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Dawn of the Airborne Laser
Yonzie writes "As you may have heard, there are a number of competing franchises working on a functional laser weapon. Popular Science has an interesting story about `The Wall of Fire', an airborne laser designed to fit in the belly of a 747. Apparently, this is powerful and precise enough to destroy enemy intercontinental and intermediate-range missiles in mid-flight.
I can imagine the use of laser turrets as protection against missiles, but I really can't see the use of a laser mounted in a 747. IMHO, it's way too slow compared to the missiles, and will not be able to scramble fast enough." This is the big daddy of the JSF laser that we've mentioned before.
Number 2: "*ahem* Dr. Evil, it's about the sharks. When you froze them, they were put on the endangered species list. We tried to get some, but it would have taken months to clear up the red tape."
Dr. Evil: "You know, I have one simple request - and that is, to have sharks with frikkin' laser beams attached to their heads! Now evidently my cycloptic collegue informs me that that can't be done. Can you remind me what I pay you people for? Honestly, throw me a bone here. What do we have?
Number 2: "Sea Bass"
Dr. Evil: "Riiiiiight..."
Number 2: "They are mutated sea bass."
Dr. Evil: "Really? Are they ill-tempered?"
Number 2: "Absolutely."
Dr. Evil: "That's a start."
Hmm, I believe these are the kinds of missions where they make sure n number of planes are always in the air. Sounds really expensive in terms of fuel, but I've heard of several occasions where they do this kind of thing...
I really can't see the use of a laser mounted in a 747. IMHO, it's way too slow compared to the missiles, and will not be able to scramble fast enough
That's why you keep a few of the birds in the air on alert at all time.
Seriously, you dont think the engineers who know what they're doing thought of that?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The speed of the 747 scrambling wouldn't be an issue with something like this because they simply keep them in the air, 24/7, ready to intercept. They wouldn't launch in reaction to a threat, they would already be in the air to intercept.
I know that the thing is currently a big ass laser - but eventually we will be able to get something like this down to a reasonable size - where it can hopefully be built into attack aircraft - which at that point will allow a plane to fly with confidence in enemy territory.
The other aspect that makes this an interesting weapon to have on a 747 - let the 747 fly into enemy territory with an escort fighter squadron - the fighters protect the 747 - which protects the fighters and maybe bombers from enemy missles.
This would be a great thing to have in Command and Conquer: generals...
Although I wonder about the speed it can defend itself - what happens if you shoot ten missles at it?
Yes, it looks really ingenious and all, but can I pop popcorn with it from a range of three miles? Hilarity would be bound to ensue!
I really can't see the use of a laser mounted in a 747. IMHO, it's way too slow compared to the missiles, and will not be able to scramble fast enough.
The speed of the plane is pretty much irrelevant when you're talking about a plane that can fly at high altitude with a weapon that can hit a target less than a second after hitting fire, every time. There would be no reason for the plane to 'scramble' anywhere.
The idea is probably to use them to prohibit a retaliatory strike by a country like North Korea after we bomb them.
And this is not just my opinion. For more information on the dangers of these sorts of things, I recommend "Star Wars: A Defense Expert's Case Against the Strategic Defence Initiative" by Robert M Bowman, and his site at http://www.rmbowman.com/ssn/
Also check out his program you can buy at a http://www.alternativeradio.org
Basically, I do agree that if you do the math, these are only useful as weapons designed to follow-up with a pre-emptive attack. These are hence profoundly destabilizing and so they will provide no security for the US.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I can imagine the use of laser turrets as protection against missiles, but I really can't see the use of a laser mounted in a 747. IMHO, it's way too slow compared to the missiles, and will not be able to scramble fast enough.
That's not how the military would use a weapon like this. Instead, they'd have several 747s, and they'd keep one or more aloft at all times. It's not designed to shoot ICBMs down in the descent/re-entry phase, but to shoot down most any missile in the ascent phase soon after launch.
FAS: Airborne Laser
"Lockheed Martin Space Systems, a member of Team Airborne Laser (ABL), has begun fabrication of the revolutionary, high-energy laser weapon system's turret assembly at its Sunnyvale, Calif., facility.
"The turret assembly, located on the nose of the system's modified 747-400 Freighter aircraft, houses a rotating 1.5-meter telescope designed to locate hostile missiles while in their boost phase."
SpaceDaily: LockMart Begins Building Airborne Laser Turret
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
serious science questions -- Won't all that energy do some very interesing things to the air it passes through? How about dissipation or atmospheric diffraction? What about very fashonable chrome plated missles? What about the "bad guys" with a ground-based version of this thing pointed at the 747?
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
I saw a presentation when I was in grad school on the previous incarnation of the 747-laser. The big problem was the laser could only blow up the missle if its tanks were mostly full of fuel.
This is because missle fuel tanks are under high pressure so that the fuel can help form part of the structure for the missle to support the weight of the fuel. If a laser can weaken the walls of the fuel tank then the missle's structure will fail, and the missle will break up.
Anyway these lasers have to hit a missle right after it launches or else the tanks have lost too much pressure and the laser won't do any damage... the presenter defended this by saying you want to shoot down a missle close to launch anyway because you don't want the debris from the missle falling on any friendlies... and this is a good argument (the scuds shot down by patriots in gulf war I caused a lot of damage when they fell out of the sky).
I do have to wonder, though, if the missle launches can be detected and the missle targeted quickly enough for these lasers to work... and what about missles with solid rocket motors? I doubt the laser would be any good against these at all.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
As brought up by a few others, I'd be interested to see what it's charging times are, along with it's ability to engage multiple targets. Would make a big difference if ever used as a counter-SAM system on smaller planes.
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"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
I think we should call the first 747 with a mounted laser off the line "TROGDOR THE BURNINATOR!"
"I can imagine the use of laser turrets as protection against missiles, but I really can't see the use of a laser mounted in a 747. IMHO, it's way too slow compared to the missiles..."
But a stationary turret, now that's FAST compared to the missles, right?
Is it just me, or would the explosion of a ballistic missle carrying a nuclear warhead, either caused by the laser described in this article, or a physical interception (Patriot missle or Bush's missle defense shield), turn in to a ready made dirty bomb?
I mean, the radioactive material in the bomb would hardly be vaporized I imagine, and instead would disperse down from whatever altitude the intercept occured at to contaminate the underlying area. Ok, it seems that we want to destroy the missle in the ascent phase of flight and thus the contaminated area might not be anywhere in the US, but still....
Understanding is a three edged sword. - Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5
It will fly above the clouds. No fog or rain at 40,000 feet. It will also target missiles that have cleared the cloudbank, while they are still on ascent.
Other people are covering this, but it's friday and I'm bored so I'll jump in too.
"I can imagine the use of laser turrets as protection against missiles, but I really can't see the use of a laser mounted in a 747. IMHO, it's way too slow compared to the missiles, and will not be able to scramble fast enough."
The ABL is meant to loiter a few hundred miles off like an AWACS or JSTAR and fire it's laser at battlefield or medium range ballistic missile during thier launch phase when they are moving slow, full of fuel and at max dynamic stress.
It's not a Bamm! Bamm! Kerplow! X-Wing or Star Trek device, but more like the big slow laser of the Death Star, focusing on the missile and knocking it out.
These bad boys won't scramble, a 747, 757, 767, 707 used by the military can remain aloft for 24-36 hours and have an unrefueled loiter of 12 hours. They have all the hardware to refuel from tankers in mid-air.
I'll use North Korea as an example. Things get hot and an ABL is deployed, the US knows where the missiles will be launched from, say No-Dong on the coast. So the US leaves an ABL with a couple US or JSDF F-15s about 120 miles out over the Sea of Japan with a brand new Arleigh Burke - Flight IIA destroyer which has some ABM capability in Navy Area Defense SM-2 Block IVA surface to air missiles. When the DPRK lights off a missile for the US or Japan, the ABL gets a shot and so does the destroyer.
Cute idea, but it assumes a lot. Off the top of my head....
1) Clear flyable weather. While you can detect the thermal blooms of launch, you can't rely on that for tracking, thus the need for a ranging laser. Will this work if you've got 5-10k ft of cloud cover to visually confirm the target? How about minor-major turbulance?
2) Total aerial supremancy. As with AWACS, you'll need to dominate the skies to the point where SAMs are not making the plane suddenly jink and miss the shot at the wrong time.
3) Target overload. If there are a "lot" of thermal blooms, how long will it take to determine which one is shooting the real missle? Which is just an fire/explosion on the ground? Recall that Iraq is tasked with destroying 100+ short-range ballistic missles. How do you tell a 200km range missle with a nuke vs. a 50km one with conventional explosives. You have 20 shots to figure it out.
4) Equipment. How long to reload between shots? Fast enough to take a second shot? What sort of stress does this put on the plane and the internal equipment? If you do miss, can you still track the missed target?
5) Limited range. From the description it can cover a few hundred square miles. Say 400 square miles or an area of 20 miles by 20 miles. Expand that by constantly flying large fig-8s and you got maybe an area of 3000 sq. miles covered for about five minutes every hour. Lots of luck tracking down the right five minutes of launch...
If this was fully operational during the 1991 Gulf War, it might have saved a few lives and eased the stress level in Israel and Saudia Arabia, but I doubt it would have gotten more than one or two missles. And this works only on that level. A battlefield defense versus an enemy with some ballistic capability, without significant air support, and limited firing capabilities.
It is a big step forwards though. I'll give them a few years to see if they can miniturize to limited fighter usage. Now THAT would be worthwhile.
"I may be Love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."
- The gun and its carrier are incredibly expensive.
- Nuclear missiles have become incredibly cheap.
- Knifes are even cheaper.
That means: While the U.S. are so fixated on high tech weapons and the incredible power of money to buy and develop superior weapons, more and more people suffer from hunger and distress.People occasionally get angry over their situation.
If such angry people go to the next shop and buy themselves a knife, or something worse, they can do real big damage to western civilization, as we have seen with 9/11.
And such people, no laser cannon can stop.
But ... the money for one of such megalomaniac laser guns could have brought a considerable number of people an existence worth to live for.
The money the U.S. and G.B. gave to Saddam Hussein when he was their big friend, could have been used for the benefit of Iraq's people and democracy.
Instead it was only for another paid war, in which the U.S. also supported the other side, Iran.
Think about how little angular motion it would require to make a HUGE difference in the aim of a laser shooting at something a thousand miles away. A 747 is ideal because it's BIG and STABLE.
I saw a show about this, they had a beam stabilizer assembly about the size of a VW beetle. And even then it didn't take much turbulance for it to go completely off target.
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www.n1ywb.com
This is meant to fly around a battlefield and shoot down Scuds and similar medium range missiles. It is not meant for strategic defense, because there is presumably no warning on ICBM launches. It is not meant for short range tactical missles, too many of them.
It is a first step, a baby step weapon. You have to take that first step sometime.
Infuriate left and right
If one were to make a missle with a huge mirror exo-skeloton, what would happen? Would it just burn through the mirror on would it melt the plane?
>> I really can't see the use of a laser mounted in a 747. IMHO, it's way too slow compared to the missiles, and will not be able to scramble fast enough...
You could mount the thing on a Krispy Kreme truck as long as you had line-of-sight to the target. Speed of light is just a tad faster any than missile.
And you don't scramble them. You keep them in the air patrolling.
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Deterrence only works if your enemy has sense enough to want to avoid destruction. If that's not the case, all bets are off. The Soviets and the U.S. deterred each other from using nukes during the Cold War because both sides understood, and wanted to avoid at all costs, that kind of exchange. But, if your enemy is a loon, nothing may deter him.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
That you shouldn't look directly into this type of laser either?
Everyone is stuck on the anti ballistic job being touted as the primary and seemingly only ability this platform would be capable of performing.
UMMM imagine an awacs and a couple of these things being used for air deffense. Picture an awacs circling in friendly airspace right behind the zone of conflict. Two airborn platforms circling some optimum distance away to cover maximum territory also in friendly skies with a reach of several hundred miles ( longest air to air missle range in US inventory is still the Phoenix at ~100 miles. ). In sight are all the primary airfields of the enemy. AWACS detects fighters being scrambled in response to an allied sortie. They slap their gear up and then get lit up like the fourth of july. No million dollar missle expended, no multimillion dollar interceptor and its priceless crew placed in harms way penetrating enemy airspace to engage the enemy. Just a single shot from an energy weapon system that can provide far more shots than can be physcially carried in the form of a missle. IE you spend 200 million building the plane but get thousands of shots from the system vrsus 200 million for 200 missiles with a million dollar price tag... which I belive is roughly the current cost of an AMRAM.
If they have line of sight to a ground target they can light it up as well with less potential for collateral damage from shrapnel and initial explosion that you have from current convetional munitions, less likely hood of a targeting malfunction. Granted thats only as good as your intelligence but unlike current munitions your percentage of hitting what you aim at would be essentially 100%. Secondary explosions, damage from fires started would still be an issue.
This is like putting a howitzer on a 500mph mobile platform that has speed of light ammunition 40,000 feet up in the air... its INSANE what the potential is for an aireal laser with sufficient power to be a weapon at line of sight distances from jet cruising altitudes.
And I hope no one says targeting is an issue... I garontee targeting subsonic and low supersonic munitions succesfully to their subsonic, low supersonic targets is FAR more difficult than hitting a subsonic, low supersonic target with a beam of light. Were pretty good at the former, the latter is a piece of cake by comparison. The trick is building a mobile laser with a directable enough beam to take advantage of our ability to target and the speed of light.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
It seems obvious to me that the 747s would just be
kept flying in a coverage zone. They are there for
altitude, not intercept. Since you can't use a
space-based laser by treaty, it's the best, cheapest
way to get wide coverage.
As regards speed, the laser travels at c, which
is plenty fast.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
It is a defensive weapon. Heres why:
1)If we are going to launch a nuclear strike, we don't need to be concerned about someone else launching back (except Russia, explained later). Because we have the nuclear capability to destroy anything we want to (including the world ~8 times over currently) But this option is exceedingly unlikely.
2)The system is designed against small rogue nations (North Korea, Iraq, Iran,...) and limited strikes. The system is completely unviable against Russia and China. Both of these countries have strong strategic air defenses and lots of territory. This means that if the system is outside the country it cant hit 90% of either nation, and it has little chance of actually penetrating their airspace unscathed.
3)If you look at current American military capabilities, we have enough offensive power to choke a donkey, it is our defensive capabilities that are lacking. While the government can do some less than intelligent things, I dont think they are dumb enough to bankroll an offensive capability of this size, instead of a defensive project.
4)A 747 is the WRONG platform to use as a offensive system. Fighters (read: offensive weapons) are small and agile, defensive system (AWACS, C2 systems) are all large, lumbering, stable aircraft
So even if you don't believe what Boeing, TRW, and the AF say about the project, common sense would indicate that the ABL is a defensive, not offensive weapons system.
Ash nazg durbatuluk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thraktuluk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
Secondly, it doesn't work on ICBMs, because it has to be within a few dozen miles from the launch in order to catch it in its boost phase. It's kinda hard to hit objects over the horizon with a lazer.
You are right about the need to be close, but wrong about ICBMs. It does not matter what type of missle it is (bigger is better in fact) it only matters whether you can get close to the launch site. You may also be underestimating the range. At 40,000 feet the horizon is much further away than a few dozen miles, and even if you are trying to hit a target in the boost phase the target will still be well above sea level. I'm too lazy to do the calculation, but at a guess a 747 at 40,000 feet could probably see an ICBM at the top of its boost phase (which for ICBMs is very high) from several hundred miles away.
I would think that range would have more to do with the power of the laser, than the horizon.
All I wanted was a 747 with a friggin laser beam on it's head! Is that too much to ask?
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Many first generation Japanese Americans from Hiroshima sent their children back for education. As a result at least 3,000 American citizens were killed by the use of their own nuclear weapon.
10% of the victims were Koreans being used in Hiroshima as forced labor. A number of prisoners of war from many countries were also killed by the bomb.
We never hurt only our "enemies."
The ABL / AL-1 is intended to be a "boost phase intercept" (BPI) weapon. It is designed to orbit a potential adversary for several hours at a time with aircraft constantly rotating in and out of theater. With air refueling the AL-1 could stay airborne almost indefinitely only limited by the endurance of the crew. The whole idea is to be able to intercept ballistic missiles while they are still in boost phase shortly after they have been launched causing the debris to fall on the people that launched the missiles in the first place.
BPI is much less risky than terminal phase intercept (i.e. attempting to shoot the missiles down on reentry). If you fail to shoot the target down in boost phase you will at least get a second chance to shoot it down on reentry provided you have missile interceptors in theater (which we do in the case of Iraq).
The AL-1 uses a very powerful chemical Laser which has a range of several hundred miles (between 200-800 miles) and if I recall correctly has enough chemical fuel for about 26 shots. The laser itself occupies virtually the entire length of the airframe with the fuel storage tanks being in the aft section to the best of my recollection.
Hopefully we will have a few AL-1s available in theater for the impending war with Iraq.
Even if we only have a couple of prototypes that is still better than nothing.
Despite the fact that we have numerous missile interceptors in the form of the MIM-104 PAC2 Patriot all over the world we do not have the ability to intercept ballistic missiles worldwide with a high degree of success. The AL-1 would vastly increase our ability to perform a successful intercept. We could probably keep the continental US safe with about 10 AL-1s rotating in and out. Naturally it would be nice to have a backup in the form on NMD (National Missile Defense) with other systems supplementing our defenses. Ideally, if we could park a small constellation of satellites with HELs (High Energy Lasers) in orbit around the planet we could provide global coverage against ALL ballistic missiles (short range, intermediate range and intercontinental) launched from anywhere on earth thus ensuring global peace and stability.
Live long and prosper
Unix_Geek_65535