Missile defense: 3-2-1 ... pfft!

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Here's one for the "If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one around to hear it" file:
If you're test firing a missile and the missile doesn't actually fire, has the test really been conducted? And if so, is it a failure?
No and no, says the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, which says what actually happened at Fort Greely, Alaska, on Dec. 15 turned out to be a non-test of President Bush's controversial missile defense system. Sure, it was supposed to be a test, and sure, a target vehicle was launched. But the interceptor missile never actually got out of its silo in Alaska, shutting down seconds before lift-off.
"I definitely wouldn't categorize it as a setback of any kind," spokesman Richard Lehner told the Los Angeles Times.
Heavens, no. Just because hundreds of people wasted thousands of hours on it, and just because it cost $85 million and never got out of the silo, and just because if the target vehicle had been, say, a North Korean Taepodong-2 ballistic missile, it could have wiped out Seattle, you definitely wouldn't categorize it as a setback.
'Star Wars'
Since President Ronald Reagan first envisioned a "Star Wars" defense system in 1983, the United States has spent $100 billion on space-based defense systems. This year, the Pentagon will spend nearly $11 billion on it, and missiles already are in the ground in Alaska. But the interceptor vehicle has never tracked and killed a target vehicle in an unrigged test, and last week's test went 3-2-1 ... pfft!
If the tracking technology existed, and if there was money to pay for it, a missile defense system would be good idea. But rather than develop the technology first, the Pentagon is ignoring its "fly-before-you-buy" rule to benefit companies like Boeing, Raytheon ... and members of Congress who represent them.