MOSCOW. Nov 9 (Interfax-AVN) - The U.S. national missile defense system (NMD) is unlikely to be effective in the near future due to the lack of suitable technology, Professor Theodore Postol of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a prominent expert on the subject, told Interfax-Military News Agency.
The NMD system would not operate adequately ever, he said in Moscow during a visit to the Moscow Physical and Technical Institute.
However, he stressed that it does not mean that such system will not cause problems for global stability. The matter is that despite the U.S. technological inability, the national defense system of the country would provide other countries with firm grounds to react on this fact, he thinks.
He added that the NMD system as a whole and the interceptor missiles in particular had never been tested in a combination of all three elements.
All stages of the interceptor missile, he said, were tested as elements of other missiles. For instance, the first stage is used in the Delta missile, while orbital propulsion motors are employed in conventional spacecraft.
He also said that it is also true in relation to the missile interceptor systems being deployed in Alaska.
Those who are not amateurs in missile technology understand clearly that such systems on alert duty are nonsense.
He voiced his expert opinion that the U.S. NMD system is a potent fraud of the U.S. taxpayers.
He added that the answer to the question why the NMD system was put on alert duty so rapidly is in the political sphere: President George W. Bush simply wanted to announce the system operational during his first term in office.