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Factory Testing of Airborne Laser Cannon Completed
Acid-F1ux writes "Lockheed Martin has completed factory testing of the optical benches for the Airborne Laser's Beam Control/Fire Control (BC/FC) system. The Airborne Laser (ABL) is the first megawatt-class laser weapon system to be carried on a specially configured 747-400F aircraft, designed to autonomously detect, track and destroy hostile ballistic missiles."
Uhmm... NO. In this case, they are working towards the next war, the rogue nation with a highly limited number of fairly crude ballistic missiles. Our experience during the cold war proved that while the consequences of major nuclear war are very high, the probability is rather low. The exact opposite is true of the rogue nation/terrorist group scenario.
. . .unless the US is planning to have many planes airborne, around the clock, which does seem somewhat wasteful.
And something we have habitually done. Look into the Strategic Air Command, or just watch Dr. Strangelove.
KFG
Exactly. Eventually rogue nations will begin acquiring (either by purchasing or developing) ballistic missles capable of hitting the U.S. or our allies. Eventually someone will try to use them.
So, should we continue down the path of no missle defense system at all? No.
It seems to me that this system is the most versatile & effective thing anyone has come up with so far. Since the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction requires a proactive approach (defense & offense) we had better get on the horse and start developing defenses such as this.
One of governments primary responsibilities is protection of the people. Even if spending 500 billion on this only saves one city, it's worth it. Plus, there is a deterrent factor there for those nations with only a couple of shots. With a system in place, they can't be sure if they will successfully strike or not. If they don't, they're doubly screwed.
Exactly. Eventually rogue nations will begin acquiring (either by purchasing or developing) ballistic missles capable of hitting the U.S. or our allies. Eventually someone will try to use them.
Yeah, because rogue nations are suicidal.
My major concern is that some terror group (you know, those guys that hate us and are willing to die for their cause) gets ahold of a warhead and drives it someplace interesting. Not sure how a missile defense shield would help that.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
The consequences for a so-called rogue nation are actually higher than they would be for a classic cold war confrontation. There would be no reason for the US to not respond in full force because the "rogue nation" will have shot its wad with the first salvo.
The scenario you posit requires a leader of a nation to be so completely irrational as to initiate an action that guarantees the complete and total destruction of their entire country. There is absolutely no evidence that any leader in the world is this irrational. Individuals like Hussein, Qaddafi, Il Jong or Castro may be vicious, sociopathic, megalomaniacal killers but they have never shown an indifference to their personal self-preservation.
Backtracking a ballistic missile launch to its source is now a trivial exercise. The US response would be overwhelming and final. Nothing would remain of the "rogue country" except blast glass.
On the other hand, smuggling a nuclear bomb into the US in a shipping container, for example, leaves no mathematically certain way to track it to its source. It's also much cheaper and simpler. This is the real threat from terrorists or "rogue nations." And it is a threat for which we are woefully unprepared.
One of the many reasons I think the Bush Administration is dangerous is the continued insistence on missile defense at the expense of defending the sort of threats that have already killed thousands of Americans. A few tens of millions of dollars could allow the installation of radiation detectors for every point of entry for Manhattan (it's sometimes good to be an island) and most of New York City. Instead we'll waste billions defending a threat that doesn't exist. This is irrational. Faith-based defensed is insane.
Q:How many libertarians does it take to stop a Panzer division? A:None. Obviously market forces will take care of it.
If this is meant to defend against balistic missles fired at the US mainland, wouldn't the planes have to be in the air all the time? Seems pretty wasteful for the low likely hood of attack.
A better use of this would be as a battlefield deployment. Something like the first Gulf War and defense against SCUDs. Not sure what the range is on this laser, so you might have to be pretty close to the source which might make this impractical.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
You can get the American Physical Society's report on boost phase missile defense here - its in lots of pdfs.
There is a lot of cool stuff in here. Airborne lasers are covered on pages 293 - 342.
Here are their conclusions from the executive summary
"Our main conclusions are the following:
1.Boost-phase defense against intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) hinges on the burn time of the attacking missile and the speed of the defending interceptor rocket. Defense of the entire United States against liquid-propellant ICBMs, such as those deployed early by the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China (China), launched from countries such as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and Iran, may be technically feasible using terrestrial (land-, sea-, or air-based) interceptors. However, the interceptor rockets would have to be substantially faster (and therefore necessarily larger) than those usually proposed in order to reach the ICBMs in time from international waters or neighboring countries willing to host the interceptors. The system would also require the capability to cope with at least the simplest of countermeasures.
2.Boost-phase defense of the entire United States against solid-propellant ICBMs, which have shorter burn times than liquid-propellant ICBMs, is unlikely to be practical when all factors are considered, no matter where or how interceptors are based. Even with optimistic assumptions, a terrestrial-based system would require very large interceptors with extremely high speeds and accelerations to defeat a solid-propellant ICBM launched from even a small country such as North Korea. Even such high-performance interceptors could not defend against solid-propellant ICBMs launched from Iran, because they could not be based close enough to disable the missiles before they deployed their munitions.
3. If interceptor rockets were based in space, their coverage would not be constrained by geography, but they would confront the same time constraints and engagement uncertainties as terrestrial-based interceptors. Consequently, their kill vehicles (the final homing stage of the interceptors) would have to be similar in size to those of terrestrial-based interceptors. With the technology we judge could become available within the next 15 years, defending against a single ICBM would require a thousand or more interceptors for a system having the lowest possible mass and providing realistic decision time. Deploying such a system would require at least a five- to tenfold increase over current U.S. space-launch rates.
4. The Airborne Laser now under development could have some capability against liquid-propellant missiles, but it would be ineffective against solid-propellant ICBMs, which are more heat-resistant.
5.The existing U.S. Navy Aegis system, using an interceptor rocket similar to the Standard Missile 2, should be capable of defending against short- or medium-range missiles launched from ships, barges, or other platforms off U.S. coasts. However, interceptor rockets would have to be positioned within a few tens of kilometers of the launch location of the attacking missile.
6.A key problem inherent in boost-phase defense is munitions shortfall: although a successful intercept would prevent munitions from reaching their target, it could cause live nuclear, chemical, or biological munitions to fall on populated areas short of the target, in the United States or other countries. Timing intercepts accurately enough to avoid this problem would be difficult."