Reagan's Vision?

In 1983 , the Cold Warrior Ronald Reagan proposed an "anti-missile system" effectively placing a shield around the United States to protect it from incoming ballistic missiles. Although never deployed, the concert of the Strategic Defense Initiative has lived on ever since.

U.S. Navy Successfully Tests Sea-Based Missile Defense System

April 26, 2007 10:01 p.m. EST

Matthew Borghese - AHN Staff Writer

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - The U.S. Navy and Missile Defense Agency (MDA) have successfully stopped a ballistic missile, shooting it down with an interceptor missile launched at sea.

Using the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3), which was developed by Boeing and Raytheon, and the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Weapon System, the guided missile cruiser USS Lake Erie shot down an incoming missile launched from the Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, Hawaii. The kill was the eighth successful test of the Navy's short- to intermediate-range ballistic missile defense.

Debra Rub-Zenko, vice president of Boeing Integrated Missile Defense explains, "This test successfully demonstrated the modified SM-3 Kinetic Warhead's performance for the first time in an exo-atmospheric intercept. The test showed that modifications made over the last two years have been effective and the SM-3 and its Kinetic Warhead provide the system performance needed by the warfighter to defeat ballistic missile attacks."

"Boeing is proud to be a member of the industry team committed to providing this extraordinarily effective operational capability to MDA and the Navy."

According to Boeing, "once the Aegis BMD system guided the SM-3 to the right point in space, the SM-3 kinetic warhead successfully acquired the target and computed an accurate guidance and control intercept trajectory for the hit-to-kill intercept."