity to be a part of history and was on the team that made the first ever, successful ballistic missle intercept. It was on a test shot just outside of Hawaii. Since then we have been 100% successful in our tests and it has worked almost flawlessly. It works so well that the Pentagon and White House took notice and President Bush dumped an extra 60 million into the contract to ensure that it would be up, operational and floating in the water by 2006. We are ahead of schedule. They also extended the program to include long range ballistic missles and like another 6-10 years of development.

That is a breif history of the program. I can't say much more. I can't even say if I have enough info to be able to say more or not. It is a tremendous success and very very important to not only battlefield troop defense but also national defense as a whole. But at this point, it's just neat to see the perfect intercept record keep going with no problems or mistakes so it makes everyone happy when it happens.

The only drawback is that I cannot talk about it beyond very high level stuff that is already released to the news. That makes people skeptical and wonder if I really know what I am talking about. Many people think I am being overly dramatic about it but they just don't understand. Unless they had clerance, they would not know what they really don't know. Alot of my technical knowledge I am not allowed to share because the government has determined that it is a security risk and sensitive information. Not the best position to be in because people constantly tell me I don't know what I am talking about. But what they don't realize is that the technology we are working on now won't be seen in the civilian sectors for another 30+ years. Some of it may never be declassified They all find it unbelievable because they can't see a level of technology like that in current civilian tech levels. But no civilian company, not even Microsoft, has the resources available to it like the U.S. Government.

I don't build the systems directly. I am not an engineer. I am an Information Systems professional. I maintain the computer systems that the engineers use to analyze the data that is generated from thier testing and design so that they can build the best product they can. The quality with which I perform my job directly affects thier jobs. The computer systems are much more that just hardware. I have to maintain databases, operating systems, software packages and data space in addition to hardware issues. I not only support my local site here but all the test events I have to support either at the event itself or remotly. In addition, I also test the systems that they do thier work on to ensure a level or performance and functionality that they need.

Needless to say I have a stake in it. I have been doing this work since before I graduated college in 2000. I started working here when I was 19 as an assistant project manager. I got my degree and became a DBA/Sys Admin. So it's been a part of my life and it makes me happy when we have a success. I have a special tie to the ALI program through work that I have done for it. One event would not have gone off if it wasn't for my efforts put in on a problem we were having with one of the systems. I feel attached to it. I mean, there are other events that I support on a regular basis and they are all equally worthy of being proud of whether they succeed or fail. I just have a special attachment to the ALI program and the people I have worked with on that program. I want to see them succeed and it makes me happy when they do that I wait with such anticipation for the official news release to be able to tell people that we had another success.

delvryboy

i must say...extremely interesting....makes my life seem sooo boring

sntnsupermen131

Originally posted by delvryboy
i must say...extremely interesting....makes my life seem sooo boring

you and me both...
your name IS john isnt it?
lol
im not sure if im talking about the same thing you are, but lemme ask
i saw it on the discovery channel...hah, or tech tv or something...
its this huge gun(actually, like a bunch of guns in a big box), that they put on naval ships, that shoots on X many thousands or millions of rounds per second at incoming missiles
that right?
or something else...im sure theres a more technical way to say a bunch of guns in a big box...but still...lol
-Cody

Jstas

Um...no.

ALI involves LEAP = Light Exo-Atmospheric Projectile which is basically a kinetic warhead strapped to the end of an SM-3 missle which is about the size of a Buick. It gets shot up into space through multiple stages where the warhead is ejected and activly seeks it's target.

I don't know what guns in a box you are talking about but, there is the Phalanx which is a 20mm radar guided gatling gun (known as a Vulcan cannon on the A-10 Warthogs) which will fire something like 6,000 rounds a second and is fast enough to intercept a missle. But those are anti-ship missles, not ballistic missles.

sntnsupermen131

yea i was talking about the anti ship missiles
-Cody