Radio Telescope Has Military Uses?

schnippy writes "A joint Mexico-U.S. effort to build a monster radio telescope in Mexico is causing concerns because the project, the Large Millimeter Telescope, is part of a U.S. Defense Department effort to develop the target acquisition and directed-energy technology needed for anti-satellite warfare." From the article: " Supporters said links between science and the military are nothing new and emphasized the telescope being assembled on the 15,000-foot Sierra Negra in the state of Puebla wont be some kind of Star Wars defense outpost."

Comments

Re:I know what you're all thinking...

[ettlz]

I know that several people around here are currently looking for a "Score:5, Funny" way to work the words "foil", "hat" and "tin" into a comment.

and what if it is?

[OffTheLip]

Since the link between science and the technology of war or peace, depending on your perspective, are entwined why can't it be used for alternative purpose? The fact my microwave oven had it's roots in defense does not stop me from using it.

Offensive weapon

[TubeSteak]

"The design could greatly improve capabilities for acquisition and recognition of targets in space, as well as demonstrate the feasibility of long-range energy directed devices," states a document from the Senate Armed Services Committee from 1997, the year construction began.

Since the article doesn't explicitly state it, what the Mexicans are worried about is that the U.S. of A. will try and use that gigantic dish to fry satellites.

Methinks they doth protest to much in the article.

Anyways:
I found two sites, one saying it's designed to pick up 'wavelengths of 1 to 3 millimeters' and the other saying "to operate between 100 and 300 gigahertz (GHz)"

If they really have military uses in mind (even as a backup) then I'm guessing we won't find out how many watts it can transmit. I did a decent google search and came up empty.

And to make a long post longer, I'm going to bring up an old post I read before (slightly modified)

Whenever a controversial law/telescope is proposed, and its supporters, when confronted with an egregious abuse it would permit, use a phrase along the lines of 'Perhaps in theory, but the law/telescope would never be applied in that way' - they're lying. They intend to use the law/telescope that way as early and as often as possible.

Re:Offensive weapon

[ichigo 2.0]

The weapon itself would obviously be located on U.S. territory or on a ship, depending on size. As the document you quoted states, "The design could greatly improve capabilities for acquisition and recognition of targets in space" i.e. the telescope would be used to find the targets, not to shoot them down.

IMO this is a bad thing, as now a telescope that should only be used for peaceful research will also become a military target during times of war.

Let me get this straight...

[Shihar]

...people are surprised that a project getting multi-million dollar funding is going to be also be occasionally used by the DoD because it has some military utility? Really people, there is an easy way out if you don't like the idea of the DoD getting a utility out of this dish in exchanger for millions of tax payer dollars: Raise the money yourself.

What is happening is just common sense. There is an expensive project that will benefit scientists. At the same time, the DoD is undergoing a project that will need that exact same piece of equipment. We can either build two of these things and set tax payers back a small hunk of change, or we can build one. Take government money, and take the strings attached.

Now while making government funded facilities duel use makes perfect sense, you can easily argue that this whole Star Wars thing is a big waste of time and money. I personally wouldn't mind a nice big cozy shield of lasers or what not to knock the unlikely ballistic nuke out of the sky. That said, there is a cost benefit analysis that goes along with this. If an impenetrable shield of d00m could be erected for the cost of one month worth of operations in Iraq, I would say go for it. If instead it is going to cost enough bankrupt the nation, obviously it isn't worth spending money on such a remote danger.

Summary:
Duel use facilities when getting government funding to save tax payers: Good.
Star Wars in general: Maybe not so good.

Silly.

[killjoe]

I was thinking about the revolutionary war. The brits came here hoping to quell the revolution but ultimately were not successfull because they were fighting old wars and old enemies. The brits were used to fighting in ranks, they marched in ranks, set up in ranks, fired in ranks. These tactics were very successfull in europe but ended up being futile against the americans who had learned to fight a new way from the indians. The americans jettisoned both the tactics of fighting in ranks and any "honor" from warfare. Instead of facing their enemy honorably and firing they hid behind trees and used guerrilla and ambush tactics to defeat the brits.

For the last two hundred years those tactics have served the US well. We have continually hit the enemy when they are sleeping, weak, and "blinded" by radar jamming etc.

Now the US military is fighting a war that is as queer to them as the american tactics were on the brits. People with no honor exploding bombs in cities, beheading, hostage taking etc. I often wonder if the US military will meet the same fate as the brits. When I look at a project like this I think they will. They are still fighting the russians and the chinese while the russians have been castrated and the chinese are buying us out.

Time will tell I guess.

Re:Silly.

[George Tirebuyer]

When the Revolution broke out about 25% favored war for independence, 50 % were indifferent and 25% were pro British. The rebels wanted it more. They won over the 50 percent because of the way the British treated them. In the end Washington won by carefully choosing fights he could win and costing the British too much money. When the French entered the war The Brits had enough. They lost because of a 3000 mile supply line. The War of Between the States is another exception. The vast majority in the Confederacy wanted out of the US. They had the best Generals. They won a lot of battles but in the end the Yankee blockade strangled them and they lost because they ran out of bullets. The war in Iraq is already over. The US has won. Saddam is in prison. The Iraqis are forming a representative democracy. The war against terror goes on. The US is not going to make Iraq the 51st state. Jihadist from all over the world have come to Iraq to kill infidels. That just makes it easier for us to find them. By your thinking the Confederacy is alive and well because the KKK burns a cross from time to time.

the article

[siddesu]

seems to focus on the worries of a Mexican senator about the source of funding of the project - mostly DARPA (according to the senator). The question is not what prompts this interest at this particular moment -- because I am sure funding data was available for years to the interested parties. Could the reason for this stunt be the general election in Mexico next year?

Is it even a weapon?

[krunk4ever]

"It is a very high-powered, focused radar beam that could be used to find an enemy object out in space and, having found it, zero in on it," Coyle said.

It sounds exactly like what it is, a telescope using radio waves to detect objects with higher precision and farther range. The submitter made it sound like it was some sort of weaponry able to use the radio waves to distort, defend, or even attack (read the star wars defense post comment). This is like calling a binoculars, radars, or sonars weapons. They are tools used for detection and has no real defense or offense capability, besides aiding in defense efforts.

It's certainly not a weapon

[Pius II.]

Yes, sticking your head directly in front of an active (sending) radar antenna will be quite unpleasant. Being hit over the head with one would be, too. That doesn't mean it's sensible to use a radar antenna as a weapon, much less passive antennas like in this here telescope.
Is anybody seriously thinking these things work anything like a simple ship's radar? Yes, you could make them into weapons. By scrapping them, then building new, emitting antennas in their place. These things are receivers. They don't send. If we would try deep space astronomy by sending stuff at stuff billions of lightyears away, we would take 2*billions of years to get any results. The pace of space science may seem slow, but it's certainly faster than that.

Calm Down (Or get more paranoide) Crazy Hippies.

[jellomizer]

You know the military has interests in almost every sector, and they view every sector as something they may possibly use. If you could jam, or hack a satellite from your opponent vs. dropping bombs or sending in forces then how many lives did you save? Defense is not always about killing defense is protection. And people in charge of National Defense need to think of different ways we could defend out nation, It it doesn't require violence all the better.

imaginary lines are meant to be crossed

[digitaldc]

"There is a line, an imaginary line, and we have to be careful not to cross that line," she said of the proximity of science to military purposes.

Because, we all know that scientists would NEVER cross that line, right?