Menwith Hill spy base, North Yorkshire
On July 14 2001 fifteen Greenpeace activists entered the water near the location where the US military was due to conduct the most recent Star Wars missile test. Their presence delayed the test by around 40 minutes.
Greenpeace took action because Star Wars threatens to ignite a new nuclear arms race and risks undermining existing arms control agreements. The US government portrays NMD as a futuristic $100+ billion "shield" designed to protect America from missile attack, but the thinking behind it is a relic of the cold war.
If it can be made to work, NMD will use radar and satellite tracking to detect any missiles launched against America. Missile interceptors, and at some future point air or space based lasers, will then be used to intercept and destroy them. The Pentagon insists that a limited system with land based interceptors could be operational by 2005, even though two out of the four tests so far conducted have been dismal failures and questions remain about the two
