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> you need some kind of boost inbetween what a
> jet engine can do, and scramjet ignition

It's called a ramjet.

Of course, you can always go from zero to mach >5 in the barrel of a gigantic gun. ;) And before you say that it wouldn't work with a scramjet, you might want to think again

Also, when you said "a tin can", were you referring to a flameholder? Scramjets don't use flameholders; they either use hyperglolics (like silane) or just simple heat and pressure of high velocity compression for ignition (like a diesel engine). Flameholders (of which the can-type is no longer considered to be a very effective model) are generally only viable in subsonic flows.

I'm doing this at my place of work, too. It's a fairly time-tested concept, too.

Having a 3-level AFSC, I'm expected to learn my job through coursework (Career Development Courses, or CDCs) and OJT-- On-the-Job Training. As long as I'm working on these tasks-- both hands-on and academic-- my title will be " Apprentice". "Computer Programming Apprentice", "HF Radio Apprentice", "Fuel Systems Apprentice". Whatever my AFSC is.

After finishing the required tasks, I'll be granted the title of "Journeyman" along with my 5-level. Following that, if I'm still in the Air Force, I can go for a 7-level-- which involves more coursework, more experience. More mentoring from senior personnel.

In addition to that, I get to take on additional duties-- work group manager (computer stuff), HAZMAT/HAZCOM monitor, mobility manager, training monitor-- whatever I'm assigned, I take on that additional job and the responsibilities associated with it.

The apprenticeship program is a good idea, if you ask me. Now, the Air Force doesn't always implement everything properly, but by and large-- the apprenticeship/mentorship program works out very well. A good training manager with a motivated trainee can produce beyond-phenomenal results under the apprenticeship program.

"Fusion" not "Fussion" *Cough*

Fission is correct though.

Check it out: (For those not in the know)
http://www.usafa.af.mil/dfp/cockpit-phys/ne3th1.ht m/

Thats easy

http://www.tx.ang.af.mil/

Link to Texas Air National Guard

I don't really follow your whole arguement about rogue states and terrorists using GPS to launch a surprise attack. Fact is the U.S. probably wont know this is happening until it happens unless America's radar coverage is good and responsive enough to catch cruise missiles.

I would expect it is. Modern radars are taking advantage of some really cool DSP techniques. The missile's rate of speed is going to make it stick out pretty well.

Having the ability to deny GPS service is useless unless you know an attack is coming.

Only to a certain extent.
I'd figure a cheap missile is going to have a GPS for long-term accuracy and a few accelerometers for increased resolution/update rate. The missile is going to lose accuracy very quickly once it looses GPS because its position value is then going to be the result of double integration of the accelerometer reading, and thus contain double integrated error.

The classic American military response to this problem is they degrade service to everyone who doesn't have access to the encrypted military channel. The only problem is this severely degrades or precludes many of the valuable civilian applications of GPS like automated landing of aircraft in bad weather.

Yeah the thing that sucks is that's almost the only option. The designers just didn't envision other important uses of the system. There is one interesting prospect arising using what they refer to as a "black key" receiver instead of the typical"red key". receivers. Here's a link on the subject.
It would be very nice if the Gallileo system provided for many more than two classes of service. (Non-military gov't, civilian critcal infrastructure, seperate codes per country, etc).

I imagine the European persective is they would prefer to tap the potential of high precision, widely available GPS and let the Americans cower in their bunkers fearing attack from every direction. Meanwhile they will exploit all the economic advantages of the civilian applications.

Nobody I know is cowering in fear, but it does make sense to be prudent about the situation and consider those "what if" situations. Heck, that's why Gallileo is being built in the first place. It's not as if europeans can use the current GPS system. They're just being prudent themselves.

There really are a million ways to attack the U.S. in the modern world and you aren't going to be able to stop all of the them.

Sure, but it's like locking up your bike. You do as best you can and try to aviod any obvious weak spots. You can't ever be SURE no one can take your bike, but you can make it pretty damn unlikely.

It might be a better strategy to use carrots, get along with people better in the world, avoid pissing off so many people with the bull in a china shop foreign policy, and just carry a big stick so if anyone attacks you they know what they will get in return.

I totally agree, as do many other Americans. I was at a spech where president Clinton pointed out that with what we're currently spending on homeland security, we could provide every child on the planet with a sixth-grade education.
Sounds like a whorthwile idea to me.

Space-based satellite killers? Not necessarily too expensive. 99.95% of the system cost would be getting it up. Once up there... hell, most of those satellites are fragile enough that all you need to kill them is a brick on a collision course.

As opposed to those, I think ground-based satellite killers would be far more complex and expensive, since you'd have to lob something to space every time you wanted to kill a satellite (instead of putting up a satellite of your own, armed with a brick launcher), and would need far better and more sophisticated guidance systems, since distances are larger and interference greater (lobbing a brick at a satellite in 0G vacuum does not equal lobbing a brick from surface to orbit at the same target).

In the end, I'd say the best 'efficiency to cost' systems are air-launched, such as US ASAT missile - built to be launched from F15, if I'm not mistaken. Especially since they're not limited in deployment options like slow-moving or stationary ground systems, or expensive-to-place space systems. You can deploy them from any airport or aircraft carrier.

What? You mean everyone doesn't get hits from ARPA?

http://www.dragva.com/awstats/awstats.pl?output=al ldomains

I'd think everyone would have a few hits from them, maybe not? Then again a decent chunk of the traffic is from the local miltary bases, mainly Langley Air Force Base. Go tax dollars!

Some other notables:
* http://www.nao.usace.army.mil/
* http://www.nmci.navy.mil/
* http://www.uar.navy.mil/
* http://enterprise.spawar.navy.mil/
* http://www.uscg.mil/

Hope /. doesn't have Eschelon connected o_O

Their job is to park near the US borders, with big radars looking for anything suspicious, like boats or small airplanes that might have politically incorrect plant materials or trucks that might have people with politically incorrect skin colors or Canadians invading on snowmobiles. They're also talking about using TeraHertz Radar to look into shipping containers, though the idea of doing that from 300 miles away seems rather odd.

It's possible that they'll also be able to replace some of the functions of PAVE PAWS, a set of phased-array radars used to watch for Submarine-launched and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

10G of acceleration for 90 seconds is definitely survivable by a human.

By riding the decelerator sled himself, Dr. Stapp demonstrated that a human can withstand at least 45 G's in the forward position, with adequate harness. This is the highest known G force voluntarily encountered by a human. Dr. Stapp believed that the tolerance of humans to G force had not yet been reached in tests, and is, in fact, much greater than ordinarily thought possible.

See http://www.edwards.af.mil/history/docs_html/people /stapp_biography.html

You may say that this is for a short loading, rather than a sustained 10 second one. Well, the best fighter pilots with g-suits maneuver at +12Gz for >10 seconds, maintaining consciousness the whole time, doing so in body positions which don't maximize the human body's ability to withstand acceleration.

I don't imagine it would be very fun, though.

Well, that's not true. Speckle interferometry can get to 70 milliarcseconds at 1.2 microns wavelength, and I'm working on an AO system that can get down to 85 milliarcseconds. What you may mean is that the Strehl ratio is nowhere near as good, which is very true.

If you are talking about the visible bands though, then it is true that hardly anyone has done well in that wavelength regime, and there I've heard the AEOS telescope on Maui can get halfway decent performance around a micron wavelength.

Dr Fish

I have worked at CIMM level -3 and at CMMi level 5 groups. Starting at level 5, you're about as likely to win the lottery and while on the vacation at the moon than getting fired for bad software; at level 1 your highly likely to get fired for a bad programming mistake; level -3 you try to point the finger for anything.

Now there's a mathematical formula (let me see if I can derive one) for each level you go down, the half-life of bad software divided by the software engineer goes up a log base 10 (4 - 95%, 3 - 90%, 2 - 75%, 1 - 50%, 0 - 25%, -1 10%, -2 - 2%, -3 - .01%). Thus, if you want management to point fingers go down in levels but if you want the group to be aware of problems then look for a high CMM level group to work for. Disclaimer this is now way scientific but used as illustrative purposes; objects may be closer than they appear; no left turn on red; do not pass Go.

Source (ala Google)

1) Sanger Amerika Bomber (~1938)
2) DynaSoar aka X20 (~1960) book about it here
3) Soviet Equivalents (~1960)
4) Numerous "black" projects here
5) Ever wondered who paid for the Space Shuttle ?

There are sure to have been many projects between 1 & 2.

Finding information on the rest of the above is left as an exercise for the reader ;-)

As long as there has been transportation sytems there have been military applications.

K

Space is not demilitarized, both the Soviet Union and America have posessed weapons designed for space in addition to military satellites (including the beloved GPS), and there are no treaties concerning anti-satellite warfare.

During the Cold War, F-15 fighters recieved the capability to take out low-orbit satellites via the ASAT missile, a capability they still posess. The USSR had satellite "bombs" designed to take out low-orbit satellites via EMP (there has been speculation that they could take out medium-orbiting objects as well, but we really don't know). With the demise of the USSR and the collapse of their military, Russia has been willing to sell almost anything, and it wouldn't be a stretch to find China, North Korea, Libya, or Iran with weapons based on Soviet designs. Note that higher orbital objects were immune from these approaches.

There are no treaties concerning the destruction of satellites, although there was one for ballistic missiles; America withdrew in 2002, using a procedure outlined in the treaty which required six months of notice. Incidentally, the ABM treaty allowed the US and USSR to deploy weapons around capital cities. America chose not to, while Moscow is still protected by anti-ballistic missiles. Moscow once expressed interest in a anti-satellite weapons treaty, as did various groups of scientists in the US, but no such treaty was ever signed.

Any State Party to the Treaty may give notice of its withdrawal from the Treaty one year after its entry into force by written notification to the Depositary Governments. Such withdrawal shall take effect one year from the date of receipt of this notification.

Kind of reminds me of the Starfire Optical Range. From what I've read, this was a black-ops facility built in the late 80's to (1) be able to view satelites with high precision from the ground and (2)selectively disable components on these satelites with a ground-based laser. Why shoot down a satelite and suffer the political problems when you can just make it look like it malfunctioned?

If I remember right, this is the project that is responsible for inventing/implementing adaptive optics to adjust for atmospheric distortions. After the cold war ended, they acknowledged the project up and open-sourced the technology so astronomers could benefit from it. If you look around in some signal processing journals (eg, SPIE), you'll find the papers.

Actually, they're not doing much more than the Air Force did with the X-15 program in the fifties and sixties. I'll be curious to see if Scaled's promised orbital vehicle retains the same elegant lines. I doubt it. Orbital velocities are much higher, so I'm betting we end up with a much chunkier vehicle, a la the Shuttle or Buran, only smaller.

How about the B-1B and the TU-160?

I bet you're right too. I'm sure there are many large corps who won't move from W2K to XP.

Microsoft will definitely give it a second though when they realize organizations like this one are using Windows 2000 on user machines. It took them until 2002 to get fully upgraded from NT 4.0 where I was.

We've had smaller nukes than that since the late 1950's. Our AIM-26A and AIR-2A air to air missiles typically had 1.5 nuclear warheads. Some of these had the even smaller 0.25 KT warheads.

More Info:

http://www.milnet.com/aamtab.htm

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/arm/arm16.htm

http://www.hill.af.mil/museum/photos/coldwar/genie .htm

We've had smaller nukes than that since the late 1950's. Our AIM-26A and AIR-2A air to air missiles typically had 1.5 nuclear warheads. Some of these had the even smaller 0.25 KT warheads.

More Info:

http://www.milnet.com/aamtab.htm

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/arm/arm16.htm

http://www.hill.af.mil/museum/photos/coldwar/genie .htm

Only if you're in the market for a P-40.

I propose that the Air Force approach Darl and ask him to participate in a modified mid-air capture program. One that involves Darl out in the middle of the desert with a baseball glove.

Or, they just look at Vandenburg AFB's web site and see things like "6/30/2005 Classified national mission. Delta IV - NROL-25"

Just to add to this, I just found videos of the launches :D

http://www.vandenberg.af.mil/30sw/launches/launch_ videos.html

And they are allowing tours of the facility.

http://www.vandenberg.af.mil/30sw/newcomers/index. html#tour

Which incidentally, you need to confirm your details and supply SSID etc, so the parts that need protecting are being protected, the pretty light show is fully public.

Just to add to this, I just found videos of the launches :D

http://www.vandenberg.af.mil/30sw/launches/launch_ videos.html

And they are allowing tours of the facility.

http://www.vandenberg.af.mil/30sw/newcomers/index. html#tour

Which incidentally, you need to confirm your details and supply SSID etc, so the parts that need protecting are being protected, the pretty light show is fully public.

I watch as many as I can, they're pretty easy to see from Los Angeles, on a clear day (and most of them are!)

I've seen the Delta II launch of both Ikonos and Gravity Probe B. Both of these were daylight launches, and would have been impossible to see if they didn't have extremely tight (and nicely publicized by Aviation Week) launch windows. If you know where to look, they're quite nice to see. The arc of the rocket as it bends over and smoothly accelerates to the south is math in motion, just beautiful.

I've also watched a couple of the Minuteman launches testing missle defense systems. Again, these were well publicized events. On my street in Calabasas for the last one, everybody was out in their lawn chairs waiting for it. It did not disappoint. Compared to a satellite launch, the Minuteman gets out of the atmosphere in a hurry, and the solid fuel exhaust blooms into a huge flower-shaped colorful cloud once it is in space.

Still, it's basically impossible for me to see the beauty in a Minuteman launch. It's a goddamn ICBM, its only purpose to kill millions of people.

Any you idiots picking on the maintainer of the site -- get real. Read the site, there is absolutely nothing there than any third-grader couldn't figure out with ten minutes, a road atlas and a blunt crayon. There are a few other good Vandenberg launch sites out there, too, like
this one

I've fantasized about burying a cellphone near Vandenberg, and set it up to call me when it feels the vibration of a launch. It'd be cool, cheap, and easy. Obviously the solar charger and antenna would have to be above ground. The problem with most Vandenberg launches is that you don't know when they are going to happen -- but if you knew they were firing you could just step outside and see.

Thad Beier

No it's not.

VAFB has published information on unclassified launches on their website already. All the website talks about is what places are good to watch said launches from, what to look for, what laucnhes look most impressive, and what to bring. This is sensitive how?

Or I guess you didn't RTFA.

Some of the launches are published on-line from Vandenberg AFB. And there are hobby sites tracking them. Not new.

Why is this even news worthy? It's always been a risk, it will continue to be a risk.

Because up until this week, it's been a theoretical risk. Now, the risk is real. A storm of this intensity has never hit the Cape dead-on, and this will come DAMNED near close to dead-on.

As of 5:00 this morning, Patrick AFB (just south of CCAS and responsible for the AF side of things on the Cape) issued a warning that the storm was to pass 60 miles away, with 100+ mph winds.

So, yeah, if the article were in June, saying "Hey, a hurricane could take us out," I'd agree that this wasn't really newsworthy. Problem is, it's not "a hurricane could take us out," it's " this hurricane could take us out. In 48 hours."

Of course, that's not an F-22, but a F-35 JSF (Joint Strike Fighter) You're right, though. It's still not an aerial SUV. This is.

The 3D nature of air travel makes automation easier, since there is more spacing between vehicles. We have autonomous aircraft right now that can perform complex flight plans in American airspace, and commercial jetliners that can land automatically. What technical hurdles are left?

Air Force Chief of Staff, General John P. Jumper
http://www.af.mil/csafreading/

FAQ is at http://public.afca.af.mil/LIBRARY/MARS1.HTM . Another article explaining the Air Force MARS is http://www.asc.army.mil/mars/history.htm

National Security Space Strategy Some excerpts:

Representatives from the secretary of defense's office, unified combatant commands and service space components discussed the soon-to-be-released national security space strategy and how this strategy supports improved planning and delivery of space capabilities.

The symposium, Mr. Teets said, is a forum for discussion on where the strategy is and where it should be going.

The secretary explained the Air Force's strategy for moving forward.

"We have been working for some time to build a coherent overall national security space strategy," he said.

"Our challenge today is to exploit the space medium in new and better ways to provide decision makers and warfighters with everything they need to guarantee the safety and security of the U.S. and its allies," he said.

Once the national security space plan is published, Air Force officials will lay out detailed actions and specific objectives, and provide a blueprint for success.

"Space systems and capabilities are vital to our national security," Mr. Teets said. "Our national security space strategy will guide our actions in the coming years to ensure that we sustain space power as a decisive asymmetric advantage for America, its allies and its coalition partners."

they are going to find themselves without water, food, fuel, or ammo

Guess you've never heard of the Berlin Airlift?

The point was that we have spent trillions of dollars developing systems whose purpose is to limit collateral damage, and that these systems work in the vast majority of cases. The remainder is regrettable, but intrinsic to the nature of war.

Terrorism versus Collateral Damage: What is the Scope of Civilian Immunity in War? by Whitley R.P. Kaufman is great reading on this subject.

Imagine 802.16 on one of these things.

A basic underlying tenet of flexible response is the concept of forward defense--the notion that a conventional defense must be established as far forward as possible along the NATO-Pact border. Obviously, the need for a forward defense and the dependence of the defensive battle on overseas reinforcements are the areas of vulnerability threatened by the Soviets' newly developed capability to launch a major assault with little prior warning.
The Nunn-Bartlett Report

Major Specht states further that the Federal Republic of Germany would not support a strategy of maneuvering defense in depth and quotes the German Minister of Defense to the effect that "the defence of the Federal Republic of Germany must be conducted as far forward as possible, that is to say immediately at the intra-German and Czechoslovak borders."4

Yes, There Really is a Better Way to Win a War in Europe

A basic underlying tenet of flexible response is the concept of forward defense--the notion that a conventional defense must be established as far forward as possible along the NATO-Pact border. Obviously, the need for a forward defense and the dependence of the defensive battle on overseas reinforcements are the areas of vulnerability threatened by the Soviets' newly developed capability to launch a major assault with little prior warning.
The Nunn-Bartlett Report

Major Specht states further that the Federal Republic of Germany would not support a strategy of maneuvering defense in depth and quotes the German Minister of Defense to the effect that "the defence of the Federal Republic of Germany must be conducted as far forward as possible, that is to say immediately at the intra-German and Czechoslovak borders."4

Yes, There Really is a Better Way to Win a War in Europe

The decomissioned Minuteman II missles are being used as small payload launchers. The bottom section is the Minuteman II, and the upper stages are from Orbital Sciences Pegasus vehicle - the Orion 50 XL and Orion 38. The official vehicle name is "Orbital Suborbital Program Space Launch Vehicle".

Stanford University is using this vehicle to launch small satellites into LEO.

Recently, with the war and all, I've taken more of an interest in military affairs. Lo and behold, the military publishes a lot of magazines and periodicals internally, and many of them are available free online! I like them because they don't have the macho posturing of rags like Soldier of Fortune and other right-wing civillian magazines, and read like professionals writing for other professionals on how to do their job better. Think Wired vs. Linux Journal.

List of DoD magazines
Soldiers - Official army magazine, with full PDF archive.
Airman - Official air force magazine
Marine - Official USMC magazine
Approach - Navael aviaton safety magazine
Ground Warrior - Marine training safety magazine
Infantry magazine - Army infantry magazine, article archive at findarticles.com
Parameters - The U.S. War College's periodical

Soldiers, Airman, and Marine are sort of PR-related publications, so they aren't as interesting. Approach, Ground Warrior and Infantry are written as advice and information sources for their respective professions, so they have more technical detail. I like how they give a view of day-to-day operations in the military, especially training mishaps and other mistakes you don't hear about often. Parameters is a more scholarly magazine that gives a view into what the high-level officers are thinking and planning right now, plus some military history.

They're your tax dollars at work, may as well read them. Better to be an informed citizen than an entertained consumer, especially with the war in Iraq going on.

Broken link? This is the image i meant... the first one

Well I know the story is already two hours old (gasp), but it appears to be ill-supported. The linked article plainly states ...

1. That this warship class will enter service in 2011:
"When the U.S. Navy's first integrated power system (IPS)/electric drive warship arrives in 2011 as the DD(X), the service will mark a technological breakthrough ..."

2. That this warship class will debut without a rail gun or any other advanced weapon system:
" When the new ship arrives in service it will be armed with very advanced, but conventional weaponry, including two United Defense 155mm Advanced Gun System cannons and an 80-cell vertical launch system for various guided missiles. But these systems are stepping stones to greater capabilities ..."

3. The Navy won't even decide whether to fund a rail gun for years:
"Whatever investment decisions are made for weapons the next several years, the Navy already is engineering the potential these technologies require, according to Collins and his IPS/electric drive team for DD(X)."

The speculative linked white paper goes no further, advocating that a rail gun *proof of concept test* *could* happen by 2008:

"A focused technology development program that leads to a series of experiments that culminate in a full-scale extended-range naval rail gun proof-of-concept demonstration in fiscal year 2008
is a sensible approach."

For a sense of how little this means, consider there was a successful "proof of concept" demonstartion for airborne anti-laser systems -- "Star Wars" SDI technology -- in 1984.

Say what you will about Reagan, regardless of how you felt about his policies (many were quite controversial), he sure could deliver great speeches.

The best lines in it, however, were paraphrased from John Gillespie McGee's famous poem "High Flight", which is also what Melvill was most likely thinking of. It's a standard reading at the funerals of pilots, and I personally feel that Reagan's speech would have been better, and perhaps more fitting, had he finished with the entire poem. It sums up the main reason why astronauts - military, governmental or private - will always want to strap themselves into something that will never be 100% safe and fly.

• Rocket Equation Calculator
• Specific Impulse

Imagine the psychological impact of a heartland attack like that.

We don't have to imagine it... the U.S. did the same thing via the Doolittle raid, though that was more to boost the morale of the U.S. citizenry after Pearl Harbor than to strike fear into the Japanese.

~Philly

photos and more info here and an interesting photo of them being shot down from a plane.

Intersting stuff.

photos and more info here and an interesting photo of them being shot down from a plane.

Intersting stuff.