The Pentagon has apparently dropped plans to build their X-band missile detection radar on Shemya Island near Alaska, but instead will build this on an offshore platform like that used for an oil drilling rig. This neatly avoids numerous lawsuits over environmental issues and creates a radar system that could be relocated (albeit with some difficulty, and only to an ocean area) if the strategic situation changes. The platform is to be ready to control missile tests by the summer of 2005.--Stephen V Cole