Starburst (missile)

Starburst is a British man-portable surface-to-air missile produced by Shorts Missile Systems of Belfast (since 2002 known as Thales Air Defence Limited). It was used by the British Army (as Javelin S15), Malaysian Army, and in the Canadian Army as the Javelin. It can be fired from the shoulder or from a launcher known as Starburst LML – Lightweight Multiple Launcher.

It has been replaced in British service by the Starstreak missile.

Development

The missile was a development of Javelin missile, retaining the Javelin missile body but replacing the radio command system with a laser transmission system. This is much more difficult to jam than the radio based system. It entered service in 1990 and replaced the Javelin by 1993. In 1992 the proximity fuze was improved. Starburst was first used in combat in the 1991 Gulf War.

Variants

Starburst

Starburst may refer to:

Film and television

WordStar

WordStar is a word processor application that had a dominant market share during the early- to mid-1980s. It was published by MicroPro International, and written for the CP/M operating system but later ported to DOS. Although Seymour I. Rubinstein was the principal owner of the company, Rob Barnaby was the sole author of the early versions of the program. Starting with WordStar 4.0, the program was built on new code written principally by Peter Mierau.

WordStar was deliberately written to make as few assumptions about the underlying system as possible, allowing it to be easily ported across the many platforms that proliferated in the early 1980s. As all of these versions had relatively similar commands and controls, users could move between platforms with equal ease. Already popular, its inclusion with the Osborne 1 computer made the program become the de facto standard for much of the word processing market.

As the computer market quickly became dominated by the IBM PC, this same portable design made it difficult for the program to add new features and affected its performance. In spite of its great popularity in the early 1980s, these problems allowed WordPerfect to take WordStar's place as the most widely used word processor from 1985 onwards.

Corporate spin-off

A corporate spin-off, also known as a spin-out or a starburst, refers to a type of corporate action where a company "splits off" sections as a separate business.

Characteristics

Spin-offs are divisions of companies or organizations that then become independent businesses with assets, employees, intellectual property, technology, or existing products that are taken from the parent company. Shareholders of the parent company receive equivalent shares in the new company in order to compensate for the loss of equity in the original stocks. However, shareholders may then buy and sell stocks from either company independently; this potentially makes investment in the companies more attractive, as potential share purchasers can invest narrowly in the portion of the business they think will have the most growth.

In contrast, divestment can also sever one business from another, but the assets are sold off rather than retained under a renamed corporate entity.

Many times the management team of the new company are from the same parent organization. Often, a spin-off offers the opportunity for a division to be backed by the company but not be affected by the parent company's image or history, giving potential to take existing ideas that had been languishing in an old environment and help them grow in a new environment. Spin-offs also allow high-growth divisions, once separated from other low-growth divisions, to command higher valuation multiples.

Missile (1987 film)

Missile is a 1987 American documentary film by Frederick Wiseman. It chronicles the 14 week training course for the men and women of the United States Air Force who are charged with manning the ICBM silos in remote places like Minot AFB and Whiteman AFB. The film shows discussions of the ethics of nuclear war, shows scenes from the daily lives of trainees, and shows demonstrations of training exercises such as counterterrorism, the launching of nuclear missiles, the command and control process, and basic military training. Most scenes in the film are of classroom training, interspersed with exercises in training facilities. The film includes a scene of an Air Force church service memorial for the astronauts killed in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

In the typical style of Wiseman's films, the documentary is unadorned by commentary, narration, or music.

References

Missile (disambiguation)

A missile is a self-propelled guided projectile used as a weapon towards a target.

Missile may also refer to:

See also

Missile (song)

"Missile" is a song by IAMX from the album Kiss + Swallow. It was released in 2005 as a promo single with another track "This Will Make You Love Again". The latter appeared on his 2006 album The Alternative.

Music video

Two music videos were released for "Missile." One consists almost entirely of an upside down, overhead shot of Corner in a bathtub, with his head underwater and a strip of tape over his mouth. Over the course of the video, the message written on the tape changes from 'LOVE ME' to 'HATE ME' to 'HELP ME' as a hand appears in shot and forces his head to stay under. The second features Corner's girlfriend at the time, Sue Denim of the band Robots in Disguise and, in keeping with IAMX's music, is highly erotic, featuring S&M and bondage, with Denim as a dominatrix of sorts, with Corner at her mercy. The video ends with her giving him a glowing capsule and forcing him to swallow it, at the same time as the lyric "You're taking my life away" is sung.

Track listing