AS TEST flights go, FTG-06b was a dazzling affair. The mission was part of a programme called Ground-based Midcourse Defence (GMD), which is supposed to provide America’s main shield against intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with a range beyond 5,500km (3,418 miles). FTG-06b involved the launch (pictured opposite) on June 22nd from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California of a hypersonic interceptor. It successfully annihilated an unarmed warhead which had been fired into space from a US Army site on Kwajalein Atoll in the western Pacific Ocean.
