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BLOG
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Bolt On
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Tuesday, February 26, 2008 By
Riki Ellison
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Dear Members and Friends, The Czech Republic, Poland and the United States are close to consummating a multilateral and bilateral commitment to host a missile defense system that NATO would soon "bolt on" and integrate this system for protection of Europe from ballistic missile threats. This new system would offer protection for the majority of Europe, Northeastern Africa, Greenland, Iceland, the majority of Japan and parts of Russia and China from limited long and medium range ballistic missiles from Iran.  The Czech Republic would have a responsibility and a critical component of hosting a European Midcourse X-Band Radar (EMR) that would provide Europe's most powerful sensing information of tracking and discrimination of very small objects traveling through space. This sensor and its information would be integrated into all of the current deployed missile defense systems as well as all of NATO's missile defense systems so as to provide accurate, pinpoint precision to cue up the various missile defense interceptors located throughout Europe. This sensor is also an invaluable tool to track and discriminate debris in space to determine if it is harmful or not to human life. The "high tech" associated with the EMR and its dissemination of the information is a world leading edge technology. The European Midcourse X-Band Radar (EMR) would be financed by the United States, thus contributing an instrumental asset to NATO at no cost to NATO. The radar would be built and fully deployed by 2013 providing the necessary coverage for the National Intelligence Report on the ballistic missile threat that Iran poses to Europe. The United States would have very minimal troop presence (around five or less) as this has been done in many other foreign countries hosting radars with the United States.
For the Czech Republic, hosting the EMR provides them with a unique and important responsibility as a new contributing NATO member. It also helps the Czech Republic move from a manufacturing economy into a high tech economy as a substantial amount of US money will be contracted out to Czech Republic companies to provide services to help build and sustain this radar. Estimates stated by the Missile Defense Agency are around $90 million a year until the radar is built and then $40 million a year to sustain it that will go directly to Czech Republic companies. 
On the eve of Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek's visit to meet with President Bush this Wednesday, MDAA has spent the past few days in Prague and local cities surrounding the Brdy region to observe and listen to the views of Czech citizens and officials on the proposed agreement between the United States and the Czech Republic.
We look forward to hearing the comments from Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek and to the day when the United States can contribute to this great country again, as we have vivid memories of the impact of the United States Third Army, led by General George S. Patton, that liberated many of the cities in the Czech Republic, and the American and Czech lives that were sacrificed to do so. Respectfully,
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Missile Defense Shoots Down Toxic Satellite Mitigating Risk to Human
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Thursday, February 21, 2008 By
Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance
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Riki Ellison, President of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance let the worldwide membership of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance know that our Navy's Aegis missile defense system was successful in its fist try with a SM-3 in the shoot down of the failing US 193 satellite. Extracts of his comments follow:
"Global protection of human life from Space was proven, demonstrated and executed tonight by the use of our country's missile defense technology and her current deployed missile defense systems -- the Aegis USS Lake Erie (CG 70). This historic intercept of a toxic satellite falling from space, harmful to human life around the world has given mankind its first ever reliable deployed capability to protect life from objects falling from space."
"The investment, the political will, the engineering ingenuity, the determination of our public, our Congress, our military and our President to develop and deploy a system that was created by American Industry and the military, proven through vigorous testing, deployed on sea and land-based platforms and adaptable to provide an accurate pin point precision defense of hitting an object in space is truly a remarkable historic feat."
"The factual reality of using deployed missile defenses to destroy a falling satellite or a ballistic missile or even a meteor from space that would risk human life is an achievement for mankind."
"Missile Defense will continue to become more and more universal throughout the world and it will become more reliable and effective, so as to one day in the near future, we as a world can eliminate and mitigate risk from any and all harmful objects coming from space that would threaten mankind."
"The intercept of the Satellite US 193 occurred at 10:26 pm EST on Wednesday in the Pacific Ocean off of Hawaii. A Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) was fired a few minutes earlier off the USS Lake Erie using information fed by the ship's on board Aegis radar tracking and discrimination sensor to guide the missile close to the falling satellite where the missile engaged its heat seeking sensor thereby enabling a direct perpendicular hit on the 5,000 lb satellite with a kinetic energy impact of 22,000 mph. The satellite was destroyed at 10:26 pm EST. The majority of the small pieces of the satellite will burn up in the atmosphere upon reentry whereby the bigger pieces will fall harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean in the first 48 hours, and the remaining pieces will re-enter the atmosphere over the next month."
"The Sea Based X band radar was deployed in the area to support independently the discrimination and tracking of the destroyed Satellite. Other US military sensors and satellites were deployed in the area and were also used for evaluation of the intercept." "The Aegis Destroyer USS Decatur (DDG-73) accompanied the USS Lake Erie in this mission as a redundant back up with a capable SM-3 missile of its own as well as a duplicate Aegis sensor and radar." Ellison closed his remarks by saying: "We as a nation have made the world a safer place for our generation and generations to come."
Riki Ellison is available for on-the-record interviews at 571 213-3328 or call Mike Terrill at 602 885-1955 if assistance is needed.
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Out of Space
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Friday, February 15, 2008 By
Riki Ellison
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 Dear Members and Friends,
The Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General James Cartwright, announced that the Aegis Sea-Based Missile Defense system will be used to intercept a falling U.S. satellite containing toxic rocket fuel in order to reduce the risk of harm to human life as well as to manmade platforms in space, in the air and on earth. The capability, the adaptability, the investment and the proven technology of our country's missile defense systems has given our nation and our military an option which it never had before to protect human life globally from falling objects from space.
The current threat of a 5,000 pound National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) satellite carrying over 1,000 pounds of Hydrazine gas tumbling down through the atmosphere could be negated by the use of any of the current missile defense systems. All of the deployed missile defense systems, with the exception of Patriot, have successfully intercepted fast moving small objects in space. Since the United States' decision to deploy missile defense in December of 2002, there have been 16 successful intercepts in space by three different missile defense systems. The deployed U.S. Aegis ships, equipped with missile defense capability, offer self contained tracking and discrimination and hold numerous Standard Missile-3s in their berths for multiple shots if required to add redundancy and further reduce the risk. This sea-based system has repeated successes destroying very fast warheads around six feet long and between 1,000 and 2,000 pounds in space. The most recent successes were by the Japanese Aegis Ship Kongo on December 17, 2007 and the United States Aegis cruiser Lake Erie (CG 70) on November 6, 2007.
In addition to reducing risk to human life globally, the potential kinetic energy intercept of a tumbling, uncontrolled NRO satellite by the Aegis ship's Standard Missile-3 provides a real use military operational case that, in addition to reducing risk to human life, can enhance the current operational development of the SM-3 and its Aegis System. A typical Aegis Missile Defense test costs the Department of Defense around $40 million. We endorse the flexible use of this remarkable capability and clearly see the return on investment of missile defense for the American taxpayer and Congress.
Our country's investment and leadership internationally in Missile Defense provides global options that make our world a safer place. We are a safer world with missile defense than without it. Out of Space,
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