Tweet
The US Navy is currently converting 15 Aegis equipped destroyers and 3 Ticonderoga class cruisers to incorporate ballistic missile defense capability. As of June, 2006, the USS Lake Erie, USS Shiloh and USS Port Royal have anti ballistic missile shoot down capability using the Standard Missile 3 (RM-161 SM-3).
>
According to The Wall Street Journal, the program was the brainchild of former Doobie Brothers guitarist Jeff Baxter.
>
According to The Wall Street Journal, the program was the brainchild of former Doobie Brothers guitarist Jeff Baxter.
Jeff (Skunk) Baxter is an unusual hybrid: a well-respected American rock guitarist and an equally respected consultant to the U.S. government on how to apply theoretically unrelated technologies to understanding terrorist thinking and planning.
>
The Unconventional Defense Thinker
Baxter fell into his second profession almost by accident. Always a technology-oriented man, he began to ponder whether hardware and software developed for the military—data-compression algorithms and large-capacity storage devices—could also be used in making and recording music. As it happened, his next-door neighbour was a retired engineer who worked on the Sidewinder missile program. This neighbour bought Baxter a subscription to an aviation magazine, and it provoked an interest in a wide range of military-oriented publications . . . and an active curiosity as to whether incumbent systems could meet future threats they weren't designed to meet.
To some analysts, that represented heresy for most defense thinkers. But Baxter, entirely on his own, researched and wrote a five-page paper using a primitive Tandy computer that suggested converting the ship-based anti-aircraft Aegis missile into a rudimentary missile defense system. He gave the paper on a whim to another California friend, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher. No one was more surprised than Baxter when the Republican lawmaker took the paper seriously.
It turned out that Baxter knew what he was talking about. The converted Aegis missile defense did well in tests and the Navy planned to equip at least one ship with the newly converted system. But Rohrabacher was impressed with Baxter himself as well. "Skunk really blew my mind with that report," he was quoted as saying. "He was talking over my head half the time, and the fact that he was a rock star who had basically learned it all on his own was mind-boggling."
>
The Unconventional Defense Thinker
Baxter fell into his second profession almost by accident. Always a technology-oriented man, he began to ponder whether hardware and software developed for the military—data-compression algorithms and large-capacity storage devices—could also be used in making and recording music. As it happened, his next-door neighbour was a retired engineer who worked on the Sidewinder missile program. This neighbour bought Baxter a subscription to an aviation magazine, and it provoked an interest in a wide range of military-oriented publications . . . and an active curiosity as to whether incumbent systems could meet future threats they weren't designed to meet.
To some analysts, that represented heresy for most defense thinkers. But Baxter, entirely on his own, researched and wrote a five-page paper using a primitive Tandy computer that suggested converting the ship-based anti-aircraft Aegis missile into a rudimentary missile defense system. He gave the paper on a whim to another California friend, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher. No one was more surprised than Baxter when the Republican lawmaker took the paper seriously.
It turned out that Baxter knew what he was talking about. The converted Aegis missile defense did well in tests and the Navy planned to equip at least one ship with the newly converted system. But Rohrabacher was impressed with Baxter himself as well. "Skunk really blew my mind with that report," he was quoted as saying. "He was talking over my head half the time, and the fact that he was a rock star who had basically learned it all on his own was mind-boggling."
Dr. Mordrid