Risk management, missile defense, and space

The report of the Independent Review Team commissioned
by the Missile Defense Agency has surfaced at

http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/IRT_Final_Report.pdf

It has a lot of explicit and implicit linkages to things
that s.s.p. has talked about, so I would be interested
to see what the readership here thinks about it. Do its
recommendations have relevance to VSE?

Allen Thomson wrote:

The report of the Independent Review Team commissioned
by the Missile Defense Agency has surfaced at

http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/IRT_Final_Report.pdf




That's a very funny report- it basically states "the President told us
to deploy a BMD system by 2004, and we did deploy it as required; the
thing doesn't work, but it is deployed. We don't know exactly why it
doesn't work, because the whole program is a cocked-up mess with very
little accountability or quality control on the part of the contractors-
but if we had more money and time, and could actually make the
contractors do what they are supposed to be doing, we could maybe make
it work...someday...maybe. But it is deployed, even though it doesn't
work; and nobody said anything about deploying a _working_ BMD system by
2004, did they? No, they just said "deploy a BMD system by 2004", so
that's what we've done, as promised. Now we're going to take all our
pretty blue writing and head for the bar, because we all need a drink.
We leave it up to you to figure out how to deal with those asshole
contractors, but if it were up to us, they, not the missiles, would be
sealed up in those Alaskan silos." :-)

Pat