Slashdot Mirror
U.S. Satellite Plan Could Knock Out GPS and Radio
Audent writes "Otago University researchers are concerned by U.S. plans to protect satellites from solar storms...
"The approach, which is being considered by the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, involves using very low frequency radio waves to flush particles from belts and dump them into the upper atmosphere over either one or several days".
The plan could disrupt GPS signals and high frequency radio over the Pacific for up to a week.
"The disruptions result from a deluge of dumped charged particles temporarily changing the ionosphere from a "mirror" that bounces high frequency radio waves around the planet to a "sponge" that soaks them up.""
I wonder if they are going to emply "Sharks with fricking laser-beams" on this one...
"flush particles from belts and dump them "
Isn't the dump supposed to come first?
Where were you when the voynix came?
But what if we reversed the polarity of the particle beam, and then redirected the emissions harmlessly into space - like deflating a balloon. We'd just need 30 minutes to recharge the anti-matter particle deflector grid.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Not surprisingly, this plan does not appear to be in any stage of implementation. From TFA: "The US Air Force and the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have proposed using very low frequency radio waves to flush particles from radiation 'belts' above Earth and dump them into the upper atmosphere over either one or several days."
My guess is that this is an emergency countermeasure in the event of a nuclear strike. Also from TFA: "If the intense radiation belts resulted from a rogue state detonating a nuclear-tipped missile in the upper atmosphere, using such remediation technology would probably be acceptable to the international community."
I hate to inform everyone, but the sky is not falling. At least not yet (always keep your towels handy in case it does).
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
- This is a proposed system; not one that has been approved or even designed
- The system would protect hundreds of satellites in low earth orbit from solar storms (or high altitude nuclear detonations)
- Depending on how the system is designed and operated, neither of which have been done yet, it COULD have deleterious effects on certain other communication systems
- They say GPS could be affected, but they ignore the fact that GPS is critical to the US itself
- Certainly the international community should consider implications, and nowhere is it stated or shown that the US is ignoring any obligations, considering the fact that the same possible harmful, but temporary, effects would also be felt by the US
It's Blue, Too!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
In other news, CBS has announced the new season of Survivor:
Survivor: Radio Blackout: Landforms of Silence
We can't say where it is or what it looks like. Jeff hasn't told us yet. All we can say is that damn La-la-la-loli-loli intro has been replaced by white noise.
Can you find me now? Good.
Whatever, I am sure this is an RIAA funded project to shut down XM radio
Are these the same people that think that naturally occurring radiation is less harmful than manmade radiation? Is anything natural OK for these people?
They probably think that a Damnation Alley scenario is A-OK as well. It would eliminate a lot of those pesky blue states.
I fished around a little and found a link for the actual research paper the article is based on. The paper itself requires a subscription, but here's the abstract:
The atmospheric implications of radiation belt remediation
C. J. Rodger, M. A. Clilverd, Th. Ulich, P. T. Verronen, E. Turunen, N. R. Thomson
Abstract: High altitude nuclear explosions (HANEs) and geomagnetic storms can produce large scale injections of relativistic particles into the inner radiation belts. It is recognised that these large increases in >1 MeV trapped electron fluxes can shorten the operational lifetime of low Earth orbiting satellites, threatening a large, valuable population. Therefore, studies are being undertaken to bring about practical human control of the radiation belts, termed "Radiation Belt Remediation" (RBR). Here we consider the upper atmospheric consequences of an RBR system operating over either 1 or 10 days. The RBR-forced neutral chemistry changes, leading to NOx enhancements and Ox depletions, are significant during the timescale of the precipitation but are generally not long-lasting. The magnitudes, time-scales, and altitudes of these changes are no more significant than those observed during large solar proton events. In contrast, RBR-operation will lead to unusually intense HF blackouts for about the first half of the operation time, producing large scale disruptions to radio communication and navigation systems. While the neutral atmosphere changes are not particularly important, HF disruptions could be an important area for policy makers to consider, particularly for the remediation of natural injections.
I'd never heard of the "radiation belt remediation" procedure that was mentioned in the article, so I dug around some more and located the following paper:
Remediation of radiation belts using electrostatic tether structures
Abstract: Scattering of energetic charged particles by high-voltage electrostatic tether structures may present a technically and economically viable method of rapidly remediating radiation belts caused by both natural processes and manmade events. In this paper, we describe a concept for a system of electrostatic tether structures designed to rapidly remediate an artificial radiation belt caused by a high altitude nuclear detonation. We then investigate the scaling of the system size and power requirements with the tether voltage and other design parameters. These scaling analyses indicate that a conventional single-line tether design cannot provide sufficient performance to achieve a system design that is viable. We then propose innovative multiwire tether geometry and show that this tether design can significantly improve the overall performance of the electrostatic system, enabling the requirements for total power and number of satellite systems to be reduced to levels that are both technically and economically viable.
The slashdot submission and popular press-article (but not the research paper) engages in some fear-mongering about how the US is supposedly planning on deploying RBR, but I haven't found any sources which confirm this to actually be the case. It should probably be mentioned that DARPA funds almost everything under the sun, usually without much expectation of it actually being of practical use. I mean, this is the same DARPA that funded psychic telepathy research and mechanical elephants for the jungles of Vietnam.
Regardless of whether or not it's practical, radiation belt remediation still seems like interesting research. It'd be a shame if fear-mongering about this being a "US plot to disrupt worldwide communications" or something resulted in funding for this research being cut off.
... in payment from the UN, or else we'll carry out our dastardly plan to dump the radiation belts into the atmosphere!
(Man, this is so much cooler than that shark / laser beam idea...)
Muhahaha!
It doesn't seem surprising that they're considering measures like this to protect satellites, considering nutbag states like North Korea and their fondness for testing missiles (Oops! tee hee, we didnt mean to do that to your satellites). Even if there was a massive solar storm that threatened low-orbiting sats instead of an act of malice, it might be preferable to disrupt communication and navigation for a couple weeks than potentially lose hundreds of billions in satellite infrastructure.
Flushing ions from the radiation belts is one step from focusing them on our enemies satellites.
an ill wind that blows no good
this doesn't affect my new transporter. They were on sale a few weeks ago at Sears and it just got installed over the weekend.
== First cross river, then insult alligator.
Why don't they send it the other way into space?
How is this going to affect us Ham operators?
One side, it says they'll use HF (well, probably MF to ELF) signals which re-attune the ionosphere to EHF absorption...
So, which is it?
Are there any plans to put astronauts into space at the same time, for some "experiments..." I think the USAF is planning to make some big green angry fly-boys. Or maybe a team of highly trained scientists will create do some fantastic research out there during the tests.
The article summary seems a little hysterical to me. It's "US plans" this and "US plans" that, combined with dark words about tampering with our environment. I am not American myself and am rather used to seeing this bias in reporting, especially in New Zealand press.
Solar sun spot activity often disrupts HF radio communications, and amazingly the world does not end. I have been involved in an HF station that provides missionaries and farmers in central Africa with a way to communicate, and you generally live with the fact that no communications are possible much of the time. HF is just plain unreliable. If GPS and HF communications were disrupted with some advance warning, it would be inconvenient for sure, but that's about it. In exchange the world would get a much safer radiation environment for satellites and human-occupied space stations.
So, we have a cost and a benefit. The cost isn't anything that people have had to do without before.
Political manoeuvering and a mildly hysterical press aside, there isn't much of a story here.
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Don't worry about the whales. Kirk will be by later to fix that problem for us.
I guess if you're the same people killing the whales, then dumping little-understood materials into the little-understood upper atmosphere is a smart business decision.
Destroying the fragile ecosystem of the little-understood upper atmosphere in the process? It's PERFECT.
More seriously, the plasma in the Van Allen belts is at space vacuum pressures. Meaning that you have densities of grams per cubic kilometer or less. Plus, the belts contain only a portion of what hits Earth's magnetic fields. A lot ends up hitting Earth's upper atmosphere. So we're talking miniscule amounts of physical material and it already enters the Earth's atmosphere. The electromagnetic effects are what's important. There, humanity and its technology is far more susceptible than any other animal life.
Finally, despite your bland assertion to the contrary, we know a great deal about what's in the upper atmosphere and in the Van Allen belts.If the Earth uses its own magnetic field to repel these dangerous particles.. why not generate magnetic fields in some way to protect the satellites in the same manner?
So IMHO it's way too early to worry about the existence, magnitude, or net benefit of the side-effects.
The theory is sound, but if the practice screws up then they could end up dumping excess radiation on to the Earth's surface. Sure the Satellites would be protected, but given the resulting state of people on the planet, is it really worth it. Surely building in better protection into the satellites in the first place would be the better solution.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
FTFA
"'If the intense radiation belts resulted from a rogue state detonating a nuclear-tipped missile in the upper atmosphere, using such remediation technology would probably be acceptable to the international community,' they said."
Any small country that goes through the trouble of building a nuke AND a reliable long-range missle to deliver it is probably not going to waste it on the upper atmosphere. Body-counts make for much better bragging.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
a super-Degauss button!
52 52'23" W 47 32'07" N
one proposal suggests using a long conductive tether orbiting in the radiation belt. The charged particles in the belt would interact with the electric charge on the tether, altering their orbit in a way that would remove them from the belt.
Yes, this is a spaced based solution. But even though it has to be launched, it still could be simpler and cheaper than making a huge VLF transmitter on the ground.
-- 3 events that reshaped the world in the 20th century: WW1, WW2, and WWW
Tell me how we know all about that sensitive, dynanmic system. You know, like what doubling the tiny amounts of materials will do to the feedback systems in one metastable state. Show me the research that shows there's no consequences in the rest of the atmosphere from interfering with the process.
Despite your bland assertion to the contrary, we know just a little more about that system than we did when we knew nothing. And we know practically nothing of how it interacts with the rest of the ecosystems of the planet.
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make install -not war
If I understand the summary correctly, the procedure would cause the ionosphere to stop reflecting signals, which would indeed disrupt radio communications which use the ionosphere as a "mirror". But the GPS system relies on signals being sent directly from the satellites to the receivers and doesn't use the mirror effect. Indeed, "bounced" signals would destroy the accuracy of the system as the signal path length would be way, way off.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Wow, congratulations on using this post as an excuse to make a completely irrelevant jab at the current administration. Go find a forum about saving the whales if you want to get on your soapbox on that issue.
When I was young (like the range of 1958-62, when I was 9-13 years old) I saw what appeared to be an aurora display except that the display was entirely colored specks, like colored stars. I don't believe that aurora is capable of that, but I have always wondered if it were somehow a result of a high altitude, maybe exoatmospheric, nuclear blast that caused it. It was quite impressive and clearly visible. I have sought explanations for it on the web, but to no avail.
I think you hurt your cause more than helped it, buddy. Care to try again without using profanity every other word? You might actually trick people into thinking that you're smart.
Exactly how many times did various nations detonate high-yield nuclear devices in low-orbit space? Funny, the atmosphere and the biosphere still seem to be here after that. What makes you think that this proposed process is going to do any worse?
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
Show me the research that demonstrates that those detonations have not had, will not have, ill effects on the ecosystem. Now you're practicing science, not sciencyism.
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make install -not war
I'd imagine huge snarl ups and disasters in the wake of a GPS outage, with LORAN usage in decline and navigators unfamiliar with older methods of navigation.
I wonder if inertial navigation would offer a self-contained alternative that could, at least for airplanes and large ships, replace or augment GPS. These systems integrate acceleration in three dimensions to arrive at a new position given a starting position; the same method used in the Apollo mission and for ICBMs.
My father in law, who died a few months ago, worked on both Apollo and ICBM guidance systems. Once he took a suitcased sized unit from Draper Labs near MIT to a nuclear submarine base, and discovered that the base had it's position wrong by a good fraction of a kilometer. Pretty significant when you're targeting nuclear weapons. Anyway, it was an old family story. I was reminded of it when they were drilling the outfall for the Boston Harbor clean-up, which was the longest tunnel ever drilled from one end only. One of the engineering concerns was that the risers drilled into the rock met the tunnel. They used traditional surveying methods, but I'd thought at the time a suitcase sized inertial guidance system would be a good double check for something like this, or a conventional tunnel that is bored from two ends. You'd just carry it into each end, take a reading at the point you'd excavated to, and you'd know you were on heading.
I could see a number of applications for inexpensive inertial guidance. If it was cheap enough, it could be used to supplmenent GPS where coverage was not available.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I seriously doubt these tests will ever come to pass. DARPA doesn't like to run tests that other scientifically advanced nations can detect and then point a damning finger at. They'd be more likely to fund research for high MeV particle resistant satellite and aircraft systems (since that has no noticeable external effects... keep the "advantage" secret)
And enjoy your cancer.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
As if thousands of Geocachers suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced...
The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum. - O'Toole's Corollary
Unless, of course, they're disappearing because they know the Vogons will be along shortly.
I neither love Bush nor hate the whales, and I didn't say anything to that effect. I merely name your completely irrelevant whale comment for what it was--completely irrelevant.
Lets see. The American Military actually owns the GPS sats... and as for the other ones, how do you think they got up there? I mean, you don't exactly see a lot of stuff going up from other countries, at least not for American companies. Quote from Wikipedia on 'GPS' "United States Department of Defense developed the system, officially named NAVSTAR GPS (Navigation Signal Timing and Ranging GPS), and launched the first experimental satellite 1978. The satellite constellation is managed by the 50th Space Wing at Schriever Air Force Base. Although the cost of maintaining the system is approximately US$400 million per year, including the replacement of ageing satellites, GPS is available for free use in civilian applications as a public good." So, you're basically crying over losing something that was placed there for you, free to you, when in reality they never had to let you use the GPS or put the radio sats up in the first place. Gratitude much? Or is it you're just looking for any reason to be all upset at the U.S.? I sense it's the latter of the 2. Either way, go take your GPS and take a hike, looks like you need to burn off some steam.
that the US military built the GPS network and reserves the right to turn it off whenever it feels the need?
Clear, Dark Skies
It isn't exactly "free" for the civilians to use. I did pay my taxes.
Well, we know the physics of plasmas pretty well. We know the composition of the upper atmosphere, the solar influx, and the composition of the plasma trapped by Earth's magnetic field. That restricts the amount of energy and the effects this system can have on Earth. We also have decades of research on the aurora which is one of the two ways for particles to escape from Earth's magnetic field.
So for example, it means that it can effect radio communications since energetic plasma trapped in magnetic fields radiates well at those frequencies and there's enough energy available to cause problems. Since there's so little matter and energy involved, it won't have a direct effect on ecosystems. It also means that these plasmas will have no real effect on the Earth's magnetic field (eg, won't contribute to magnetic pole switching).
We know the physics of hydraulics and valence chemistry, but that doesn't mean we know ecology or even cytology.
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make install -not war
But biological systems are notoriously unsusceptable to radio waves. The amount of energy required for radio waves to interfere with cellular development is many orders of magnitude greater than that required to interfere with GPS systems. While the polar regions would be exposed to somewhat higher ionized radiation levels, they already are especially when a large solar flare is active. And contrary to your claim, we know a lot about ecology and cytology too. Particularly the effects of various forms of radiation on biological tissue.
You're really not getting it. We do not know much, if anything, about how the sparse upper atmosphere's cycles will react to our dumping significantly more/faster amounts of material into it. Dynamic and sensitive systems have tipping points, beyond which new stable cycles can emerge with very different characteristics, once bumped. We don't know how a changed upper atmosphere will affect the rest of our ecosystem, even though far away and much more massive.
I pointed out that contrary to your claim, knowing a lot about about hydraulics and chemistry doesn't mean we know a lot about cytology - as an example of how knowledge of a few aspects of the upper atmosphere doesn't substitute for actual knowledge of its role in our larger ecosystem. But you are insisting on ignoring how ignorant we are, because you are hot for some new tinkering with the upper atmosphere. That kind of conceit is exactly what's driving the people deciding to take these unknown risks.
If you paid attention, you'd realize that you're locked in a cycle of your own that you don't really understand.
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make install -not war
I don't understand how this scheme of putting a shield in the ionosphere is supposed to protect satellites, which are all outside the ionosphere, from solar storms caused by the Sun which is also outside the ionosphere. It seems to me that this shield would be effective only for Earth originated "attacks".
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
"We were the ones to scorch the sky..."
I didn't see anything that mentioned the (theoretical) affect this would have on the upper atmosphere and the normal processes that occur there outside of the absorption of radio waves. Ozone layer? Electric charge and storms?
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***