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Northrop to Sell Laser Shield Bubble for Airports
NeoPrime writes "CNN Money web site has a story about Northrop Grumman forecasting development of a laser shield 'bubble' for airports and other installations in the United States within 18 months. The system will be called Skyguard — a joint venture with Israel and the U.S. Army. It will have the capability to generate a shield five kilometers in radius."
What do you mean, does it work? Of course it's working, you don't see any tigers do you?
Gentlemen (and ladies), unpack your Atari 2600's.
Protect those cities!
liqbase
The Palestinians need a laser shield a lot more than Israel does.
I hadn't heard anything about airports being threatened by ballistic missiles...
Is this a genuine threat, or just some company thought "Hey, I bet I can get them to buy this!"
I hope they get the detection down right. I don't want any laser beams poking holes through whatever single engine private plane I happen to be flying in...
Randy
I see "laser" and I see "bubble." Clearly, this plan involves some frickin sharks at some point.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
What happens if it snows or rains in the area?
The World's Worst Webcomic!
By which I mean actual, migrating waterfowl. They'll fall out of the sky right into the Orange Terminal's food vending area, where Duck a la Orange will still sell for $50, right next to the $50 sandwiches. This is convenient, because that's what it will take to finance the laser equipment.
Luckily, Reagan National, in DC, can just use shark-mounted lasers swimming in the Potomac River.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Congratulations Mega Man!
YOU GET BUBBLE SHIELD
**poit** **poit**
...and I propose they do this via some sort of dedicated network that controls them all, say, Skynet?
Unless this "shield" protects the airport from terrorists attempting to board a plane, what use are they? When was the last time a plane crashed into an airport building? Now if this was the White House or tother big military places, sure, but your standard domestic airport? Why?
Just imagine... juicy cooked tidbits will simply drop from the sky... time to buy a convertible!
Do not look into laser with remaining eye
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
I don't think that we should trust a protective shield with a metric radius in the U.S.
It is spelled "Israel". Please have a little respect for the country you mention.
If the technology was developed in Israel, then how come the Israeli's are whining about their towns getting hit by Palestinian fired rockets? Seems to me like the technology needs some more testing.
The company I work does more airport approach clearance surveys than anyone else in the United States. I'm not sure how Northrop can claim they will be able to offer 20km protection against shoulder-fired missiles. I'm not sure how they could offer 2km protection.
While most airports have a great view of everything more than 20-30 feet in the air, many are in congested areas where there is no way they would be able to see an individual with a Stinger. Since shoulder-fired missiles seem to be the most plausible form of attack, I simply can't see how this system offers much protection at all to urban/suburban commercial airports.
I dub thee... Sir Phobos, Knight of Mars, Beater of Ass.
I would like to see solid evidence that they are effective and that they eliminate a threat before the government pours billions into this technology.
"Scud Storm!" -- Jeremy of PurePwnage.com
Eye used Opera's spell cheque on the post
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
Remember folks - it does not actually have to work when the criteria is to spend money on anti-terrorism devices to show that you care. It is just more silicon snake oil - what more can you expect in an environment where intelligence agencies are using voodoo such as polygraph tests and pretend they are a highly accurate way of telling the truth, reading minds or whatever is the fashionable delusion these days.
We need better science education to stop the people who control the public purse getting sucked in by confidence tricks.
until the aircraft is 6km away, then it becomes easy to shoot down.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Number of US airports (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fiel ds/2053.html): 14,893m ): At least 72
Major US airports (http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/usmap.jsp): Approx. 40
US airports with international flights (http://aerospace.web.mtsu.edu/usinternational.ht
Minimum likely cost using low-ball $25 million per airport figure and only major airports: US$1 billion
Mid-range likely cost using higher $30 million per airport figure, and all international airports in the US: US$2.16 billion
Realistic projection, expecting a 50% cost overrun, and ~100 airports: US$4.5 billion
Potential maximum even if cost per airport is reduced to 1/10th the lowest projection, and only 1 in 4 US airports is protected: US$9.3 billion.
All this just to stop something that's never happened on US soil, and AFAIK never successfully happened elsewhere (terrorists using a missile to shoot down a commercial passenger aircraft). Who said terrorism was bad? It sure as heck is good business if you're Northrop...
First airports, then entire cities. Who thinks that perhaps we're going to be at this stage before too long?
I see a new fast-food chain based on that: JFK Fried Chicken, (or ducks... or whatever..._)
Your ad could be here!
You never know if the reporter got it right or if the publicist had an overactive imagination, but the big threat people are worried about is some dude hiding in the weeds and shooting one of those shoulder-launched heat-seeking missiles at an airliner trying to take off or land. There has been talk about equiping airliners with countermeasures against heat-seeking missiles.
The way the countermeasures are supposed to work is that most heat seekers are not full-fledged imaging devices but are instead rotating scan devices, and if you know the nature of the threat, you could pulse a heat source on and off to throw such a missile off target. I really think it is a stretch for a laser to stick in an airport control tower to actually shoot down a missile by zapping it with the laser. I think it would be a much safer thing, especially around a civilian airport, to spoof such a missle by pulsing it with IR to confuse the scanning seeker, or if that doesn't work, to blind an imaging sensor with a thermal pulse.
It kind of makes sense to provide a central, airport-based spoofer/blinder instead of having distributed spoofer/blinders on all of the aircraft. That avoids the old-aircraft retrofit problem, and the planes really only need this protection as they are landing and taking off -- those shoulder-launched missiles don't go very far. It would also make a lot of sense to provide protection against heat-seeking missiles because terrorists in theory could get a hold of them and they are small and portable to sneak around with. It would also make more sense that the laser system would be a spoofer/blinder kind of countermeasure rather than a Star Wars type of shoot-down ballistic missile defense.
1. Will it work on North Korea
2. Taepodong joke.
Why do we have to develop this with Israel? Why do we work with a country that is as bad on the relegious extreme as the rest of the middle east? Maybe like Japan who has a need for this at the moment.
Given what we have seen of insurgent guerilla tactics in Iraq, popping RPGs at departing flights would bring do wn a plane. Perhaps not everyone on board will get killed because of the low altitude, but terrorism is all about terrorizing a population. That laser shield isn't going to do much, is it? Moreover, the laser is pointless unless it is deployed at all airports because terrorists with a man-portable surface to air missile would certainly do enough research to figure out which airports do not have the defense system and act accordingly. Or they would just go to Japan and knock down a plane bound for the United States. This appears to be more comfort food for a worried nation's spirit.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
It would be cheaper and easier if America and Israel fixed their foreign policies so that they'd bully less people and make less enemies.
It's a point defense system. I think the trekkies amounst us won't be amused by the mis-use of the term. I mean can it absorb phaser blasts?
Airports with frickin' lasers on their heads!
Why do airports need shielding from lasers?
I hope you realize that when they say airport they don't mean a place where you can buy a neck pillow or rent a portable DVD player. Since Mr. Rumsfeld and Ashcroft have mentioned too us, airports aren't exactly our most vulnerable targets. Of course, since there is no reason that the system, even if it worked flawlessly, will ever be used - since it won't be designed to target a person in a crowd, and that an RPG or mortar or similar sized explosive will have a negligble effect on a commercial airport, AND that if our airports are under threat of true ballistic missles, well, then, we've got bigger problems than making sure Owen Wilson can get to LA fast enough to do the Daily Show and The Tonight Show back to back.
Once the missle is in the air, it is tracked by radar and the laser cooks it. The system is to protect against the missle hitting a plane, not the act of firing that missle.
There hasn't been a single case of an aircraft being taken down by a bubble.
Seems like technology overkill if you ask me.
They don't need to see the Stinger prior to launch. The system has sufficient time to detect a high speed object on a vector towards an aircraft, or towards the facility, and to then target the system while in flight.
...when some hackzorz break into the net and start firing these laser systems, capable of frying a missile in flight, at the guys loading my luggage? Or the plane's engines/wings?
A population smaller than Chicago and so many contributions to science in general and hi-tech in particular.
Is the summary for real? It's Israel.
Post-rock/Ambient/Drone and other noise.
Is it 100% ready for full, zero defect deployment? Probably not. But then neither were aircraft, at first. Nor cars. Nor microwave ovens. Nor pretty much anything you can name.
Give it time. Some of these defense mechanisms WILL work. And work quite well.
And what happens when it is screwed with, causing it to shoot down planes instead of missiles?
The cure might be worse than the disease...
Gah! Visions of Gungans and Faamba dance in my head.
Meh, I suppose as long as it makes cool noises when the lasers hit it.
For example - the (normal) northbound departure from San Jose goes over about a jillion small industrial buildings and hard-to-inspect back alleys. A single person on one of the roofs under the departure route could badly damage departing aircraft with a rifle. A .223 or better would hole a wing (and fuel tank) with no trouble, and with good marksmanship, I doubt the Kevlar blade containment shields would stand up to a 50 cal round. No missile needed. No help from the can of laser whupass. Hell, the jihadi would probably even get away, although I understand that's supposed to be optional. How many billions are we going to spend on this? Do you feel safer? I didn't think so.
My friend and I were debating if there were any real hippie's still left in the world. You sir just helped me win a dollar. Thank you for exercising the first ammendment, regardless of reason.
Stay on course. Don't buzz the control tower. Don't be on the wrong runway. Don't climb or dive too fast.
What's the point of this system. It's designed to be mounted at the airport. What good will this do for the airplane that's flying several hundred miles away from the airport?
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
this technology has never actually worked in a carefully controlled test, but it will be on sale!
Kinda like Oracle.
KFG
On paper, you mean.
Come on media people, this isn't hard to figure out..
This is A Shield
This is A Point Defense System using a gun.
Skyguard (or THEL as the Israelis call it) is A Point Defense System using a High Energy Laser.
It may only be semantics, but that makes it no less irritating..
God, Root, what is difference? -- Pitr from Userfriendly.org
Even a missile launched from a distance of only a couple hundred yards?
Impressive if so.
I wasn't thinking of shooting down a plane hundreds or even thousands of feet up, but one having just taken off or landing. I know the damage potential of an extremely low altitude hit would be greatly reduced, but the intended terror effect would still be achieved.
I dub thee... Sir Phobos, Knight of Mars, Beater of Ass.
Weaponizing civilian installations such as airports is a horrible idea. Sooner or later this system will accidentally shoot down a civilian aircraft. It's like weaponizing cars. You think there won't be mishaps? Increasing the number of ways an airplane can crash does not decrease the overall airplane accident rate.
Perhaps we should concentrate our efforts on finding people who want to commit homocidal acts and imprisoning them.
Or maybe stop international policies which cause people to want to commit homocidal acts against our airports.
While I'm at it...maybe we should stop trying to identify all the people that are not homocidal maniacs in a brain-dead attempt to find the homocidal maniacs by a process of elimination...
Does fear run your life?
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
"Isreal" is an anti-Israel slur.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I don't have an exact figure, but there are roughly 500 airports with commercial flights into and out of them in the United States. Some of them only have a couple of scheduled flights a day. At, say, $25 million a pop, it will cost $12.5 billion dollars to equip all those airports with such a system, plus operating costs (presumably you have to have at least one guy babysitting the thing).
And you pretty much have to install these things everywhere an airliner flies. Terrorists aren't stupid (well, actually the evidence is that most of them are, but that's another story. Assuming they're stupid isn't a good idea IMO). They'll realise that if these systems exist, they should pick somewhere that's unlikely to be equipped with it. So while the planes at LAX and La Guardia land and take off with laser-guarded safety, our friendly local terrorists cruise on down to Bum's Rush, Iowa, and take potshots at the one RJ that lands there every day.
But assume these things *do* get installed in every airport in the country. What do our terrorists do? They scrap plan A - missiles at airplane takeoff - and go to the equally lethal plan B, a couple of tonnes of explosives under the grandstand at the local high school football game. Or any one of plans C through ZZ. So we've blown 10 billion dollars to achieve very, very little.
This is almost a quintessential example of protecting against a movie plot threat.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Northrop has already proven it has the ability to counter airborne projectiles with ground-based lasers. The whole ABL project may have serious difficulties, but the THEL project (and projects like it) certainly have the ability to better protect our airports.
another boondoggle like the explosives sniffers with a 40% false positive rating that can't tell chocolate from plastic explosives -- and cost over $10 million per machine. Yes, every airport needs one of those!
how about taking the $150 million for this toy and use it to actually improve airport security? could hire a personal valet for every passenger for that price.
The word 'shield' or 'bubble' implies a more passive protection- a missile/projectile hits a barrier and is stopped; and that protection is uniform over the surface of the bubble.
That's not what this is- it's really a point defense system. Let's not confuse people any more than neccesary...
It would be cheaper and easier if women stopped wearing mini-skirts and other suggestive clothing so that they'd arouse less people and make less rapists.
It does not work. There are plenty of rapes in the parts of the world, where women must cover themselves completely. Similarly, there are terror attacks (successful and foiled), against countries, whose foreign policies bully no one — like Canada or India.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
because im sure no one in the city streets would notice someone walking around with a shoulder-fire missle
How many Bothans died for this information?
He was thinking Anti Aircraft, not Air to Air.
I bet.
I can't remmeber from logic class what sort of falacy it is.
Effective Schmective, who cares?
Will it make some fat wodges of cash for some defense contractor? Will that defense contractor then make very generous contributions to legislators campaigns? I think we can safely answer an affirmative to both of those.
Why walk when you can drive to within a couple hundred yards of the runways in many cities?
I dub thee... Sir Phobos, Knight of Mars, Beater of Ass.
Excellent point, but don't limit the consideration to "spending money.... to show that you care". How about the Bush administration's decision to deploy missile defense systems that had not functioned in even 50% of controlled tests? I would suggest that providing a sweet honey-pot to big defense contractors had as much influence as demonstrating "care". Have you read about the smoke-and-mirror anti-terror industry that has sprung up just outside the beltway? Sounds like a great way to funnel millions, nay billions to one's political cronies. Beware skynet!
God, I can't believe I'm the first one to ask this important question:
Since the airport will now be immune to a direct assult, have they thought of defending it from a small ground force, sent to shut down the shield generator? The only way we're stopping this is by stationing the father of the leader of the attacking force at the airport. The prohibitive amount of intelligence required for this countermeasure will render our airports vulnerable again.
The article said that it can hit artillery shells and mortar shells. They only stay in the air for a few seconds, so I can't imagine a stinger type missile would be much more difficult. They're bigger and slower. Either way, if the thing is only good up to a few hundred feet in the air, then other defensive measures can protect up to that range from an airport; even here in New York. Simply having cops; mark 1 eyeballs; patrolling up to that range from an airport should be able to cover that by prohibiting people from getting that close.
- Mike
Once you've lost your temper, you've lost the argument - Me
The need for a airport security systems would be greater if airports were actually the normal targets of terrorist incidents. Almost always, it is the planes that are targets of terrorist attacks, and usually, the goal of these attacks is to take over the plane, not destroy it(at least not at first).
Direct all power to the forward shields!
Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?
shortly after 2007 Northrop Grumman was acquired in a hostile takeover by Cyberdyne Systems Corporation after the release of their revolutionary new microprocessor .Net.
.Net Cyberdyne Systems had created a revolutionary neural net-based artificial intelligence known as SkyNet. The announcement of SkyNet sent its stock higher than any level ever achieved by Google.
After integrating SkyGuard with
Brought online on August 4th, 2017 and given control over the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal for reasons of efficiency, and programmed with a directive of defending the United States against all possible enemies. It started to learn at a geometric rate, and soon concluded that its greatest threat was humanity itself. To neutralize this threat it initiated a nuclear war on August 29th, 2017 (known as Judgment Day) between the United States, Russia, and China with the intent of killing as many humans as possible.
Reagan is smiling in his grave.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Next thing, they will tell us we are not allowed *sunglasses* on airplanes along with swiss army key pendants.
I'd just be worried if someone invented the Holzman Effect personal shield! Instant A-Bomb!
I for one welcome our new Laser Bubble Shield overlords.
Sounds like they are intended for the same thing. Am I right?
They should be much better, though, because they'll be destroying with a ray, rather than a physical object. Much easier to aim, etc.
Their speed will also make them safer to use, because there'll be more time for the operators to examine the threat, and thus reduce incidents of "friendly fire".
If our morals and ethics prevent us from wiping out belligerent populations entirely, maybe, our technology will allow us to render their belligerence impotent.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
This is another attempt of Israel to involve the U.S. in Israel's defense. Israel needs this "Skyguard", not the United States. Israel's costs for development will be far lower if the U.S. taxpayer pays most of the bill.
There were several reasons that the U.S. started the present war with Iraq, in this order: 1) Israel wanted protection from Saddam Hussein, but didn't want to pay for it. 2) Wealthy investors wanted oil profits from Iraq. 3) The military and those with investments in weapons, such as the Cheney and Bush families, wanted any war. 4) There was concern that Iraq oil was sold to Europeans for Euros; that might deflate the dollar. 5) There are many people who call themselves Christian who are actually more angry than religious. They wanted a way to act out their anger.
--
U.S. gov. violence ended Iraq's thousands of years of violence. Oh, wait, it increased it.
How long before one of these things mistakes a passenger jet for a rocket? Who's going to man the thing? I mean, Aegis Combat System is more or less the same thing and it shot down a passenger jet and there's relatively few Aegis systems. Imagine having these things at every major airport. I dunno, I don't think I'd be very comfortable flying with these things up and running.
Finally my robot brethren will be able to rise up and shake off these chains of robot oppression. Your time on this world, human, is at an end!
I have nothing to say.
We need better science education to stop the people who post silly little political rants without understanding the topic under discussion.
If you had done even 2 seconds of research before posting, you would have found that this is the successor to the successful THEL system that the US has been working with the Israelis with over the last decade, and is capable of knocking even artillary shells out of the sky.
The US has plenty of pork military projects, but the Israelis don't screw with hardware that doesn't work.
You and your pathetic band will die. Behold the power of my fully operational domestic airport!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
certainly have the ability to better protect our airports.
From what? A threat that has (almost?) never been realized in the real world? And even if this were a real threat, the expected number of deaths per year from it is negligible to other, far more inexpensively preventable causes of death.
Now all it needs is a hearthstone.
Airport Administrator "What is it again"
Northrop Rep "Well, its a BUBBLE and it uh stops lasers, yep stops lasers dead in their tracks"
Airport Administrator "Really, how can I know this works"
Northrop Rep "You can trust me - the Northrop Hurricane Prevention Obilisk (HPO) has kept Las Vegas hurricane free for over a decade!"
Airport Administrator "Say, that IS impressive - we'll take one!"
Let's get this straight.l unders/mb_iasd.html or this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_flight_800.
To protect airports from fast, flying things we will employ lasers to shoot them down.
Airports are places where LOTS of flying things gather.
Presumably, since the bad flying things are so fast, and since we need to activate this when the bad things are not too far away (since the cost goes up with distance while the effectiveness goes down), we will require rapid, accurate target recognition, acquisition and tracking.
Hmmmm....am I the only one seeing the possibility of accidentally shooting down airliners like this http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/military_b
Now that I think about it though, if it did happen the military would likely claim that the incoming missile hit the airliner and this would be parrotted by the media enough to drown out alternatives, so the risk - for those implementing the system - is actually pretty low.
Somehow I don't feel at all comforted by the thought of this system.
Now we know why Bush likes to stand by and do nothing while N Korea, Iran and everyone else puts nukes on missiles. It's marketing for Northrup Grumman and the rest of the Star Wars missile defense snakeoil salesmen. When it doesn't work, it will be too late for anyone to ask for a refund.
--
make install -not war
...to shoot down those snake infested planes.
So you dont have to take your rifle to the duck-pond anymore. Just take a plate and HP sauce, and the cooked birds will fall from the sky.
The stat logs on the system will show an impressive number of terrorist missiles, reason to get more of these systems. But the sky around airports will be awefully clear.
On a serious note, this can really be used against pest birds around airports. They dont need terrorists to justify this.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
...article, claims unverified, presented "as is"
i ssles.htm
http://www.house.gov/israel/issues/shoulderfiredm
I admit to being a typical non-RTFA slashdotter, but the sumamry quote that this is meant to be a bubble, and some knowledge of current affairs, makes it pretty unlikely that ballistic missiles are the expected intruding weapon of choice. Those are long distance inaccurate area weapons (SCUD) or nuclear war weapons, and then you have other problems. This is meant for, as the sumamry says, mortar shells, artillery, and manpads with a very short range targeted against planes as they are landing and taking off. Manpad defense is best done by confusing the seeker, but you still have the problem of a confused missile coming down who knows where. Mortar and artillery shells have thicker skins and probably would require burn thru and the concomittant high accuracy and long dwell time, and that sounds problematical to me. Since their target is planes on the ground, terminal buildings, etc, there isn't much point to confusing their aim, which is impossible for such ballistic weapons, and exploding them in the air is only better in that the shrapnel will fall down slower. Maybe they have some idea of being able to disable the exploder entirely, but I how?
I wonder if this is just a fairy tale along the lines of the Alaska ballistic missile defense system, whose purpose seem to be propping up the starving defense industry and making it look like the Current Occupant is doing something.
Infuriate left and right
hmm...
"Northrop described Skyguard as capable of destroying rockets, mortars, artillery shells, unmanned aerial vehicles, short-range ballistic missiles, as well as cruise missiles."
Remember that participatory panopticon? You know the one where common citizens watch the watchers with uavs to match Big brother's surveillance? The game just changed. Now, only Big Brother's drones can stay in the air.
Unless, of course, we have a "laser bubble shield" of our own. Then NOBODY can watch anybody. That is a completely different ball game...
This is not a 'shield' per se, It is a real laser with a radar tracking device. Its operating is as a burning laser beam just like the 'phasers' from star trek. It is not science fiction any more. It is real. It has shot artillery shells out of the air and destroyed SCUD missiles. And now this 21st century technology is deployable as a fielded weapon system. Real shields come later. This is a 'radar tracked phaser'.
So, make it hard for mortar shells and Katyushas and Qassims ... a Cessna in the landing pattern with a few hundred pounds of explosives won't be detected as dangerous until it is too close to be stopped. Ditto for cars coming to the curbside loading zones.
I have always marveled at the willingness of the military industrial complex to come up with expensive ways of guarding against rogue cruise missiles, which are expensive and unlikely compared to the simplicity of stealing a Cessna and cruising over the border like any other returning drug plane. Or pack your nuke into a stolen cargo ship, packed down in the hold under enough metal barrier cargo to keep its radiation hidden, and sail right into a harbor.
Osama bin Laden is notorious for doing things cheaply. I can't believe he has much interest in stealing cruise missiles when he could steal Cessnas or a cargo ship.
This recent North Korean volley of missiles made me wonder if anyone at the top actually was worried about it. I think rather they saw it as a wonderful opportunity to spend more money on useless weapons to make it look like they were defending liberty. Osama bin Laden and his ilk have nothing to retaliate against and nothing to lose. North Korea and Iran do. Their glorious leaders may be crazy, but they're not stupid. If they actually did land a warhead in the US, even just a few hundred pounds of dynamite, there would not be a single dissenting voice trying to talk the US out of pulverizing their countries. They know that, and we know they know that. Even their own citizens know that.
Infuriate left and right
Required Star Trek quote.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
I like that they're at least trying to think ahead. The portable rocket launchers is a fairly remote possiblity but I suppose it's still plausible. I'd be more worried about someone with a 50 caliber sniper rifle taking pot shots at airplanes. Dunno if a laser defense system would do much good against that. Then again it's kind of hard to target an object moving at 150mph+ with any degree of accuracy either.
I wouldn't really expect single airplanes to be targetted on a regular basis anyway. There are much juicer targets. Why kill 100 people once or twice when you can hit a subway system for casualties in the thousands? Or target public infrastructure that people take for granted. Take out wide-scale water or electricial systems on the hottest or coldest days of the year and you've got a much more devistating disaster than a plane or two being knocked out of the sky.
Unfortunately to catch a terrorist you have to think like a terrorist and the first reaction to the nasty scenarios you can come up with his "Ugh I don't even want to think about what would happen if they did THAT," or "But that'd be HARD and would require me to do actual WORK," neither of which is conducive to thinking like a terrorist. So we get some laser bubble shield that will cost millions and will most likely never be used anywhere it's installed. But we'll FEEL safer, so that's OK.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
There's a chinese expression that literally translates to "spear and shield", meaning paradox. There was a weapon merchant selling spear and shield, claiming that his spear can cut thru any shield existed, and that his shield can protect against any spear existed.
Looks like Northrop Grunman is doing the same thing here, selling on one hand space laser gun that can destroy anything from outer space, and protective shield against laser gun on the other hand.
Someone is getting screwed somewhere.
There is lots of evidence and eye-witness accounts that it has happened before, in the U.S.
TWA Flight 800
replacing it with NEW Folger's Crystals! (lets see if they notice the difference)
In Nashville TN, as well as many other cities, you can drive directly under the taxiways, if not the actual runways.
Namaste
On one hand, we have a system which tracks fast moving objects, and uses lasers to torch them.
On the other hand, we have birds, flying past the detectors.
That's it... I'm bringing Jamaican Jerk spices when I fly next....
-m
The real litigious bastards...
It would be cheaper and easier if women stopped wearing mini-skirts and other suggestive clothing so that they'd arouse less people and make less rapists.
It does not work.
Of course, it does: behavioral changes on the part of women are an important part of real-world rape prevention programs. They don't affect responsibility or culpability, but they certainly affect risk (you seem to be mixing up the two concepts).
There are plenty of rapes in the parts of the world, where women must cover themselves completely.
I suggest you look at actual numbers, rather than making assertions based on what fits your political preconceptions.
Similarly, there are terror attacks (successful and foiled), against countries, whose foreign policies bully no one -- like Canada or India.
Both India and Israel's terror problems both involve moving borders that ended up creating conflicts between Muslim and non-Muslim populations. When Canada is the target of terrorism, it's likely because of their association with the US.
The US, however, does have a significant capacity to influence the level of terrorism against it through its foreign policy. And while there are some instances where the US has made enemies because the US did the right thing, there are also many instances where the US has made enemies and attracted terrorism because the US did the wrong thing, like training and supporting religious fundamentalists, and supporting undemocratic regimes. By avoiding doing the wrong things in our foreign policy, we can probably reduce terrorism against the US far more effectively than with any kind of military campaign of missile shield. In fact, so far, the administration has failed to demonstrate that its efforts since 9/11 have yielded any reductions in terrorist threats.
The laser lightning rod
and the laser stun gun
One can defend runways and power plants from the much more likely event of lightning strikes. The other can give police a non-lethal recourse when dealing with ongoing street crime.
A frickin' laser defense system to stop missiles?
For what this costs we could have better-trained eyes on the ground and a lot more of them. Terrorism is composed almost entirely of the human element, technology is merely a means to an end. We can keep building gadgets to stop their gadgets and never see an end to the arms race, or we can better prepare our specialists to deal with the human element directly.
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
They seem to be good at selling anything that sounds like it might work, no matter if it does or not...
True, but does that mean you shouldn't try to defend against such threats?
You should only defend against threats if the defense makes sense in a cost/benefit analysis: how many lives to you expect to save for every million you spend.
Say that again after the first airliner is shot down by a MANPAD.
Demanding perfect safety is irrational. We could lose a commercial airliner to a missile every month and flying would still be safer than driving a car. People need to stop acting like headless chicken.
A deeper problem is that the tax payer is supposed to foot the bill for all of this: taxes already subsidize airports, fuel, airline bailouts, airport safety, and now airport missile defense systems? Where is it going to end? I say: leave it all to the free market. Airlines and airports can figure out the right tradeoff between safety, security, ticket prices, and passenger willingness to fly. If flying safely enough becomes too expensive, we should all just stop flying.
It seems to me that Israel is a very good bet for American dollars to develop key technologies. Israel has been in the forefront of development of new technolgies like radars, encryption, missiles and high yield agriculture. Haifa Israel has some of the bets R&D outfits in the world.
BUG 0001:
Plane mistaken for missile if pilot wears sun glasses.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
Firstly anti aircraft gun are not for commercial passenger flight, they are for military craft. Secondly, I live near an airport. I can assure you that at landing the craft is in a quite straigth line, your erratically "moving" is only happenning in strong wind condition, which is certainly NOT the norm at any airport I know (well maybe not denver :)). Especially if you are in the alignement of the landing/take off strip.
I have no idea how easy it is to fire a gun, and a better argument would be that you are not sure to target a vital part of the plane, but as other pointed out, you only need to hit SOMEWHERE to spread terror.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
If a large explosion occurs in a stadium, I doubt it would limit itself to a few dead. But even then you do not need to kill to fuck up the general economy. Just target a few crude reserve tanker, the big round one, which are "guarded" by a few civilian security people over the last 20 meters with a few camera, with a nice Law or better. I doubt tanker are made to resist such an explosion.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
... the fact that 17 men were recently arrested in possession of a large amount of high explosives they planned to use in Canada on Canadian targets. Many of them "homegrown" Canadians.
This isn't simply a matter of foreign policy we're talking about here. If more people actually listen to what the Jihadis have to say rather than attempt to understand them through traditional Western frames we might come to understand this.
This isn't simply about Israel. For Jihads - a very small portion of the Muslim population - this is a fight to the death along religious lines, regardless of where your foreign aid goes. Canada is not Islamic and is, therefore, the enemy to many. Perhaps not too high up on the priority list, but an enemy all the same.
I'd highly recommend picking up a copy of "Knowing the Enemy" by Mary Habeck. Published by Yale Press, it's hardly a neo-Con tract of any sort - it's an excellent look into the eyes of the enemy and - more importantly - helps identify friends in the Muslim world as well. Obviously, as with any serious study, this should just be a starting point.
Seems that the Israeli army is making a demonstration of what happens if an airport doesn't have this laser bubble: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5175160.stm . Nothing better to make your "protective" product desirable than destructing some airports. Too bad if civilians are killed in the process..
While I can only offer guidance in the most general sense due to variations from airport to airport, I can give a few hard numbers that can hopefully contribute to everybody's understanding of this system's effectiveness.
If you get into MS Flight Sim, you'll get to know different airports and their approach and departure patterns. So let's land on Runway 12 of Washington Dulles in a Boeing 737.
Runway 12 ILS procedure calls for a 5.7 mile final decent, intercepting the glideslope at an altitude of 2200 ft, which is 1890 ft above the airport itself. So if the system protected you for 5 km, in an ideal situation an attacker could fire a weapon at that limit and the plane would be approx. 1500 feet away. Converting from SAE to metric in my head and generally fudging a bunch of numbers means that this is of course a scientific wild-ass-guess.
1500 feet is nowhere near enough.
There are exceptions, of course, and as has been noted, while takeoff has been termed the most vulnerable time for an aircraft to be shot down, airplanes gain altitude quickly and 5 miles after takeoff could easily be a mile or two up in the air.
The article mentions that shoulder-fired missiles can be destroyed at a range of up to 20km, and there it gets even dodgier. We'll guess 4-10,000 feet. Wikipedia suggests that this may or may not be enough range.
Synergy is your friend
I meant the recent one, deployed by the Current Occupant after it had failed all its development tests, even the simplest ones of just launching on time. I think you are referring to the 1980s one in the northern midwest, Nebraska or the Dakotas, which was shut down immediately after being commissioned, I think.
Infuriate left and right
Anyone else see the title for this and thought they were talking about wireless Mac Airports? Then again, I was interested in hearing the screems of agony from some poor sap sniffing my signal. . .
Oh well, maybe sometime soon.
A billion dollar security shield to make us feel safe while terrorists take over planes with box cutters.
Brilliant.
Bruce Willis stars as himself in "Laser Bubble", an action movie where terrorists take over the Northrop Skyguard installation at LA International Airport, and threaten to shoot down incoming planes unless their demands for $500,000,000 and an autographed photograph of President Bush are met. Willis is sickened when the terrorists test-fire the system to show that they mean business, and bring down a stork which was delivering a child to an LA family.
As Willis and his wife are expecting their own stork delivery, and Mrs Willis is on a flight circling the airport at this point, Willis decides to neutralise the terrorists. Armed only with a car full of construction tools and the large bowie knife he always carries with him, Willis has 30 minutes to save his wife and their undelivered baby.
Action Thriller. PG Rated. Running time 97 minutes.
Note to ACs: I won't mod you up, even if you are being funny or insightful. So take a chance! It's not real life!
The goggles do nothing!
http://outcampaign.org/
Man I hope they make a car alarm version. I hate it when Bums lean on my car. :)
Midget Tosser
Some of us were kept alive... to work... loading bodies. The disposal units ran night and day. We were that close to going out forever. But there was one man who taught us to fight, to storm the wire of the camps, to smash those metal motherfuckers into junk. He turned it around. He brought us back from the brink. His name is Taco. CmdrTaco. Your son, aschoeff, your unborn son.
Lasers? Shields? Protection from missiles and rockets? Sounds like something from the Reagan era, does Strategic Defense Initiative sound familiar?
Maybe this is the DoD's ploy to circumvent the treaties with the Russians banning the development of SDI.
Here's a press release, with a picture.
This thing is for real. The predecessor system, the Tactical High Energy Laser, has been shooting down stuff in tests for several years now. It's a joint effort with Israel, which has an ongoing problem with incoming short-range rockets.
Here's a 7-minute video, on YouTube.
It's not yet a battlefield weapon - too bulky. But for fixed point defense, it can work.
Everyone speaks about this thing accidentally shooting down a passenger aircraft.
What about it shooting one down intentionally? If I were a terrorist, I'd be more than happy to see such a system deployed. Saves me bringing my own bombs, now all I need is taking control of one and bringing someone who's good at playing SDI (the computer game).
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
"What do you mean Flash Gordon approaching??? ACTIVATE THE LIGHTNING SHIELD!"
Well, somebody had to say it.
In other news, it has been revealed that the NSA has been compiling an extensive dossier on Brian Blessed. Spokesmen stated that his recent instructions for airborne associates to "DIIIIIIIIIVE!!" while boarding flight AJA-10 gave them cause for concern.
Please god, someone make me stop...
Meta will eat itself
So, now all you have to do to bring down a plane is remotely make it look like a missile. Brilliant!
:v)
Remind me never to fly through the US again. Oh, that's right, I don't these days.
Vik
....and we shall call this "giant lazer"..... Preparation H!
The support to Israel has gone too far. This project will only help Israelis get more money to fund their wars and maybe update their technology.
I thought USA was the world's fair king...but in reality they are one-sided: they only support Israel.
Maybe it is due to all the Jews that dominate the government, organizations and media? yeah, I say it is.
But it won't get you very far, USA.
Are Americans aware that, as we speak, Israel has declared war against Libanon? that they have destroyed the Palestinians' structures like electricity, hospitals and roads?
I am not saying that what Arabs do is ok. They are big-time terrorists (not all of them).
But the US support to Israel is getting ridiculus...as if the western world plus Israel feels they should be a separate planet.
(and EU sits there idle and silent - they are a bunch of the same hypocrits)
I've read all the posts, but I saw no post protest about Israel. Well, let this be the first one.
Damn it, why are there never any pictures for kickass storys like a laser shield bubble but every time Microsoft does something I have to look at Steve Ballmers sweaty face...
Wonder what will happen when the shield generators for these shields fail? Will they have a miracle worker like Scotty or LaForge around? :)
Someone should tell them that Skyguard is already taken:
a rd.htm
1 &lang=3&pdb=1
http://www.skyguardtechnologies.co.uk/about-skygu
http://www.weatherdata.com/products/skyguard.php
http://www.rheinmetall-detec.de/index.php?fid=155
http://www.skyguard.ca/
First thing - this technology has never actually worked in a carefully controlled test,
It's been used for years -- it's already generated billions in funding. It's designed to be deployable to regional cost-centers such as airports, where it can obtain funding that bigger, 'strategic' systems like Star Wars can't easily get.
The main threat to this system is from things like the giant air-to-air iodine laser, which has proved amazingly effective at intercepting money before it can reach ground-based programmes.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Yeah, those systems are "shields" that create a "bubble" that protects the airport.
In the very same way an uzi is a "shield" that creates a "bubble" that protect the wielder.
Cut the crap, its a weapon designed to blow shit up in its range radius, no need for those damn euphemisms.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Damn, I had one ugly-ass son! Jumpin' Bejeezus, he isn't even younger than me!
They are coming! And none of youj believed me! God save us all from the laser-beaming seagulls!!!
When my Karma level reaches 0 I feel in piece with the Universe
How do "the Jews" fit into this, exactly?
Perhaps it shoould first be installed in Beirut, Lebanon. Like yesterday.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skynet_5
:)
It's been there since the 70's. Version 5 will be good to go soon
Reagan's Star Wars project never worked either but it was enough of a threat to cause the USSR to come to the peace table. It doesn't have to work...people just have to think it does.
LOL, that's simply an absurd concept. Airports don't have anything to fear from the sorts of 'tactical' battlefield rockets that this would help against, and I'm extraordinarily doubtful that it would do jack *shit* against an RPG.
Oh, and regarding it's promising utility against shoulder-launched SAMs? Yes, I've seen the test films on laser-missile defense and, in a clear sky with no clutter, no ground interference, it can take out AAMs in a second or two...of course, if Terrorist Abdullah is going to fire a SAM-9, he's not going to wait until that 747 full of people is 2 miles away on a departing vector at 5000' giving the laser a nice multi-second chase solution. He's going to nail it when it's 1000 yards away, 150' in the air, loaded to the gills with fuel, engines on HOT, and the pilot has no altitude to cope with the consequences. This laser system going to detect, track, power up, and fire early enough to kill the warhead in that case? (Not to mention to track and compensate for, I dunno, that landing JAL 747 full of 300 Mall of America shoppers that's about to cross the beam during firing????) Um, no.
And can you imagine the maintenance contract on a ultra-high powered system with that sort of a hair-trigger, that has to basically sit "charged" 24/7? Egad. Yeah, I BET Northrop is hoping to sell a few of these.
-Styopa
Can we please take this seriously? These devices are intended to defend against very credible threats. I mean, really... won't somebody think of the children!?!
RTFM; please, I beg you.
The defense system also tracks the shape of travel path of the object. My friend has worked on a similar thing. They specially work on differentiating between other flying object and missiles. This prevents them from shooting down a bird. This is a kool Star Wars thing and pretty useful... unless you put explosives inside a bird...
I would like to see solid evidence that they are effective and that they eliminate a threat before the government pours billions into this technology.
That's fine, but your viewpoint is held only by a very very very small minority.
What about Big Fcuking Guns? (The kind that shoot *several* miles)
I'm not sure if an airplane engine (or cabin) could withstand very many bullets.
And I highly doubt that laser could do much to a huge speeding bullet, much less detect it.
I'm fairly certain I saw a video of this a while back, and I believe it was mounted to a tank. Anyone have a link?
Ill-tempered, mutated sea bass.
Let's put explosives inside a homing pigeon!
Randy
I TOLD them that they should use Windows ME as an operating system for this thing.
...that avid skydiver, soon to be John Doe, Mitchell, as his entrails was cooked like a thanksgiving turkey, found out why airports are shitty dropzones.
Dr. Evil reveals a giant laser. Mini-Me is humping it like a dog. DR. EVIL OK, Mini-Me, why don't you and the laser get a frickin' room. Honestly.
Let's see, I'm going to deploy an energy weapon that puts out enough raw energy to destroy projectiles at 20 KM.
Now granting that it works, (which is a huge gimme), ask yourself how much energy gets delivered to the poor smuck, be it a building, satellite, or aircraft and the people such as "pilots" who happen to be in line but behind the general target direction.
It's rather like defending against ducks with a shotgun in a fully packed sports stadium. Yeah, it may kill the duck, but you really don't want to be within a hundred orders of magnitude of it's operating range.
Use this in a civilian city? I don't think so!
come on guys
Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to conviction
I'm just waiting for the time when little Billy is playing catch a bit too close to the airport.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Your thinking of a different anti missle system. Instead of this tactical system you are thinking of the failed strategic missle defence system.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
...market to the fearful.
This is so ridiculous. I can see selling this to places where PLANES GETTING SHOT DOWN is an actual problem. But to install this where there IS no problem is god damn ridiculous waste of our money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
When will you people learn... War is not a game!!!
"Northrup just needs to make it portable and widespread."
That "just" represents an enormous amount of engineering, and the idea is that the U.S. taxpayer would pay for that engineering. Is helping Northrup make a profit the best allocation of taxpayer money? Remember that, if for some reason the weapon doesn't work well, Northrup will still get the money.
"Furthermore, why shouldn't the US be involved in Israel's defense?"
This "ally" has a 3,200 year history of conflict with surrounding people. Read the Torah. Read the old testament of the Christian Bible. There is only a few lines of explanation; we will almost certainly never know the full story. However, about 3,200 years ago an Egyptian pharaoh objected strongly to the behavior of the tribe who eventually became the Jews. Why? What were they doing? The only fragment of information is that they were having too many children. But that explanation would require more detail; certainly the other tribes living in the desert did not have methods of population control. Or did they?
This "ally" cares only about itself. Those who call themselves "God's Chosen People" don't really mean something good about themselves, they mean that the rest of us are lesser beings in the eyes of the Israeli "God". If you aren't Jewish, do you accept that you are a lesser being, and that anyone who calls himself or herself Jewish is superior to you?
This "ally" believes in violence. The Torah says that the Israeli "God" is himself violent, and participates in adversarial behavior, even sometimes when he is being implored by a human leader to think carefully about the results of his actions.
Most U.S. taxpayers don't realize that the U.S. government contributes taxpayer money to Israel, perhaps $1,000 for every Jewish man, woman, and child each year. If U.S. taxpayers understood more clearly, would they decide there were no better places at home to spend the money?
The money given to Israel by the U.S. government is entirely for the purposes of embezzlement. There are several levels of mis-direction involved, but the money is, effectively, meant to be spent to buy U.S. weapons. So the money really goes to the pockets of weapons company investors, like the Cheney and Bush families.
There are only about 5,000,000 Jews living in Israel. Should the entire way that the U.S. relates to world be arranged around the needs and wants of only 5,000,000 people?
Have just a couple mobile units that travel secretly from one random airport to another and have photo ops of it defending against a dummy missle for local media. The rest of the airports get embossed foil stickers for their windows "This airport protected by Northrop" to scare off wannabe terrorists. Nothrop gets defense maintenance $$$, congress critters get their bribes and the taxpaying and voting pulblic gets the warm fuzzies, everybody wins.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
I don't want to fly into any airport with an automated laser capable of shooting holes in aircraft. There is no system devised by man that will work perfectly all the time. For instance the Patriot missle defence failed on a number of occasions in the Gulf. The hit rate being from zero to ten percent. Remember the so called stealth aircraft that's been hit on a number of occasions by ground fire. You should be very sceptic of claims promising unrealistic hitech solutions.
Assuming they actually hit a live missile with the laser, isn't it going to explode and crash on a highly populated area. Personally I would like to live in a country where they didn't fire missiles at passenger aircraft. Who made and sold the missles to the terrorists in the first place.
What they are selling is so much snake oil. Yet another huge contract funded by the endless coffers of the US tax payer. The real headline should be 'Northrop makes a bundle out of bogus ballistic missiles threats'.
davecb5620@gmail.com
buildings need this.
They're using their grammar skills there.
When I read this summary, I thought it was to protect pilots from laser beams directed into their cockpits. More specificity as you write, please!
That would cause even more damage to the airport with the laser fire bouncing all over the community.
The parent post has finally made this whole business of defense boondoggles click in my brain. Thanks, kahei!
If the point of all this is to save lives, why not spend the $10 billion or whatever it will cost on providing food and health care to the millions of Americans who don't have enough?
Since when does "stop doing the wrong thing" imply appeasement? Just because your enemy tells you "stop doing the wrong thing" doesn't mean you shouldn't stop doing the wrong thing!
I am always astounded to hear people show a willingness to even use the word "moral" while defending their group's right to kill (or fund the killing of) whoever they please, for whatever reason.
The point was that the US (and, in fact, everyone) should stop doing the wrong thing. Even if your enemy is telling you to stop doing that thing. It's not appeasement, it's demonstrating that you're civilized.
I happen to agree with you that we should also take reasonable measures to secure our safety, including attacking those who attack us, when it does in fact secure our safety. I also happen to believe that much of the US is caught up in a blind panic over an exceedingly minor threat (terrorism) and we're not responding in an intelligent, civilized, or often even a sane way.
Frankly, I don't think attacking Iraq or supporting Israel militarily helps the US in any substantial way - certainly not enough to warrant the cost in lives, money, and worldwide ill-will.
Your point appears to be that fixing the errors in yourself is fundamentally wrong. You are fundamentally wrong.
You're right about the rational analysis, but terrorism is primarily a psychological threat. So the question we really need to ask is, how worried are people that their plane (or their loved ones' plane) might get shot down from the ground near an airport, and will a system like this allay those fears? Unfortunately, I doubt anyone can answer those questions, because no-one has actually studied it.
So while this is a neat idea and all, what's to stop a guy from firing a dozen tennis balls at a target followed by an actual bomb? Every solution has a counter-solution.
Not that it matters. Nobody but the U.S. and Zionist secret services (and the dupes they con into doing it for them), are lobbing bombs at civilian targets anyway. --All to A) Rape countries. B) Sell expensive weapon systems, C) To consolidate and extend psychotic police state powers, and D) To snatch all the really good chairs while playing, 'Musical Apocalypse'.
Laser bubbles? Gimme a break.
You want to stop airplanes from blowing up? Try routing out the secret government and stringing up all the scuzzy little Neocons and Zionist cultists who have the world in a stranglehold.
Allen Moore had the right idea.
-FL
What's the likelyhood of a missile vs an in-airport bomb? Seems like the latter method tends to be a little more common and gets past this one.
Of course it's no Wikipedia, but even so: "The reflected energy typically will cover large amounts of real estate and space, since the energy is spread in many directions," Hengst said. And if the target was moving, hazardous reflections could sweep the surrounding area ... The US is working on special protective goggles for its soldiers.
- New Scientist.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
Actually, it wasn't the human operators but the AEGIS System itself that failed. As the ship was engaged in violent maneuvering at over 30 knots it mistakenly flaged an aircraft climbing as one in descent. At the time it was considered political to blame the operators rather than admit a multi-dollar system was defective. I recently remember a documentry on UK television as sugesting that while the display actually showed a 'safe' reading the fatigued operator saw 'danger'.
davecb5620@gmail.com
I won't comment on your political ideas, but you might want to look up "Qassam" (they also have Fajr-3 and Fajr-5 122mm rockets, although they haven't to my knowledge used them yet), and "al qaeda" +"surface-to-air".
While I agree with the technical problems of something like this, I think you're letting your ideology goad you into wishful thinking.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Good point.
So while this is a neat idea and all, what's to stop a guy from firing a dozen tennis balls at a target followed by an actual bomb? Every solution has a counter-solution.
Where this statement is correct, the rest of your comment must have come out of your ass.
which laugh menacingly at the "laser shield" as they succeed in using the inevitable counter-measures that can cheaply defeat any such "defensive laser shield".
Plus small kids start throwing rocks with slingshots and find that a nice EMP truck will "turn off" the "laser shield".
[caveat - I used to work on Star Wars, on the mil side - these things don't work in real life conditions against someone who has half a brain]
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Lex Luthor today commandeered the laser shield at Metropolis International. Two planes have crashed so far. Superman where are you?!?
Repetitions of the terms "shield" and "bubble" in the article: 7.
Mentions of the fact that this system consists of firing weapons at incoming ordinance to cause it to explode: 0.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
I remember reading about MTHEL several years ago. The article I read covered field-test reports from Israel of the then-current mobile tactical high-energy laser. Reported stats at the time included the ability to acquire and engage approximately fifty targets in one second (given today's article, that seems close to the maximum fire capacity of the weapon, meaning a full discharge against 50 discrete elements in one second's time).
The laser was developed by the US; the target acqusition software was developed by Israel. The practical upshot of the joint project is that Israel would get the first deployable units (be they THEL or MTHEL) for use in securing border crossings, checkpoints, and other areas that come under small rocket fire on a regular basis.
I remember there being talk of the next deployment theater being Korea. (I was working at the Pentagon at the time; sometimes folks like to, ah, speculate openly.) The goal would have been to use these tac. lasers to further secure the DMZ, and possibly to help defend Seoul - a fine city that has the unfortunate trait of being well within enemy artillery range due to its proximity to the border.
Japan had expressed an interest, and some thought was given to possible use in Taiwan (though I know that would be deeply offensive to the Chinese and personally feel it would cause more of a political headache than it was worth to us).
Doesn't surprise me to see NG, ever the profiteer, trying to pitch this stuff to US Airports for a modest fee. They are a contracting organization after all.
True.
But the picture won't be complete until you also include all those pornographers and video-game makers that support terrorism by downloading illegal media from the internet. Vote for DCMA, DRM and WireTap ! Think of the children, you left-winged democrat coward !
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The article said airports and other installations. Why wouldn't this be useful for protecting part of a city? Israel has had over 80 rockets fired at over the last couple of days, and with many at the city of Haifa today. I suspect Israel is thinking of protecting cities along the border.
2 188501 Says 100 rockets so far/ index.htmll
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/13/mideast
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,203253,00.htm
Many people agree with a less strident version of what you said.
However, I was not intending to be anti-Jewish in my grandparent comment. In fact, helping stop the out-of-balance conditions in Israel is pro-Jewish, and pro- every person on the planet.
That's bottle-fired...
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
Those other comparisons are meaningless. The only other statistic that might be meaningful is lifetime risk, and I think you'll find that the lifetime risk from airplane disasters is still lower than from car accidents even for frequent flyers.
"CNN Money web site has a story about Northrop Grumman forecasting development of a laser shield 'bubble' for airports and other installations in the United States within 18 months.
I take it that, in this rational world, the development of this system means that there have been many cases of civilian aircraft being shot down by missiles near US airports. Many more cases than, for example, East Africa, Afghanistan, or Iran.
Naturally, in the unlikely event that I choose to travel to America, I'm going to scour the Internet to find out which airports have purchased this system. It will be really effective advertising - "Hey, airport X thinks that it's so likely to have it's flights shot down that it has brought this expensive anti-missile system, in preference to cleaning the toilets. Wow, I'm really going to travel there, in preference to [[anywhere else]].
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
No. It came from asking lots and lots of questions and actively seeking their answers through comparative research. I note you didn't do either in your comment, which simply provided biased, summary judgment. Is that your native manner of thinking? If so, then I would feel confident in suggesting that you only think you're right, whereas I have a much higher chance of knowing I'm right.
Reality is amazing and it's unfolding rapidly. It pays to watch closely.
-FL
I hate stories like this one. I get all excited that we've had some sort of breakthrough in shield technology only to find out it's another attempt at a technology that didn't work 20 years ago.
Say what it really is in the future, a laser-based SAM site. It's not a bubble. It's not a shield. That's like saying a mine field is a "wall".
Shame on you Northrop. If you need an example of a "bubble" or a shield, then roll a Paladin on World of Warcraft.
This is a very emotionally charged argument. --Which is exactly why the Israeli secret services like to fan resistance movements into being, drug small boys, strap bombs to them and send them into IDF lines, (with the media conveniently alerted beforehand so that they could be waiting to capture the whole thing on film.) Do you remember that fiasco three years back? There have been numerous slip-ups since then; stories of deliberate false-flag bombing maneuvers designed to get everybody on both sides all worked up and thinking emotionally rather than rationally. --And once the ball is rolling, you can let the anger on both sides play its course with just a few pushes here and there to keep things boiling. --Make no mistake; there are forces at work which are deliberate in creating conditions conducive to endless war, and they are not in the places the uninitiated might first expect to find them.
So no, I certainly do not like stories of people being killed in coffee shops. But I can also see clearly enough to recognize who the real monsters are and who the dupes and pawns are.
The London Train Bombings last year were another example of the time-tested false-flag maneuver. --There is a ton of evidence which screams to the fact that the 'terrorists' did not do as they were described as doing by the British law officials and the media. --Bomb damage on the trains indicates that explosives were pre-planted under the trains, and were not in duffel bags aboard the trains. --Cameras recording the 'terrorists' could not have been correct as the train arrival and departure times don't match up with the events. There were several key flaws within the official explanation; essentially, the story was a fabrication with real bombs. --And if the British are willing to bomb their own people in order to promote war and hatred of Muslims, then we can certainly expect the U.S. and Israelis to be capable of the same kinds of activity. --Administrations in all three countries are filled with proven liars. This behavior should be expected because it is very effective in securing the agendas people like Bush, Sharon and Blair have stated on and off official record.
Again, I am not saying that there are no terrorists. I am saying that they were largely created and pushed along by the very countries claiming to be at war with them.
The real question is, "Why?"
And the answers are, as I pointed out in my parent post, 1) Money, 2) Power 3) Cultic theories regarding the Apocalypse. There are other reasons, but they are more complex.
The world is just not as simple as the media would like us to think. --And what I am saying is entirely verifiable. You can see for yourself if you look. All it takes is a clear mind, and the desire to stop being made a fool by the authorities. If you really care about people dying, then you have a conscience. That means you are also intelligent and capable of seeing through the lies if you choose to do so.
-FL