Slashdot Mirror

It used to be called the Air Mule and it was funded by the Israeli military

And that surely included some US taxpayer money, like this $38B in military funding

So, the real question is whether Musk will snatch it up now that it is in the public markets.

Zero recorded strikes

http://www.defensetech.org/201...

And that was where the US Mililtary controls the entire airspace, not where anyone can fly whenever they want...

Or. 364 rounds for the Rail Gun

Russia isn't the only one having issues with social media

ISIS had a little bit of kaboom come their way after an errant social-media posting as well.

Wonder if dude got a selfie of that?

Report: Chinese Navy’s Fleet Will Outnumber U.S. by 2020

You need to stay up on facts, and not just on BS.
China remains a dictatorship and outside of exports, they are a communist economy. The military build-up is the largest that the world has EVER seen. Not even Hitler grew his military this fast.

So to chime in on the whole Tech owning their own tools. I hate to say this but that works fine for Auto Mechanics because they are working on random people's cars. If the Tech doesn't have the right size wrench he'll jsut use pliers or an adjustable wrench, face and corners be damned, won't matter not their problem. Same with a torque wrench, let them just tap it a few times, or use the air gun.

Move over to the industrial world and a real manufacturing/process plant where over torquing something can stop production, or damaging the bolt can cause delays in repair (lost of production) and we have a real problem. Most plants do not allow Techs to bring in their own tools. I know Plants that have banned adjustable wrenches (if you don't' have the right tool for the job don't' do it mentality)..

All that being said in real industrial settings, tool control is a big deal. The more sterile and regulated the environment the more important it can be. See the link below where it was a contractor failing to do a tool count that did some real damage.

http://defensetech.org/2012/01...

Tool counting is a basic thing, and should always happen. Things like this tool box can be used for good and bad, it all depends on the culture of the company and people using it. Sure they could use it to bash people over the head for loosing tools, but they could also use it as a safe guard/helper/checker to help the tech out in doing a tool count to make the work go quicker. I know places where this would be seen as yet another big brother in the plant, and places where they would love to have this because it would make their job easier and quicker. Its all about culture.

Personally i love the simplicity of it, although i will say that you have to have a solid 5S/Shadow boarding in place to use in place light sensors like this. It would work very well for specialized tool sets, but not your run of the mill mechanics toolbox. For that cheap RFID tags/single box reader might be more appropriate. (and could also be used for locating the tools if lost in the equipment).

Trust me that the cost of something like this is a drop in the bucket compared to the costs of real specialty tools, and the impact to production/operations when a tool is lost.

The US runs tons of military operations out of areas incredibly vulnerable to sea level change. Of course there are the ports on the East and West Coast to think about, but what about all those airfields in the Pacific?

Well, you're in luck. Just sign up for the F-35 program and get fitted for one of these bad boys.

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/... & http://defensetech.org/2011/08...

Pretty soon, dinosaurs will be pouring out of the hollow earth.

Are you kidding? This is the polar regions we're talking about. The real threat there is from the secret Nazi Antarctic Fortress which the US countered with its secret nuclear powered subterranean Air Force base. Hopefully the Nazis can still be thwarted so we can avoid an "Iron Sky" scenario. If only ....

Don't worry, USS JImmy Carter is on the job https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter_(SSN-23) , http://defensetech.org/2005/02/21/jimmy-carter-super-spy/ & http://cryptome.org/eyeball/mmp/jimmy-carter.htm but things may well have moved on a fair bit since then.

Carriers are sitting ducks without a battle group. I doubt the Chinese are worried over this at all.

They should be worried about their own carrier shaped ships since they don't have a battle group either.

Besides japan does have a battle group.

Dont forget China's deadly and groundbreaking land carriers.

House Mulls NSA Restrictions in Collecting Metadata http://defensetech.org/2013/07/24/house-mulls-nsa-restrictions-in-collecting-metadata/#more-21000

What exactly did you expect the Navy to do, shoot it out of the water?

Pft. Tell the sub to stop dicking around or we'll blow you out of the water. They could have moved to protect THE THING THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE PROTECTING. They could have followed standard operating procedure for when a ship comes too close to their space.

http://defensetech.org/2006/11/14/behind-the-kitty-hawk-incident-updated/

There's [no] reason to think they didn't know where it was the entire time.

Other than collectively shitting their pants and looking like fools, sure. And other than it's a known weakness. But sure, sure, they were just playing it cool. Because OF COURSE there'd be no way that our military could possibly be embarrassed... (SARCASM)

But Rear Admiral Hank McKinney, the former commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s submarine force, tells us not to be to hard on the sub-hunters:

Noah, I have no inside information on this event, but it is very difficult to detect a quiet diesel submarine and the Song–class submarines are quality submarines. Operating in international waters in the vicinity of a US battle group is perfectly normal — good operational training.

The Chinese very well could have staged this event to make a point about the vulnerability of the Battle Group to submarine attack. The US Navy is fully aware of [those] vulnerabilities
        The Chinese are building a credible submarine force which will make it very difficult for the US Navy to maintain sea control dominance in or near coastal waters off of China.

And wikipedia weighs in:

Reports claim that the submarine had been undetected until it surfaced.[14][15][16]

Lemme see, the meat from those three citations are:

According to the defense officials, the Chinese Song-class diesel-powered attack submarine shadowed the Kitty Hawk undetected and surfaced within five miles of the carrier Oct. 26.

The submarine remained undetected by the carrier and the accompanying warships until after it surfaced.

With no explaination about how they know that.
And last one is a dead link.
So either the Washing Times is mis-reporting or an official admitted it went undetected. Considering the massive embarrasment it caused the people who were supposed to detect incoming subs, I'd say they weren't just playing it cool.

http://defensetech.org/2012/03/21/pics-of-the-day-the-c-130-that-collided-with-a-uav/

This was a Shadow UAV (~425 lbs).

This is with more than 1.3 million hours of UAS operations, so consider that in the context of frequency of occurrence.

You have been misinformed. http://defensetech.org/2012/04/13/army-wants-to-replace-c-12-fleet/

Yeah, the C-12 is not a combat aircraft, it's a transport aircraft. Carrying cargo does not count as combat, no matter what kind of cargo it is carrying (not unless the cargo is dropped midflight, and is explosive, in which case it's a "bomber", and not cargo but a payload). Combat aricraft are aircraft that engage in combat, and the Army is forbidden to operate any (the Air Force considers that their job). In fact, you can see the list of aircraft they do operate here.

You have been misinformed. http://defensetech.org/2012/04/13/army-wants-to-replace-c-12-fleet/

http://defensetech.org/2012/01/31/sandias-new-smart-bullet/

I see you have some deeply held emotional convictions about the U.S. military but I believe you are in need of a knowledge update. This ain't your Grand Pappy's DoD. The notion of "my bomb is bigger than your bomb" doesn't have as much to do with the ability to wage war as one might conceive. Are you familiar with the concept of asymmetric warfare...? If not I'd brush up on the idea. The U.S. has not been in a military conflict with a major world power since WWII. Amusingly enough though it has a history of having it's a** handed to it by spear throwing savages in places such as Japan, Vietnam and the Korean peninsula. U.S. "force multiplier" hardware are also an exponential "cost multiplier" that are a significant economic stress even in conflicts with the puny spear throwing savages of the middle east, even when the economy is otherwise unimpeded. In a total war scenario this becomes a substantial liability.

I'm also not rightly sure why you'd separate military from consumer manufacturing either. During WWII for instance, consumer manufacturing capacity was converted and became the backbone of military hardware production throughout the war. China has a working age population of roughly 950 million people. The U.S. has roughly 200 million people of working age. This is a crucial number when considering attrition related notions. Also, I'd check into where DoD contractors are getting their parts from and consider what the consequences of that might be.

Force projection also doesn't quite have the same composition as it once did. The relevance of navies are coming into question more and more as traditional limitations cease to exist an vulnerabilities rise. Likewise with forward bases.

The Russians have had supercavitating torpedoes operational and in use since 1977, but they only reach 370 km/h. For comparison, the speed of sound in seawater is roughly 1.5 km/s , so roughly 14.6x faster. The US Navy developed their own, but decided to stick with what they already had for a variety of reasons. To say the least, those speeds are nowhere close to hitting the target before they realize it's coming.

Also, detection is trivial with supercavitation, since the propulsion necessary to sustain it is ridiculously loud. That said, even if something can be detected, locating it may be difficult since the loudness can be used for sonar deafening purposes, and the fact that they can go decently fast could mean that there's enough of a lag that they can be decently far ahead of whatever location sonar does show for them. The US Navy has researched such applications for use in getting Navy SEALs off of hostile beaches quickly, since at that point stealth may not be important, whereas evasion and a quick return are. It's not as you say, but there are positives to it, nonetheless.

And where did you get your magical 200 mph from? Why 200 mph? If you're a country with jet engine technology, you probably have planes that can keep up with a ship or boat going at 200 mph, and we already have boats racing as fast as 250 mph today. And why wouldn't machine guns or rockets work just fine? Last I checked, they're going quite a bit faster than that, and both of them would be able to do more than enough damage to a vessel like this, I should think.

1. 1) Cost. A human pilot represents a multi-million dollar engineering challenge, from life support system (such as O2 flow) to aircraft survivability to ergonomics.
2. 2) Capability. As others here have noted, modern fighter aircraft's maneuverability have long since been hamstrung by the physiological limitations of the pilot. A human pilot also represents a waste of space and weight that could be used for fuel, sensors and weapons. The lack of a cockpit also implies smaller aircraft with a thinner profile increasing "stealthiness".
3. 3) Reduced Political Profile. The Navy has just grounded their Firescout UAVs following two crashes. But that grounding doesn't make big news, because no one died when the UAVs went down and the program has a relatively modest budget, at least compared to the F-22 and F-35.

And yet the military still doesn't have a clue - the Navy just released their proposal for a F-18 replacement that includes a "optional manned" variant. In fact, this dictates a design that meets manned requirements first, with "optional unmanned" variant to follow, in much the same way that the F-35B STOVL dictated the design (and timeline and costs) of the JSF program.

UAVs (as well as Unmanned Surface Vehicles) can and should be used to make the US military safer, more cost-effective and more capable.

What I don't get is, if you say there's 25M of damage, isn't that supposed to mean it would cost 25M to repair? If you have an estimate for the repair, that means you can repair it; so why is it written off, instead?

Well for several reasons..

1.. The EC-8 fleet was built using USED commercial Boeing 707's This one was built in 1966. See the Service History
2. The airframe may be close to the end of it's service life. The fleet was only designed to operate until 2025..
The cost to repair my well exceed the return on investment over the next 10 years vs it's value as a source of spare parts.
They have 17 more to continue operations with so that may also be a factor in their decision.

http://defensetech.org/2012/01/27/a-basic-mistake-that-trashed-a-jstars/

The standard term is "bleed air", not "air bleed". (I was an F-16 engine mech and crew chief (and Comm/Nav on Phantoms and Broncos).

We don't yet know what caused the bleed air leak. but bleed air ducting isn't something new and leaks tend to be either because of improper connection or duct failure (bleed air is bled from the engine compressor, but it's HOT and at very high volume).

http://defensetech.org/2011/12/15/af-alaska-f-22-crash-due-to-pilot-error/

"While the oxygen generating system on Haneyâ(TM)s jet didnâ(TM)t fail, it did shut down because oxygen from the bleed air system, which feeds the OBOGS, was leaking into the engine spaces"

Cooling and running it through a molecular sieve to save doing LOX servicing is theoretically a good idea, but the MAIN reason to have OBOGs is to get rid of the base LOX plant, support equipment, and servicing personnel.

Some "ancient" history:

http://www.f20a.com/f20obogs.htm

I disagree.

1st Claim: The US military has a number of autonomous, currently unarmed examples include Global Hawk, X-37, and RQ-3. There are certainly others, and there may be armed examples.

2nd claim: It is easily argued that remote-killing does not fulfill the proportionality argument of just war (bellum iustum). The very fact that the US is so heavily investing in them, indicates that the loss of a UCAV is considered less costly than the loss of the crew, thus, we as a combatant are not subject to the same proportional losses as the other guy in an engagement using them.

While I won't fault anyone investing their treasure in technology to protect their troops, I acknowledge that there's a problem with disconnect when the asymmetry is large.

But back to your statements: 1) there ARE autonomous drones and 2) there is no ethical similarity between killing with a UCAV, gun or bare hands. Yes, they're all killing, but no, they're not at all equal in so doing, and the difference is so large as to nullify your claim.

Easy Starter Links: the interested party can go way deeper from here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Hawk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-37
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RQ-3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_Avenger
http://defensetech.org/2011/12/14/usaf-sending-new-drone-to-afghanistan/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war

They didn't do so well in the tests you cite, but those tests were conducted in "extreme dust and sand" conditions designed to mimic a sandstorm so they are not exactly representative of their typical operating environment.

Someone needs to look up the concept of 'stealth'.

Hint #1: Do not put large flashing lights on stealth vessels.

Hint #2: Do not fly them around in view of other people.

While there do appear to be triangular probably-military airships flying around, they don't appear to be 'secret' ships as much as 'obvious but unacknowledged' ships.

22358)At 0528Z TF Bushmaster reported that 3 MVTs Mullah Salim, Mohamad and Mullah Abdula are in SC 23''S immediate AO(w/in 3-5k) and planning an IED ambush. Bushmaster intercepted TB Comms wih hostile intent over the past 36 hours. TF Bushmaster believes they have emplaced up to 4 IEDs on routes they expect them to take. TB in area are re-directing civilian traffic away from suspect IED locations. We do not have eyes on TB Re-direction location.

Names and locations are clearly given. If these names aren't blacked out, neither will names of Afghanis we are working with be blacked out. Even if they went through and blacked them out, some are bound to be missed.

but does not work http://defensetech.org/2010/04/23/army-cancels-nlos-ls-missile-system/#axzz0mIo1WjE3 as expected.

I'm surprised the Navy hasn't picked up on this more.

They have. And even with fuel cells. And helicopters, too.

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/images/komet.jpg/komet.jpg came to mind

You can read about Sadam's supergun right here.

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002751.html.

Would it have worked? Who knows...

"And, when NASA spent all the money on the X-33 [wikipedia.org] they ended up with nothing to show for it."

Well, the public face of NASA didn't, sure. But I wonder if the DoD has got something out of fifty years of hypersonic spaceplane research which they don't yet want to talk about?

Then again maybe I'm attributing competence where stupidity really is the simplest explanation.

This way If you like airships

Or this It uses regular length runways (build a temp out of gravel at the site a la WWII

Frankly, I'm surprised that this research hadn't already been started

This research has been going on for years. This isn't the announcement of a new program, this is the announcement of it reaching a milestone. Here's a link from over two years ago.

That depends... http://www.defensetech.org/archives/000085.html

I can't believe you got modded to "Insightful". If this was really insightful, it would reference how current UAV operators are dealing with
their job. They're actually having a hard time dealing with it because of the way it doesn't interrupt their otherwise normal life.

It's one thing to be uprooted and housed with a bunch of guys doing the same job. It's something else entirely to get up, go to work,
spike an Al Qaeda operative with a Hellfire (and assess results in realtime) and then drive back home like nothing happened.

Do your fucking homework first, eh?

http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/08/09/pilots-of-predator-drones-suffering-ptsd/
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/004348.html

You do realize that this will only effect hybrid or electric cars right?

Given the specific mention of military hummers, which are most certainly NOT hybrids or electic,

Well not now, but they were trying to come up with a Hybrid Humvee.

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/000877.html

Hey Bro! It's not a matter of being scared but rather prepared. Shooting down satellites is not that easy and if you think we can do it at will you are sadly mistaken. The satellite China shot down was so rigged in their favor that a situation similar in real life is extremely unlikely. Space based weapons are our only real means effectively of targeting objects in space. As for Iran... http://www.defensetech.org/archives/004673.html It seems the type of launch Iran just demonstrated is idea for delivering EMPs.

No way, blame it on USS Jimmy Carter SSN 23 http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001397.html and http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/navy/ssn-23.htm

Beijing's investment in rocket technology is also accelerating the militarisation of outer space

Funny, I thought it was the US stance of space dominance that was accelerating militarisation of space.

From 2007
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/05/2273_human_scen.html
From 2006:
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002329.html

I believe the East German Stasi were doing for several decades...

You'll get idiots like these running around with laser weapons.

And what about this kind of idiots ? Do you really want them to be able to buy lasers over the counter ?!?

Gun crazy private militia has always frightened me. As if these idiots didn't have a big enough aresenal you want to add lasers to their tool belt ?

You'll get idiots like these running around with laser weapons.

At first I thought it said Neanderthal.

This would be so much cooler then Naphtalene.

My first thought was something along these lines.

Exactly how did he get out there?

I suspected it was a crude version of this... http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002387.html

Google will have some of the same issues as that "other startup",
and lots that are different. A floating oil platform
(to me) works better than a ship based datacenter.

_IF_ Google was to do a floating datacenter, I'd love to see
them take one of the old nuke flat-tops, and use that...
The big E as a datacenter would be killer, better than a pile of scrap.
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/003578.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(CVN-65)
http://www.nvr.navy.mil/nvrships/details/CV64.htm

EACH of the A2W power plants can deliver over 26,000 kw
(over 200,000 kw total) , and if you combine the reactor
hot water output, with an amonia based cooling system,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_refrigerator
http://www.nh3tech.org/absorption.html
can give low cost cooling.

Here is a letter that I sent to one of the VARS for the "other startup",
strangely enough, I never got an answer back. Perhaps it just got spam filtered out.

The questions remain unanswered....

*********** Mon Feb 4 11:23:17 2008
Received: from [****************.yahoo.com via HTTP; Mon, 04 Feb 2008 11:23:17 PST
Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 11:23:17 -0800 (PST)
**********************
Subject: Floating Data Centers?!?
To: ken@teamsilverback.com
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Content-Length: 8789

I saw your article about floating datacenters, and since you asked for
input, I thought I would chime in. Let me start off by saying I like the idea,
I know that there is great room for delivering a good product, at a good price point.

Now before I put my racks in a floating data center, here are some of my
concerns and references to real world issues. (I have a lot more, but
that depends on the ship and configuration.),

1) ""using sea water for their chill water"". Having seawater around is
a good heat sink, and since the ships are at dock most of the time, a long
pipe can be run to the cooler water zones to draw in water that is
close to freezing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_lake_water_cooling
Using colder sea water (after a standard air heat exchanger) can result in
good economies, if the heat exchangers can stand up to the corrosive environment.

2) ""All generators will have access to the ships fuel storage during disaster scenarios, which
allows them to operate for nearly a month without the need to refuel.""
Traditional fuel for gen sets and large ship engines are very different. An
onboard gen set is like a modern rail road locomotive engine
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:3000hp_curve_ver2.jpg ), and it runs on diesel,
a main power plant for a ship (also a diesel) traditionally runs on Heavy Fuel Oil
(HFO). Without modifications to either the main power plant, or the gen sets, both
engines can not share the same fuel source. Please note the differences between #2
(the traditional fuel for ship board gen sets) , and #6 (Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO), AKA
Bunker C, the traditional fuel for ships manufactured in the 1980's). #6 is almost
a jelly at cold temperatures, and must be heated (to around 100c ) for efficient
movement, and burning. The main engine on a large cargo vessel is also much more
efficient (up to %50) in its use of fuel, making them more economical than the
smaller generators. Gen sets use a small amount of diesel per day, (compared
to the main engine) a 3100 kw gen set will use 4253 gallons of fuel per day
(http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/living_and_working/diaries/rrs_james

"What bothers me about this is that you take away risk to persons from war, and those persons are more willing to wage war...which leads to more war."

While I understand your reasoning on this, I don't think it's valid... yet. These kinds of drones thus far are really only good against guerillas on foot or in trucks. A first class threat... say, Russian armored forces... would eat these drones for lunch. So drones like these really don't reduce the danger to US personell much, because A-10's, F-16's, and AC-130's really aren't in much danger when going up against a group of Al Qaeda goons running in the desert. They might have the occasional shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile on them, but so far, nothing like that has been able to beat the countermeasures on US combat aircraft. So the "take the danger away for humans and encourage more war" thing isn't valid with the current generation of drones.

However... the Navy is working on a new drone aircraft, the N-UCAS, which will be years in development, but when ready, will basically be a scaled down stealth bomber that can launch and land on our carriers. If they get this puppy working, your ideas may be a little more valid.

That said, if we've learned one thing, it's that push-button-wars from a distance don't get you squat unless you're willing to send boots on the ground into the fight. So something like the Navy drone may lessen the risks to pilots, but there won't be any replacement for the infantryman in several lifetimes. No matter what kind of technology you bring, there's still going to be significant risk for humans in the military.

My Feeds: Select: All 95 subscriptions, None, Unassigned A to Z Kids Stuff children http://www.atozkidsstuff.com/atoz.xml ABC News: Top Stories news http://my.abcnews.go.com/rsspublic/fp_rss20.xml About Computing Center technology http://z.about.com/6/g/pcworld/b/rss2.xml About.com Archaeology Archaeology http://z.about.com/6/g/archaeology/b/rss2.xml All Things Digital technology http://feeds.allthingsd.com/atd-feed/ Archaeology News Archaeology news http://www.topix.net/rss/science/archaeology.xml Ars Technica tech news http://feeds.arstechnica.com/arstechnica/BAaf ArsTechnica: Security Content Security technology http://feeds.feedburner.com/arstechnica/security BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition U.K. http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_world_edition/front_page/rss.xml BBC News | Science/Nature | World Edition Science/Nature http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_world_edition/science/nature/rss.xml Boing Boing odd http://feeds.boingboing.net/boingboing/iBag Breaking News: CBSNews.com news http://www.cbsnews.com/feeds/rss/main.rss Breitbart.tv varied news topics http://www.breitbart.com/xml/recentvideo.xml ChannelWeb Complete Feed Computer news http://www.crn.com/cwb/globalcontent/cweball/index.xml;jsessionid=L0I1HBDQISHBCQSNDLQSKH0CJUNN2JVN Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories news http://www.csmonitor.com/rss/top.rss CNN.com - Offbeat odd http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_offbeat.rss CNN.com - Politics politics http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_allpolitics.rss CNN.com - U.S. U.S. news http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_us.rss Computerworld Breaking News technology http://feeds.computerworld.com/Computerworld/News Cool Tools technology http://feeds.feedburner.com/CoolTools Courant.com - Connecticut News Ct. news http://feeds.courant.com/Courant/ConnecticutNews Defense Tech U.S. defense news http://www.defensetech.org/index.rdf Discovery News - Technology technology http://dsc.discovery.com/news/subjects/technology/xdb/topstories.xml Drudge Report news http://feeds.feedburner.com/FeedPalooza/lwDu Dvorak Uncensored news http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?feed=rss2 Engadget robots & gadgets http://www.engadget.com/rss.xml Extremetech technology http://rssnewsapps.ziffdavis.com/extreme.xml Fark.com news http://www.pluck.com/rss/fark.rss FileForum software http://fileforum.b

Orbital cannon ... NASA Price: $0. Talk DOD into paying for it ;-)

I believe the organization you are looking for is the Air Force

As mentioned in the article I linked to, their mission statement begins with:

The mission of the United States Air Force is to deliver sovereign options for the defense of the United States of America and its global interests -- to fly and fight in Air, Space, and Cyberspace...

-bs