HAARP Amping It Up

n6kuy writes "HAARP (the High frequency Active Auroral Research Program) will be adding 132 more transmitters to bring their total number of transmitters to 180. "When the massive planar array for ionospheric research is completed in 2007, it will include a total of 180 Continental Electronics D616G 10-kW combined transmitters, which the company is upgrading specifically for HAARP," the supplier (Continental) stated. The facility is near Gakona, Alaska. The installation began in 1993 with 18 transmitters, expanded to 48 in 1998 and will grow to 180 transmitters. The final expansion will bring the HAARP array to full power, with ERP increasing from 84 dBW to about 96 dBW. 96dBW is about 4 billion Watts. There is speculation that the project is really an "effort to develop ways to jam the electronics of incoming missiles from Russia and/or China". 4 billion Watts oughtta do it."

Comments

idle spec

[Red Flayer]

FTFSpeculation: "it seems to me like it's some efffort to develop ways to jam the electronics of incoming missiles from Russia and/or China (I don't think it's an accident HAARP's initial funding came from Reagan's "Star Wars" initiative)"

It could also be that the Star Wars Initiative was based on satellites being able to communicate, and communication in the ionosphere (with endemic electrical currents) was thought to be possibly very tricky, especially in latitudes where the northern lights are a visible manifestation of such.

/tinfoil (not aluminum foil) hat half-off

This only works at night?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Did I read this correctly: that HAARP only works at night?

"Ionospheric heating cannot be performed while the sun illuminates the ionosphere for two reasons:

        * Solar UV creates the ionospheric D-region, which absorbs the radio waves used for ionospheric heating.
        * The solar flux overwhelms any effect of ionospheric heating. "

Re:This only works at night?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, to be more specific, the D-region is formed by solar Lyman alpha photoionization of nitric oxide (NO), with a smaller and more variable contribution from soft X-rays ionizing N2 and O2.

HF radio waves are absorbed mostly in the D-region, and at times can be completely blacked out by elevated electron densities caused by various ionospheric disturbances, including solar X-ray flares and "Polar Cap Absorption" events caused by solar proton events.

The solar (extreme ultraviolet, shortwards of Lyman alpha) flux photoionizes the neutral atmosphere (mostly N2 and O2) creating ions by ejecting photoelectrons from the neutral molecules. These photoelectrons have energies typically up to about 100 eV (electron Volts). The "hot" photoelectrons collide with the cold ambient ionospheric electrons through the Coulomb interaction thereby heating the ionospheric electrons.

The radar heats ionospheric electrons to only a fraction of an eV. However, there are enough electrons in the tail of the heated Maxwellian distribution to excite the atomic oxygen auroral "red line" emission at 6300 Angstroms (630 nm), which has an excitation threshold of 1.96 eV. This red glow produced by radar heating is visible from the ground (with instruments).

I'm one of the "experts" quoted on the HAARP site, although I have absolutely nothing to do with it. However, I find the conspiracy theories regarding HAARP quite amusing. Why? because I can calculate exactly what the radar is doing - that's how I make my living.

I have no idea...

[FuturePastNow]

...how much RF energy it takes to damage a missile. But, by the time it flies over Alaska, the missile would be a ballistic warhead that has to do nothing more than detonate at a predetermined altitude. I imagine it could be made pretty simple, and therefore hard to kill.

But, four billion watts is a lot of power. The HAARP power page says that for every four watts of power transmitted, ten must be generated (40% efficiency). That's ten gigawatts, and the six diesel generators mentioned on the site produce only fifteen megawatts. Where does the extra power come from? Capacitors? If so, it would only be able to produce a single large pulse. That would be pretty useless against missiles (which wouldn't all come at once).

I've been to HAARP...

[astrila]

... and it's no great conspiracy. Of course it's got goey government funding, most cool research does. But you can forget about the wild nuclear weather balloons. They've actually got some good stuff going on. It's just a bunch of guys in their tshirts checking out the atmosphere with some nice antennas, accompanied by the occasional requisite military officer. Main thing I remember the guys getting at was the effect of the aurora on communications and tracking (military and otherwise). So drop the raised eyebrows.

Re:Negative Effects

[Inspector Lopez]

HAARP is capable of heating up a small patch of the ionosphere directly above the site. When the transmitter is turned off, the ionosphere recovers quickly. It has no ability to affect global, permanent changes in the ionosphere.

-----

Ionospheric physicists have two general attitudes about about HAARP.

(1) it's a cool facility which permits manipulation of the bottomside F region plasma physics, and provides an opportunity to study some intriguing plasma physics (3 and 4 wave interactions), as well as some thermospheric chemistry.

(2) It's yet-another-boondoggle from the Stevens/Murchowski axis, bringing pork to AK for no good reason, to support a need which no longer exists (how to communicate with subs, so that they can bomb whoever is threatening our precious bodily fluids [URL:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012]).

HAARP is not the only ionospheric heater on the planet. There is another one at Tromso, Norway (Ramfjordmoen), and there has been one at Arecibo, Puerto Rico. It got flooded and broke; they'd like to rebuild it. There are probably others in Russia somewhere.

---
I'm an ionospheric physicist, and I vote.