Boeing Successfully Tests Anti-Missile Laser

dankinit writes "MSNBC is reporting that a 'Boeing Co.-led team has successfully fired for the first time a powerful laser meant to fly aboard a modified 747 as part of a U.S. ballistic missile defense shield.' The test called 'First Light' has a budget of $474.3 million in the fiscal year 2005 and is part of a larger $10 billion dollar missile defense system."

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Re:Missile Defense

[aldoman]

I'm slightly confused. This system seems to deal with 'sidewinder'-style missiles - ie: small, very fast, and can easily destroy a tank/plane/humvee.

I know for a fact that i'd prefer one of these to take out any RPG shots that might be fired towards me if I were in Iraq.

This is how the US is going to win the 'war on terror': simply make their weapons totally useless. At the moment, RPGs are probably the biggest danger to a soldier moving around. With this, it's not a problem anymore. I'm sure they could work on a system that could eventually shoot down bullets in mid air, and then finally make it small enough so that soldiers can carry it. Virtually invincible soldiers.

Terrorists are probably not going to be able to kit out their soldiers with this. Sure, they can use suicide bombs, but it's certainly not as easy as setting an RPG a half-mile away, firing at a passing patrol and killing 5 soldiers.

See sciam.com

[tunabomber]

1000 miles is right.

Even if they do get this laser working the way it's supposed to, it will still be insanely expensive to have 747's aloft circling the "trouble areas" of the world 24/7. Due to range limitations, it might be impossible to take out a missile launched from the center of Iran or China without leaving international airspace. Also, these 747's better have some pretty good countermeasures onboard to prevent the
enemy from just shooting them down before an attack.
Anyways, even if the entire system works as advertised, a "rogue state" could still get the nuke to the U.S. using a ship, submarine, or simply stashed away in one of the million cargo containers that arrive here each day. If highly-enriched uranium is used to make the bomb (that's the route Iran is taking), a simple lead shield would make the bomb undetectable without entirely dissasembling the cargo.

For a very detailed analysis of the technical hurdles blocking the completion of a missile defense shield, check out this article.

Re:Missile Defense

[Ironsides]

No no no, critically challenged was when Germany invaded Poland during WWII with tanks, and Poland sent Cavalry on Horses with Pistols to try to stop them. France, from what I understand, merely didn't have an actual government in power at the time.

Re:$10 billion towards other things

[dead sun]

While you'd attract some brighter people, you'd attract a whole slew of people that were just after some quick cash. They'd teach to the standardized tests, be quicker than current teachers to keep out realistic measures of their performance, and generally be a nuisance.

What happened during the dot-com boom of the 90's when there was so much cash sitting around the tech industry it wasn't funny? Morons, dimwits, and people that couldn't code themselves out of a wet cardboard box came running as fast as they could. Many, many students enrolled in CS classes for a quick dollar despite the fact they were incapable of learning a single programming language. They'd lie and cheat their way to graduation, barely pulling C's, and then promptly sucker somebody into hiring them. They're probably clueless managers now sucking in a salary they'll never deserve.

While I think that perhaps a little more than starting out at about $20k is a worthwhile idea, jacking the salaries isn't going to draw only good teachers. I'm not sure the net effect of seeding morons into the people who get degrees in teaching is, just in order to try to get people in industry with no teaching experience, but I doubt it's as rosy as you're painting it to be. I've been fortunate enough to have some teachers who really love teaching, despite the pay. I think the best teachers will teach as long as they're making enough between them and their spouse to get by.

Anyway, the way interviews seem to go it's likely the effect of grossly inflated salaries would be something along the lines of, "Well, you have 15 years relevent chemistry experience at MegaChemCorp, but you've never taught before. We're going to award the job to this other guy with a teaching degree that's never seen the real world." Gotta preserve the old status quo of who got you into the easy position, right?

Re:That's great, but...

[HiThere]

Actually, if I've read things correctly, a suitcase bomb (dirty variety) can handily kill a city. It just won't kill many of the people that have lived/worked in the city. It spreads a large cloud of radioactive dust, such that nobody quickly gets a lethal dose. But also so that nobody can live there without severe danger of cancer and other mutation diseases. So everyone has to move out. It's really quite impractical to clean it up, as by the time you could have done so, everyone has moved to some place new. Wait 5 years or so, though, and the city can be re-occupied. Even within days a person could travel through it without much problem. You just wouldn't want to stay there for a week or two.

So cities is primarily what they would kill. Not people.