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You obviously didn't follow my suggestion to research hypersonic IR seekers. Come back when you learn to read. Further, try learning a little about compressible fluid dynamics before trying to comment on such a topic. THAAD is just one "famous" application for such technology, but there are numerous other projects around the world for lower-tier interception that use IR for final stage guidance that would be applicable. Finally, THAAD does not operate in a "vacuum"...and it must deal with the same thermal envelope problems due to its speed. Such heating has more to do with Mach number than the density of the surrounding air...altitude is largely irrelevant since the Mach number "auto-adjusts" to the altitude due to the relationship of the speed of sound to density. THAAD is not just a out-of-the-atmosphere interceptor..it is designed to engage targets both endo- and exo-atmospherically including short-range ballistic missiles. The IR seeker was designed to function in a an environment exceeding Mach 7 inside the atmosphere...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox- a&channel=s&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs= 4KB&q=thaad+ir+seeker&btnG=Search
http://www.arnold.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=1230516 70

In any case...as I said before...this proves the concept...it *is* possible despite the previous poster's assertions...but I doubt a missile-based defense system would be the most viable against the proposed "SR-72"...energy weapons from perhaps an airborne platform would be my first choice for flexibility and probability of kill.

Try doing a little research before calling someone stupid, next time. Your comment drips with ignorance in the subject.

Why do you think that we have a strategic petroleum reserve? That oil isn't for regulating the price, it allows a war to take place without imports. Since WWI militaries have depended on oil to operate. Oil was one of the key strategic resources and it was most certaily the reason for the direct engagement of the US/Japan portion of the war.
Paragraph 8:
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2129.html
In 1940, Japan occupied French Indochina (Vietnam) upon agreement with the French Vichy government, and joined the Axis powers Germany and Italy. These actions intensified Japan's conflict with the United States and Great Britain which reacted with an oil boycott. The resulting oil shortage and failures to solve the conflict diplomatically made Japan decide to capture the oil rich Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and to start a war with the US and Great Britain.

Paragraph 6:
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/a ureview/1981/jul-aug/becker.htm
At the outbreak of the war, Germany's stockpiles of fuel consisted of a total of 15 million barrels. The campaigns in Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France added another 5 million barrels in booty, and imports from the Soviet Union accounted for 4 million barrels in 1940 and 1.6 million barrels in the first half of 1941. Yet a High Command study in May of 1941 noted that with monthly military requirements for 7.25 million barrels and imports and home production of only 5.35 million barrels, German stocks would be exhausted by August 1941. The 26 percent shortfall could only be made up with petroleum from Russia. The need to provide the lacking 1.9 million barrels per month and the urgency to gain possession of the Russian oil fields in the Caucasus mountains, together with Ukrainian grain and Donets coal, were thus prime elements in the German decision to invade the Soviet Union in June 1941.3

Did you think that the war was just about some land in Poland?

It is a good thing those Wright Brothers patents have expired: wing warping.

Topically enough, this month's issue of CrossTalk , "The Journal of Defense Software Engineering", is on the subject of COTS Integration. Well worth a read if you're interested in this kind of thing.

The incident in which some new F-22s en route to Japan had to turn back was a real incident, according to the Air Force. What's not clear is what the actual cause was. All the Air Force seems to have said officially are things like "a software issue affecting the aircraft's navigation system was discovered Feb. 11 causing the aircraft to return to Hickam" (from here).

A retired Major General Don Sheppard had more to say on CNN, but gave no details about where his information came from. Although one is presumably supposed to assume he had inside knowledge, he could just have been speculating based on the official reports.

Bad example. The White House has secure Internet and Milstar for that sort of circumstance.

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?storyID=123030505

The Air Force has a program called Innovative Development through Employee Awareness (IDEA) where they offer cash rewards for ideas that save the AF money. Here's a link to the story of a guy that saved an estimated $1.4 million and got a nice check for $10k for his effort...
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123048910

And did you notice how blurry the image was of the 'standard' text. Nice job there. "look how much easier the text on the right is to read compared to the old stuff on the left!". This is a SERIOUSLY flawed example.

The Declaration of Independence example is similar but both use fuzzy type. I like the original better. Then again, I'm biased because I've always done better than average with these kinds of tests.

This is why there is a 90-day project currently in progress to select a Full Disk Encryption suites for all government owned computers. A Request for Quotation (RFQ) has already gone out on the April 12, 2007. See http://www.herbb.hanscom.af.mil/download.asp?rfp=R 1450&FileName=NOTICE_OF_AVAILABILITY_OF_A_SOLICITA TION_2.doc

The UCMJ

There are also long-standing precedents within the military to not speak out in public forums against your commanding officers or members of the government, with discpline applied against both trangresssing officers and enlisted personnel.

What makes me qualified to state this?

I'm a commissioned officer in the USAF.

Yeah, it's called 'meth', and Nazi soldiers used it while conducting Blitzkrieg. Not a new development.

My, that is a novel suggestion as to how the techniques of "Blitzkrieg" came into being. I suppose it should have been obvious me--it's well known that their soldiers are "fanatic" or "drug-crazed", while ours are "higly motivated".

Seriously, there's nothing new here. For example, benzedrine and other stimulants were routinely issued to U.S. Air Force pilots to keep them awake during WW II. In fact, the U.S. Air Force still issues amphetamines to its pilots and pressure them to take these "go pills". (For example, take a look at http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id= 1425252002 or http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/a pj/apj97/spr97/cornum.html or http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,57434,00. htmlhere.

It might be interesting to ask whether the pilots who were involved in the disturbingly frequent "friendly fire" incidents during our recent ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq were flying high in more than one sense. But nobody will.

One more good article, with references, that talks about 100:1, 22:1, and the fact that 30% of the programmers on a typical product are "net negative producing programmers":

http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2000/05/bech told.html

The suspension of disbelief comes from the fact that they're interacting with aliens who all speak English. Requiring anything beyond that is just insulting. A bunch of whales surrounding a city? Maybe that was Atlantis, but it's the same crap, different actors.

All I can really say is that some of us are more willing than you are, for the sake of some entertainment.

I don't know, of course, but everything that happens is implausible and/or impossible. And I don't mean the circumstances -- although they are implausible to be sure, but that's where suspension of disbelief comes in -- I mean what happens inside of those circumstances.

Again, they obviously had to decide whether to stick to real science (which, as your rant mentions, pretty much torpedos most of the show) or toss in some technobabble and real-world impossibilities.

Either the characters are all idiots who just assume they're home, or they realize the very real possibility that they're not home, but don't think it's worth mentioning at all.

Seems to be the second one, generally. I seem to remember the two-parter at the end of the 8th season dealing with restoring the timeline from an alternate ala Back to The Future. Everything's back to normal except for a minor change or two, the characters realize this, and take the attitude of "Eh. Close enough".

6 years in the military which, as any booter can tell you, is not even remotely similar to what is depicted in SG1.

A fiction show about a secret military program involving travel to other planets & galaxies doesn't match your personal experience as a "booter"? Shocking!

I would note also that the show has actually been honored by the US Air Force for its portrayal of the military, and two of their Chiefs of Staff have actually had cameo roles as well.

They almost killed off Sam's dad, but couldn't quite bring themselves to do it.

If you can get to the end of this transcript and prove the character is still alive, give yourself a cookie.

And as for the rest of the events you mention -- it's all abstract. There are "world wars, biological warfare, and lots of murder/torture/enslavement," but it all happens to other than major characters, or completely off-screen (such as the world wars), and in any case, it's generally over within an episode or two, with a nice, tidy, happy resolution.

Yeah, the various episodes where Teal'c gets tortured, Daniel gets his brain scrambled so many times by a ribbon device that he actually starts to get used to it, the 6th season episode where O'Neill basically spends the entire time getting tortured and killed over and over, etc....All figments of my imagination. I'm not going to waste any more time finding specific examples for you, look for it yourself.

And on that note, since you don't even seem to be able to keep SG-1 and Atlantis straight, much less have anything but scattered viewing of the show, debating you further is pointless. Have a nice life :)

FUD alert!!!

C# might be appropriate for your domain but it certainly isn't in Ada's - safety critical or mission critical systems.

It's also easy to learn as can be seen here http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2000/08/mcco rmick.html

The F-117 hasn't been retired yet --- there was a brief misinterpretation of one squadron standing down or some such, but the current inventory is scheduled to remain in service until replaced by the F-22 in 2008 or so.

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123030185

William

Scramjets are the "fusion" of aircraft research. Always 10-20 years away. I'll believe it when I see something flying.

USAF uses INFOCON and FPCON (Force Protection) Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta (Alpha lowest & Delta highest). The article sounds like it was written in the THREATCON days when they went "backwards" in order...

http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/mastercatalog/produ ct.asp?cat=sub&code=VA

It is no joke; here are some links; you have to read between the lines a little.
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123011448
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0IBW/is _2_5/ai_n16057511
http://www.afa.org/magazine/July2005/0705expeditio n.asp

and for Navy types:
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htmoral/articles/ 20060922.aspx

One of my best friends sons is Air Force, and is doing convoy escort, guarding prisoners, and he didn't volunteer for it; he is a Radar Technician.
The FACT is is that while the combat services are claiming that there is no shortage, it is a very far thing from the truth.

Does the DoD still use Ada? Only for legacy systems? Just curious.

Actually, the DoD never really "used" Ada. There was a mandate for a while. Some programs used Ada during this time. Most did not.

There was lots of talk about it and in general it was a success (though Ada initially was somewhat ahead of its time and it clearly showed).

When programs failed for a variety of reasons, people would try to point to the Mandate, Ada, their dogs or anything. Eventually, the mandate was repealed and replaced with a saner DoD statement that said "Just figure out what the right thing is to do on each job.". Which then got interpreted as "Quick thou shall use C, I mean C++, I mean C#, I mean Python" or whatever the flavor of the day was. Contracts still come in and have mandated languages.

DoD software was and is a mess largely because:

People who know very little about software try to force policies without really understanding anything about software.

There is a constant belief that the COTS world knows what they are doing so we need to do what they are doing (but DoD software is always 5-10 years behind commercial software now so they pick things up just after they have been abandoned by the commercial world.

95% of all software is a mess.

I have not seen any requests for proposal mandate Ada in about 10 years. Some new projects still select it for new development. Most seem to have forgotten that it even exists. There is a new Ada standard getting ready to be released (Actually, the standard has been available for a while but it takes a while to get things through the ISO board). There was a pretty good overview of its new features in Crosstalk magazine a few months ago: http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2006/08/inde x.html

In any case, the vast majority of JSF software is indeed C++. There is some Ada 95 in some places but it is the exception rather than the rule and seems to be limited to safety critical areas of JSF.

For those at a college/university there's a program called Space Scholars and Directed Energy Scholars for those interested in space vehicles and lasers. Plusses: Interesting work, laid back atmosphere, better paying than school jobs. Minuses: It's gov't work, doesn't pay as well as some private internships, and it usually takes a while to get back to you if you've been selected (late April/early May for a late May/early June start). There's some preference for graduate students, but there are always a few projects for undergrads. But the government workforce is desparate for fresh blood, or will be in a few years, so it might be a good way to see if you can deal with it.

For those at a college/university there's a program called Space Scholars and Directed Energy Scholars for those interested in space vehicles and lasers. Plusses: Interesting work, laid back atmosphere, better paying than school jobs. Minuses: It's gov't work, doesn't pay as well as some private internships, and it usually takes a while to get back to you if you've been selected (late April/early May for a late May/early June start). There's some preference for graduate students, but there are always a few projects for undergrads. But the government workforce is desparate for fresh blood, or will be in a few years, so it might be a good way to see if you can deal with it.

NASA doesn't need the extra weight that the Ares V can throw.

Further, this launch platform is more likely to be replaced by commercial launch capability than the Ares V. This would hasten NASA's exodus from the launch market.

I'm missing something here. Glancing at the DIRECT design, I don't see why it would require an engine to be man-rated before it is "ready". After all, they could test new design changes by launching cargo.

It seems to me that you would start with a configuration that isn't man-rated and work out the problems with relatively low-value cargo launches.

But the CEV is vehicle agnostic, right?

I don't see any problem with launching it on a DIRECT rocket or some commercial vehicle, should one of sufficient capability come out while the CEV is still in service.

Some people have thin skin. ;) I think some people like to label a bad 2nd degree burn as a 3rd degree burn. The usual definition [PDF, p.72] of 3rd degree includes charring of the skin. I see that people also use "degrees" above 3rd for "3rd degree burns that go way deep".

I was reminded of Gerald Bull, one of the great "mad scientists" of our day, and Project HARP. :) Check out the plume leaving the barrel of their research gun. That had to be quite something to see in person.

Of modern ballistic launch mechanisms, there are lots of neat options ranging from light gas guns to ram accelerators. I also find the concept of ballistically-launched scramjets to be pretty nifty. :)

I've seen the F-22 fly, at the Edwards Open House a few years ago. Very impressive.

By the way, for anyone in SoCal, the Edwards Open House (late October this year) is the place to see the world's most amazing aircraft engineering, both old and new. Worth the trip.

The U.S. Air Force recently announced their own myspace site. They have been promoting it in base newspapers and with a companion site. It officially launches on 18Sep.

There's really a place in Germany called Rammstein?

The band took its name from Ramstein AB, which is one of our larger overseas bases. There are (or were) more Americans in the Kaiserslautern area than anywhere else outside the United States...when I was in high school there (go Raiders!) in the late '80s, there were maybe 50000 or so of us over there. There was a nasty crash at the Flugtag (the base's annual air show) in 1988 that the band's pyromaniac members thought provided some spiffy visuals...an Italian jet dropped out of the sky after a mid-air collision and plowed into the crowd. 70 were killed and another 347 were badly injured.

Interesting. I wonder how that would affect the performance of the market.Is the original proposal online anywhere? I have to say, I never saw it.

We're talking about giving corporate money a legitimate pretext to buy and sell violence. I can't help but worry that this would act to increase the overall supply.

And I already mentioned how the market dealt with that. Plus, said violence is *still illegal*. So you haven't obtained a "legimate pretext" to buy and sell violence.

Lies! Lies I say! They can definately fit more then 7 people in that room. In fact, I clearly see approximately 15 members of the Denver Nuggets Dancers inside of one of our top-security military bases!

And destroys a key military command post. Wouldn't a n abandoned salt mine make more sense?

They probably have another "secret" base to do this work from.

You seem to be talking about Schriever Air Force Base. Interestingly, this is also pretty close by. According to TFA, one of the reasons for the move is the commute between Peterson and Cheyenne Mountain. From Peterson to Cheyenne Mountain is a fairly ugly drive directly through Colorado Springs (the end of that route isn't quite right, but Mapquest doesn't seem to know exactly where the entrance to NORAD is. By contrast, from Peterson to Schriever is almost entirely through open country with minimal traffic.

You can probably find some good satellite photos on Google.

You hardly need satellite photos. I'd guess some people living near the Broadmoor can probably see traffic in and out of the mountain with nothing more than binoculars or maybe a small telescope at most. OTOH, there's not really much to see -- almost everything is underground, and about all you can see from the outside is the entrance to a tunnel into the mountain. About all you'd see from a satellite photo would be a road that disappears into the side of a mountain with a LOT of antennas on top (though a lot of them belong to the local radio stations, TV stations, Sprint Broadband, etc.)

That's why they [airplanes] are circular.

What, you mean like these?

Yes, I told them the name dropped out of GPS a few years back, and they still haven't updated their Web page. You'll notice, however, that the word "Navstar" is nowhere in the GPS fact sheet.

Your base may have dropped "NAVSTAR" but it still appears to be part of the overall program name- at least as seen here.

There is: the "American GPS" is named NAVSTAR according to this site.

You might be interested in these articles:
http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2005/12/0512 CroxfordChapman.html
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/sep05/1454

They're about a company called Praxis who build software from the ground up using formal verification techniques to write high integrity systems (i.e. not just basic algorithms). They claim that their approach creates software with less defects and is cheaper in the long run compared to traditional techniques.

Spaceshuttle is able to land fully automatically too, however it is said that the pilots usually prefer to land that damn thing manually (if saftey allows it) just because they might never ge a chance to do that again.

While the final approach is typically flown by hand, the Shuttle has only been flown in from orbit to landing completely manually once. This was done on STS-2 in 1981 by Joe Engle, who started out as an X-15 pilot. Pretty amazing.

It's impressive that they're doing this. Moewe has rather low wing area for the slow-speed maneuvering it does in Nausicaa, though. It's certainly possible to make a lively little aerobatic monoplane (the Sukhoi S-26 is one of the best modern ones), but those little wings imply a high stall speed. If you want hang-glider type stall speeds, you need more wing area or less weight. The classic solution for slow flight is the biplane. Take a look at this old Sperry Messenger, which has about the same wingspan as Moewe. The Messenger was a very maneuverable little plane. Sperry himself once landed one in front of the U.S. Capitol.

Moewe's tailless design creates a pitch stability problem from hell, but that's what flight-control computers are for. It's interesting to see what changes they made from the R/C model. The R/C model looks more like Moewe, with straight wings and a huge dihedral angle. The bigger towed model has a bent wing. They're trying for something that wants to fly straight and level.

There's much new interest in light aircraft today. The FAA has created a new category of "light sport planes", heavier than ultralights but lighter than general aviation aircraft, with less restrictive licensing. Take a look at this StingSport, which isn't much bigger than Moewe, even though it's a two-seater.

I expect the Open Sky crowd will build something that looks more or less like Moewe and flies reasonably well. And they'll do it long before Moller gets off the ground.

there is no contradiction there, if that's what you are implying.

Consider that the Space Shuffle is actually a glider over most of the re-entry (called glide-approach).

A cruise missile is a jet-propelled glider... as opposed to a Russian Satan ss-18, which is a jet-propelled ballista, though such things may use fins and such for stabilization.

In other words, anything that uses wings for flying (and not solely for manuvering e.g. a fighter during afterburn) is a glider.

6.7 Asteroid Mitigation System
Brief Description
The asteroid mitigation system protects the Earth/Moon system from earth-crossing objects (ECO) by either deflecting or fragmenting ECO they no longer pose a threat. Deflection could be accomplished using nuclear explosive devices.

Capabilities
Deflects or destroys objects in space having the size and trajectory to threaten the Earth/Moon system An Operational Analysis for Air Force 2025: An Application of Value-Focused Thinking to Future Air and Space Capabilities (page 135)

Though not specifically mentioned in this chapter, all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces, and crimes and offenses not capital, of which persons subject to this chapter may be guilty, shall be taken cognizance of by a general, special or summary court-martial, according to the nature and degree of the offense, and shall be punished at the discretion of that court.

Sometimes it takes some balls to keep the peace, like when French commandos demolished a radio tower in order to sustain the Berlin Airlift.

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/coldwar/bal /bal6.htm

Since 1/2 the people don't know what the Berlin Airlift was:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Blockade

And props to the candy bombers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Candy_Bomber

(That's right, I just complimented the FRENCH MILITARY)

"I suspect you meant B-2s, but I don't think those flew around the world for Al-Qaeda."

I think this counts.

"...27 sorties from Whiteman AFB (to Iraq) and releasing more than 1.5 million pounds of munitions."

I assume when they say munitions they aren't talking about toys for children.

Have some huge contraption made ready such that a huge explosion at some specific point can be used to set up potential energy reservoirs which then can be tapped slowly and efficiently. Now, explode anything, and now we do have a means to obtain energy from the same.

Here's a few links showing the explosions we've used. Some even involved fusion reactions.
image1
image2
image3
image4
image5

They invented Transparent Aluminum a while back.

Oh, I just realized that an "8-mile" trail of debris is nothing. Suppose they flew that plan at 180 mph, enough to stay up-for a brief while.

Well, 60mph is 1 mile per minute. So, 180 mph is 3 miles per minute. If the interceptors WERE armed with live ammo and strafed the plan solidly for 1 minute (around

Well, the F-15 carries/carried the 20-mm M61A1 Vulcan six-barrelled cannon, which seems to be supplied with about 512 rounds of ammo (appears the F-18 has 570 rds, the F-16A had the same gun with about 511 rds)

See:

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/arm/arm8.htm

Anyway, that gun is *capable* of firing 6,600 rounds per minute, meaning about 110 rounds per SECOND are/could be being expended. That's only about 4.65 seconds per per-second burst until the ammo drum is expended/depleted. Even if TWO F-16 are strafing to scare but not to down, I find it hard to believe they would NOT bring the 757/747 down. So, ...

3 miles per minute flying speed, shot up over 3 minutes, and then witnessed to hit the ground 2 or more minutes later makes me think that some of that debris floated down to the ground. Some of it may have be ripped off by airspeeds after structural compromise over a 10-15 mile distance (I don't have blackbox or other transcripts, so...).

But, I've pretty much been of the thought that the PA flight was gunned down, now I think the pilots half-heartedly and painfully strafed it to not outright KILL the planeload of people. They probably hoped to scare the cockpit controllers (crew, terrorists, or flight-experienced passengers) into bringing the thing down. OTOH, they might have just emptied cannons into it. I don't recall talk about anyone on the ground witnessing missiles being fired... been a while so I can't say. But, I suspect any F-15/F-16-fired missile would bring the plane down in a big ball of fire, if it's an impact seeker vs prox fuse. But, with a plane load of fuel, many many times that of a typical fighter plane, no armor, no evasive capabilities, and no flares (Israel's El Al planes have chaff/flare/decoys: remember the one that was shot at, but it puffed out decoys and the falling flares distracted/seduced/decoyed the missile/s into the building below? Or so went the theory about whey the A/A missile fired at a "commercial" plane dove away from the plane and struck buildings instead....

whew... enough of this thread for me, I think...

Go read the Puzzle Palace for an interesting history of the NSA. The NSA was always allowd to operate and spy in the USA. It is nothing new.

Actually, I read the Puzzle Palace, as well as "Body of Secrets", the follow-up book by James Bamford. Here is what this book says on the subject (page 440-441, 1st Edition, published in May 2001, if you have to know):

"Among the reforms to come out of the Church Committee investigation was the creation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) [...] In order for NSA to target an American citizen or permanent resident alien -- a green card holder -- within the United States, a secret warrant must be obtained from the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance] court. To get the warrant, the NSA officials must show that the person they wish to target is either an agent of a foreign power or involved in espionage or terrorism. But because these issues fall under the jurisidction of the FBI within the United States the NSA seldom becomes involved. Thus, according to senior U.S. intelligence official involved in Sigint, NSA does not target Americans at home." (Emphasis mine).

Therefore, contrary to what you just posted, NSA is allowed to spy on American citizens, but only after getting a court warrant. The fact that the NSA is spying right now on American citizens -- without obtaining this warrant -- should be more than enough reason to impeach the current President of the United States, as well as prosecute USAF General Hayden, the former NSA Director who authorized this program, and who is now the new CIA director.

Somehow, I don't think this is going to happen.

Faked?
Here is his bio...

You probably wouldn't believe that General Lance Lord is the head of Space Command!

*"Space Command" must always be followed by an exclamation point*

Since we've already paid to do the research to construct one, let's modify it if need be and use it. Far far cheaper than developing a ground based laser system. Not that we realistically need an anti-satellite capability for the likely threats the US faces in the next 20-30 years.