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Anti-Missile Defenses For Commercial Jets
The AP reports that the first anti-missile defense system has been installed for testing on a commercial jet, a FedEx cargo carrier. The system is intended to detect the launch of a shoulder-fired missile at takeoff or landing, and disable the missile with a laser beam. Sen. Barbara Baxter (D-California) is one of the supporters of the system. She and other members of Congress are hoping to equip all US commercial passenger liners with this system in 20 years, at a cost of billions of dollars. Is this good common sense or the costly future of a society hobbled by fear of terrorism?
When the last time this system would have saved an aircraft?
Barbara Baxter?
A shoulder fired rocket can not shoot that high. The plane is much more vulnerable when it is taking off or landing. So ... they should just install them at big airports to protect all jets coming in or out.
An absolute waste of money. The only thing it's good for is making defense contractors richer.
Barbara BOXER?
Why not just let airlines install the devices as the market demands, a portion of the market will want protection and a portion will not. The added cost will allow consumers to decide whether the protection is "worth it".
The system is intended to detect the launch of a shoulder-fired missile at takeoff or landing, and disable the missile with a laser beam.
What a great idea! Now when the terrorists eventually take over another round of planes, they can effectively block missiles intended to shoot them down before reaching sensitive targets.
How about if next, we equip subway cars with nuclear self-destruct devices so terrorists can't use them to make their speedy getaways?
I'd assume you can get a few chaffs and flares for cheap these days. No need for all this fancy and probably expensive laser stuff.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Just out of curiosity, how many commercial airliners in the US have been shot down with shoulder fired missiles? I haven't had any luck trying to find an instance in Google.
I could see a system like this for a plane that has to fly over Iraq or South Africa, but inside of the US/Canada/Europe/Australia/Asia it doesn't seem to be necessary, worse, a system like this is probably going to require massive power and have considerable complexity. Highly complex pieces of equipment are liable to malfunction at some point and possibly even cause a crash.
No, installing something like this in every airplane in the US fleet is just not realistic. Having it as an option for people who have to fly near areas where terrorists have shoulder fired missiles and a grudge against the west is good though.
I read the internet for the articles.
stop making shoulder-launched missles?
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Billions of dollars spent on paranoid, non-deterrent rubbish such as this is just stupid. This money can be used to give our Americans fighting overseas better equipment, or heck it can be used to help families in need. There are countless ways to use such funds more wisely, and to greater benefit. The fact that our government has this kind of money to literally just toss about aimlessly, and continues to do so, really bothers me.
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Life is like a hurricane Here in Boxer-burg. Race cars, lasers, aeroplanes It's a jet-blur Might solve a mystery Or rewrite history! /sorry couldn't help it.
Um...I may be from California, but even I know that it's Barbara BOXER.
Thanks, and good-night.
-joe.
Is it a bird? Is it an airplane? Is it Superman? No, it's a missile crashing into the airport terminal!
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
The junior senator from Califorina is Barbara Boxer not Barbara Baxter.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, if you look out the starboard side of the aircraft you will notice a trail of smoke and detonation smoke. That's from a thwarted missile attack on this vessel. If we hadn't been equipped with the anti-missile system right now we'd be in a different world now."
Just thought I'd let you know. Hope you enjoy your flight, please think of us when you fly again. Enjoy the peanuts. This is the captain speaking"
Back on track... Better to have the system than not, especially in "hot" areas of the world.I'm glad they didn't have this running during 911.
"You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
I wonder if flooding the world with Stinger shoulder fired missles was a good idea in retrospect?
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Sen. Barbara Baxter (D-California) is one of the supporters of the system.
These expensive new anti-missile systems wouldn't happen to be made in Senator Boxer's home state of California, would they?
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One suspects in 20 years your average terrorist will be equipped with missiles that proudly boast that they defeat Guardian and similar military systems.
Also, with asymmetric warfare, I'd simply look at ways of getting a truck full of explosives onto the runway....
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Wow. Running in debt, passenger cabins that aren't clean, meals that have been cut from shorter flights, and all on top of *higher ticket prices*. Now they want to install frickin' laser beams? That'll do wonders for affordability. Maybe a nice fat Government subsidy is in order?
Fantastic. Just fantastic.
Sony ha
A billion dollars or whatever. Sure.
The (US) airlines already have a fragile enough financial situation. That might change in the next 13 years, but the current system is obsessing about who pays for what weight. More weight from these anti-terror systems means more fuel consumption.
I'd like to think that billion dollars would be better applied to reinventing all sorts of jets, particularly passenger jets, to save fuel and thus operating costs for our very necessary airlines...
Billions of dollars. Big deal. How about we discuss the real costly future of a society hobbled by fear of terrorism and (for some reason) Muslims? Yes, I'm talking about the $1 trillion that the Iraq war is costing us. Then there's the human lives being lost. You can't really put a price tag on those, as you would have to do so your own in the process.
These defense systems for passenger jets are a drop in the bucket compared to the war in Iraq. And, as far as human lives go, you can't even compare the two.
In the end, this movement doesn't even need to be common sense. It just has to be something that counteracts the fear that some Americans live with. I myself am not one of them--but if these politicians that the country elected believe they'll do the trick, then go ahead. I'd much rather see legislation like this being passed than to have our fearless leader attack Iran or North Korea.
To recap, it's not about if it would ever have saved a passenger jet, it's more so that people will think that the security on planes have become impervious to the types of attacks that terrorists have the means to execute.
I suppose now I'll be called an isolationist.
My work here is dung.
Why doesn't the US just stop making missiles and selling them to terrorists?
There is no such thing as security. Whatever one person can put together, another person can take apart. Virus scanners, the locks on my house and home, and the passwords on my bank accounts are all meant for one thing: To keep honest people honest. If someone really wants to, any security I could encumber some part of my life with can be undone by someone of focused malicious intent.
The more society spends on 'security' the harder it is to undo that security. Build a Great Wall of China and it keeps the invaders out. Build a Great Wall of the Rio Grande and it keeps the Mexican immigrants out. But given time or motivation, invaders and immegrants find ways around the walls.
The more society relies on 'security' the more devestating it is when that security fails. These planes will have protection against missles (how many times have planes been shot down by missles anyhow?!). I am sure some motivated criminal will determine that using a high powered large caliber rifle or remote controlled airplane with C4 attached works just as well for bringing down a plane; or something else we haven't even considered.
In my view, the only way to minimize acts of terror, keep illegal immigrants at home, and make the world 'safe' is with economic development. If a person has a full stomach and something to do with their hands so they can avoid hunger tomorrow, then that person is too happy and busy to 'terrorize' or risk life and limb crossing the dessert.
Money spent on walls, airline bomb closets and anti-air to air missle lazers, and even super cool rail guns are all poor investments, in my view. Better to spend the money on starting businesses, funding schools, and giving incentives to entrapeneurs. If everyone is fed and busy, the world is as safe as it could be (though still not perfectly safe).
While MADPADS (MAn Portable Air Defense Systems) are a threat, albeit a very small one, the real threat to aviation is CFIT (Controlled Flight Into Terrain) and ground accidents. It seems like a rather misdirected use of fund to require airliners to carry anti-MADPADS defenses. What if the ComAir flight was required to have a system that allowed either the flight crew or tower operator to monitor their position at the airport? They would have easily seen that the hadn't lined up on an active runway. These systems DO exist, aren't as costly and save real lives. System also exist that allow an air crew to see a profile of upcoming terrain and give them advanced warning if they are on a collision course with unseen terrain. While this doesn't frequently occur in the US, it *do* occur overseas to US airlines.
It's amusing, in a morbid way, that Congress continually cuts FAA funding while pronouncing they're deeply worried about people dying in aviation accidents. If anyone thinks that MADPADS are a real and serious threat, just go read a couple months' worth of NTSB accident reports and tell me that aviation safety is hinged on anti-MADPADS defenses.
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Why Should Congress Pay? To Protect Lives?
When I bought our new Minivan (expanding family) I Had to pay for side impact air bags if I wanted extra protection.
Shouldn't the airlines pay for this? Not Congress enriching the 1 or 2 companies that might actually make this, with MY (OUR) Money!
Grumble... Grumble... Why not add the cost to ticket prices and make the money back?
blah...
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'hobbled by fear of terrorism'.
does that mean we'd be more free and unhobbled taking no countermeasures against some people who want to kill us?
if you were in a position to surrender to a killer, and let them kill you, in a way you are free of the whole thing. you've forfeited the responsibility of survival. but is that a solution for the living?
terrorism and suicide bombing is an unreasoned thing, it is antithetical to civilization, it's the opposite of the advance of humanity toward awareness of himself, toward the use of reason. terrorism is an invitation to slide backward into the swamp, to become nothing more than an violent animal that takes for itself.
some kind of reasoned resistance to this tendency must be offered. who wants to live in a world where power is literally a gun pointed at your head, a rifle butt to the temple... and not in any literary, hyperbolic figurative sense... i mean in the sense of actual gangs that run your neighborhood and kill people in front of their kids.
does anyone agree that this needs to be stopped before it becomes a reality?
this reminds me of the drawings my friends and i did in elementary school where the planes and spaceships literally bristled like porcupine needles with lasers, missles, antilaser-lasers, antimissle laser missles, etc... besides in 20 years time itll be 2026 and the apocalypse or time travel or flying cars or warp cores will be invented and none of it will matter anyways. this is the success of terrorism. terrorizing.
"Ooowww my eye!!"
I would say a rash measure for international flights, but domestic as well? Did we develop a problem with shoulder fired missles in the US recently? At billions of dollars, we are simply proving that terrorists are right. We really do just cower before them. They knock down a couple buildings and we'll change our entire culture and bankrupt our country in fear.
There is no denying that "WE" (being the targets of "terrorism") have much greater military and technological might than the "terrorists". However, they are much more nimble, and through need, resourceful. By installing defense countermeasures, all we do is make them use a different strategy. The 9-11 hijackers used box cutters to overtake the planes, so we banned toenail clippers. Then some guy tried to blow up a plane by lighting his shoe on fire, so we all had to take off our shoes. Next, someone wanted to blow something up with liquid explosives, so mother's couldn't bring breast-milk on to airplanes. Now, someone is going to try and strangle someone with their pants, so we'll all have to be naked on the airplanes, or wear togas. .50 cal bullet from a sniper rifle, put in the right place, is much more effective.
There is NO WAY to stop terrorists 100%. Using a million dollar laser to "blind" the sensors on a missile is our stereotypical approach to combating problems Using a 20 cent
They are aiming at 20 years in the future. This is a test release on a single aircraft. They want the system to be feasible and cheap in 20 years, when they feel it will probably be needed (and yea, saleable to the middle east / Africa / etc)
Stop making and selling guns.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Anti-Missile-Defenses for "US Commercial Jets"
t ed+with+countermeasures
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Okay so they stop a shoulder fired missile. What are they going to do about someone with a .50 caliber sniper rifle. Fire that into a turbine engine on takeoff and I bet it has the same affect.
He who said 1,000,000 monkeys on 1,000,000 typewriters would eventually type the great novel, never saw an AOL chat room
Someone proposed flare systems for aircraft - I think some El Al A/C already have this and it was used in the indicent a couple year ago when someone shot off an antiaircraft missile in Kenya.
The laser systems are supposedly autonomous - they are on all the time, and thus might be more effective. Flare and chaff depliyment requires some skill on the part of the pilot, along with some 3G turns, and might actually be just as difficult and expensive to automate. The expensive part is detecting and tracking the launch, not firing the laser at it.
BTW its Sen BOXER not Sen BAXTER.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
I remember a conference of Physicists at my University a few years back talking about possible missile defense technologies. The general consensus is that missile defense technologies aren't going to be very effective at defending against missiles (certainly they won't stay ahead of missile guidance systems), but they are a great way to spend billions of dollars on the aerospace industry.
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if you were close enough to hit an airplane with a shoulder fired rocket, couldn't you instead use explosives to damage the runway enough to cause a crash? The aftermath of a failed landing or even a failed takeoff is probably enough to serve the terrorists purpose. Anyone remember the failed takeoff of the Air France plane at Pearson international? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_358
Not to mention the fact that I can't find a single instance of a commercial aircraft being hit by a shoulder fired rocket.
This is a stupid waste of money. Of course, it will earn some weapons manufacturers some cash, and it will make some people feel safer -at least until they realize that the next commercial hijackers now control a high-powered laser, but hey, who am I to mock attempts at the "war on terror"? Who'd have thought that waging a war against an abstract noun could have been so tricky?
Does California have a third senator besides Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer?
Mmmm.. Donuts
I say we let the MythBusters team test this one out, before the congress votes on it.
Adam: On this episode of MythBusters, we test if terrorists can use the signal from a missile-jamming laser system to actually track the plane more accurately than would otherwise be possible.
Jamie: Yes, this is one of those stories we've been getting a lot of email about, and we've gotten special support from the folks at Northrop Grumman. I'm really looking forward to trying this one out.
[20 minutes of footage of tinkering with rocket guidance systems and guest rocket scientists advice, with several shots of rockets missing a watermelon with a simple modulated laser on it, and at last some splattered fruit.]
Adam: This is so cool - I think we're ready for the real test.
Jamie: Yeah, I'm really happy with how this came out. I'm surprised how easy it was to change the laser guidance on these missiles to track towards our laser masking system. We'll just have to see how the real system pans out.
Announcer: Coming up next: Will the airplane defense work against the modified missile? [Video of a missile heading towards an airplane] See what happens, after this break!...
Hey - at least it would be better standards than the folks who currently test our voting equipment, and likely many of our governmentally-mandated military expenditures.
Ryan Fenton
It makes you safe from tiger attacks.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Also how often do terrorist come into our territory and start shooting down our commercial planes?
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maybe it's time to look at your action !
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Thank god that FedEx is finally protected against those UPS militia death-squads.
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would eliminate the need for this system.
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How about a cost/benefit analysis of such a system before we knee jerk expensive solution to a low risk problem.
The problem here is that people equate one 450 person aircraft with more value that of 40,000 fatalities due to automobile accidents.
Air travel is one of the safest forms of travel, bar none. We don't need to spend BILLIONS of dollars making it safer, mainly because it isn't going to make it much safer.
It all sounds good, but really, it is a waste.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
back when Reagan offered a vision for anti-missile defense using lasers he and the program were ridiculed. now, babs (yes, she's my senator, heaven help us!!) thinks they're a good thing.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Sen. Boxer supports this because it will enrich her constituents in CA. I think this is the most repugnant form of vote buying / pandering that we see in politics. This is the vulgar spectacle that politics have become - if you are under the impression that there is a difference between any politicians, think again.
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Won't be long before the "anti-competitive" laser system is installed on commercial cargo carrier planes. Should be interesting when FedEx and UPS are shooting lasers at each when flying their planes.
Did that help?
Just how important is that FedEx shipment?
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Would an infrared "Barrier" around airports do the same thing? It seems it would be a lot safer to have infrared emitters stationed around the entire airport and surround areas, so the rockets/missiles strike the infrared stations instead of putting countermeasures on the planes themselves?
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Barbara Boxer is a Senator from California.
Northrup Grumman makes this system, and it's a potential multi-billion dollar contract.
Northrup Grumman is headquartered in Los Angelas, CA.
I just wanted to point that out. Every other highly modded comment is pointing out how there are better ideas than this.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Given some of the above comments, as one might apply them to personal computers in the early 70s, "Who needs one, let alone two?"
Head restraints, crumple zones, airbags, and such are not needed for the vast majority of citizens, "Who needs them?"
The vast majority of homes never burn down, "Who needs fire insurance?"
Trying to solve problems is essentially what Slashdot tries to cover on a daily basis and you would think we are not by reading some of these comments. Whether we are learning to fight insurgents and gain the knowledge and experience and ability to track and identify, where we did not before, or establish systems that we improve to screen passengers, they all get improved over time (think DOS computers to now).
Sheesh!
Terrorists, terrorists, the word is a word that points at the wrong place. You have a 100% more chance of being beating up, intimated, arrested, and imprisoned by your local corrupt police force and judge, taxed by them, criminalized by them, electrocuted by them, then anyone on the other side of the globe.
This war is not between the American people and the terrorists. This war is a war of the people of the world against the criminal, corrupt United States military, government, police state and prison system, and industrial complex.
American citizens are too spineless to overthrow their own corrupt government and replace it with something more democratic. What we have in America is the sham of a democracy, the candy coating of it. Like a bottle of coke or pepsi that so stereotypifies America... a pretty label on the inside, but a toxic waste dump of chemicals that will turn you diabetic, depressed, and hepped on caffeine paranoid on the inside. Its a marketing lie. Everything about America is about marketing lies.
Think about this, ok? Ocean liners were pressed into service as troopships. The SS United States was specifically designed as one, after WWII, with its top speed kept classified.
So were there to be some kind of war-like thingy, you'd want commercial cargo planes to be self-protecting because we'd be using them to move war stuff'n'shit around. Plus, who doesn't want to put an eye out with a 747?
You've only got a mere 20 years to execute your diabolical plans!
Togas? Hell, you don't even have to take a toga off to strangle a flight attendant with it. Now, skin-tight latex pants for all the young females, and you might have something there!
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
So basically, when we think North Korea or Iran is about to launch a nuke, we have every commercial airliner in the region go in for a landing near the launch site. NOOOWWWW... we don't need a Missle Defense Shield. BRILLIANT!
Can I get one installed on my Chevy Malibu to protect it from aggressive SUVs?
Frankly, that would be a better use of the money.
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Would more lives be saved inventing and installing an in-cabin fire suppression system instead of an anti-missile system?
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If for planes, why not trains? If I was a terrorist, I'd skip airports entirely, far too many cameras and police. I'd target a high speed intercity train. If I time it right, I should be able to blast a 125mph train into pieces on a high speed track, in time to cause major derailments from other trains. Given that during commuter times, there could easily be 200-300 people on each train, I'd easily rack up the same body count as I would by hitting an airliner (assuming the airliner didn't crash into a tower block).
And I can hit the train from pretty much anywhere along it's route.
Trying to make us all immune to terrorist attacks is just impractical. We are treating the symptom, not the disease.
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1. Build shoulder-launched missile system
2. Profit!
3. Develop countermeasure for shoulder-launched missile system
4. More Profit!
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Let's say a major airline did just that and had to charge an extra $10/ticket to make up for the cost. Now, every time somebody's shopping for tickets on Expedia, that airline looks more expensive and is avoided. You might think that the airline could advertise that security feature, but there's a problem with that. By saying that their planes now have anti-missile defense, it would have the net effect of scaring potential airline customers. Associating your product with fear of death is usually not a good formula for success.
On the other hand you can just require it accross the board, and then the airlines will all install it, everybody will pay the extra per ticket cost without thinking about it and we'll all be safer. Arguably, such a system is a far better step towards airline saftey than the ridiculous hoops they make you jump through at the security lines.
Having said that, I'd really rather they started focussing on cargo screening first. Much easier to get explosives than a guided missile. But I think the guided missile threat is legitimate.
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Laser beams? Come on. Just install a few .50 caliber ball turrets and let the passengers take turns picking off missiles for fun.
For each missile hit you get an extra bag of mini-pretzels!
This is the beginning of blurring the lines. When we start adding military-grade defensive measures to non-military areas, we are on a slippery slope that is only going to lead to escalation. How long before we start arming civilian aircraft with active defenses?
Remember the Lusitania
This is getting to be ridiculous. How much money are we supposed to spend to defend against any possible problem. The fear mongers would like us all to pay those billions of dollars to support this idea. I can't say I ever am afraid of being blown out of the sky when I get on a airplane. Sounds like a product of watching too much main stream media. Be afraid , be afraid always....
Birds are much more dangerous and costly. We should be trying to exterminate them.
What?
Why are we such pussies? Look around, in the US, something like:
40,000 people die/year in car accidents
20,000 murders/year
And we get all worked up because some people managed to hijack 4 airplanes and killed 3,000 people? It really sucks, and I understand the pain that the people left behind had to face (as well as the people who died that day). But because of that one attack, we've completely gone bonkers and blown an entirely disproportionate amount of money on making sure it doesn't happen again compared to larger social ills.
Ugh, it just burns me.
-Bucky
How do you bang one rock against itself?
I think you are setting me up for a tiger attack.
I think "crack" (of the $3 variety) is the operative term there.
Here's Barbara Baxter's website.
+++ATH0
I mean, really. There are two (2) US Senators from any given state at a time. It's not a lot of work to check the spelling to see if it matches one of them.
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They forgot to mention in the article about the cost of the Wiis that will need to be installed in the seatbacks. Someone will have to control the frinkin' laserbeam! "Please return to your seats, and put the controllers back in to pocket in front of you."
Come now editors you could at least check and make sure some things are spelled correctly, there are only 100 senators. Barbra Boxer is one of two female senators from California, both Democrats.
Rumors about different weapons systems being packed in pig grease would have been floated long ago followed by a number of anti-aircraft missiles geared to explode rather than fire released into the arms market. The combination would slow down the number of folks willing or able to learn to shoot such systems. Especially if false data about which missile systems are compromised were floated at some point when the bad guys started figuring things out. Denial by the CIA would just confirm things in peoples minds that it must be true. This is not rocket science. Many of the folks in the middle east are willing believers of conspiracy theories. We should be planting a few.
In reply to several things above
(1) It's a waste of money to develop these for commercial liners
They weren't developed for commercial liners. The R&D cost was already spent to equip larger Air Force birds like AWACS with them. Since these birds are similar in size and characteristic to airliners adapting thim is straightforward.
(2) Great now we can't shoot down a plane if a terrorist gets one
It wouldn't stop a radar guided missile. Completely different seeker head. And no, there are no radar guided shoulder launched SAM's.
(3) Just mount them at the airports
The unit needs to be at or near the target, since the laser used to blast the seeker head needs to be able to have line-of-sight to the seeker - i.e in a cone in front of the missile. You can't from the ground.
(4) use existing flare technology
Any gen 3 or higher IR missile won't be fooled by a flare unless the dropping aircraft can maneuver at the same time as dropping the flares to make source tracking harder. For an airliner this isn't possible - their motion is predictable and therefore the tracking algorithms on the missile will disregard the flare. With the laser it dazzles, possibly even destroys, the seeker head, so at that point a simple and relatively small aircraft turn takes you out of line of the missiles path.
Senator Baxtor, how much did Northrop Grumman pay you for this pork? If airlines wanted this, they could have it. It's their decision, or at least it should be.
The "nice" thing about government programs, is that if the market doesn't want it, we still get it anyway, and all pay for it anyway, without the option of saying No Thank You. So far, the market has said they're not at all interested in this sort of thing, since commercial airliners don't even have cheap anti-SAM systems, such as flares.
BTW, yes, I get it that government is supposed to provide security. Cops and soldiers are about all government is good for. But they should only provide security in ways that we can't provide for ourselves (or ways they we don't want others to be providing for themselves (e.g. personal ICBM silo in neighbor's backyard)).
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It will cost billions of dollars. That's billions of dollars which won't save a single life, as no passenger jet has even been brought down by a missle outside a combat zone. That's billions of dollars that won't get spent on something that will save lives, like making our roads safer or prenatal care. Choosing to spend money on a worthless defense against a non-existant missle threat is exactly the same as taking the money away from where it could do good. This system will kill Americans, not save lives.
we just tell everyone the planes all have anti missile systems, when really they just shoot out party streamers or something equally adorable?
It's great to be wary of conflicts of interest like this, and it is possible that that is Boxer's motive. But I have followed her for a while, and I think that she, unlike Feinstein (the senior senator from CA) is motivated by the public good.
Also, Northrop Grumman does have locations in California but it also has offices in Virginia, Maryland, and Mississippi. Furthermore, I'd be willing to bet that all of NG's competitors also have locations in California. It's just a natural location for testing on the West Coast.
Cheers,
-Jack
Assuming it's heading towards the terminal when hit. Unlikely, as aircraft don't take off and land directly towards the terminal. Even so, those aren't exactly huge warheads on those missiles. Probably won't penetrate the roof. Worst case, it still kills fewer people than a hit on a 767 would.
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All of this emphasis on airplanes and airports is a sham. Let's say we spend all this time and money on making airplanes and airports safe from terrorists. Is that going to stop terrorism? Of course not. It will just move them on to the next target. Let's see them make the Superbowl or CES safe from terrorists.
Oh well, I guess it is good for the economy to spend all this money and hire all these people...
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Just the problem that there's many hundreds (possibly thousands) of them out there, unaccounted for, they're easy to conceal in a vehicle, dirt easy to use, and very effective.
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Where will most of this stuff be make or assembled?
r ts_pigbook2006porkpercap
In Sen. Barbara Baxter's (D-California) state?
I'll venture a guess that she's against the war in Iraq since that sends federal money out of her state. With all the anti-war stuff happening in California, I was encouraged to see their "pork" level listed at #43 in the country according to the Citizens Against Public Waste. That's very low. http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=repo
We were just discussing this paper at a meeting yesterday (I'm one of the co-authors). Looks like we need to start sending out copies again... Protecting Commercial Aviation Against the Shoulder-Fired Missile Threat http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2005/RA ND_OP106.pdf
A summary, if you're lazy:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2005/RA ND_OP106.sum.pdf
What if the US spends less money on defense , and instead behaves less like a dick. Instead we should concentrate on being a little less arrogant, and be more world friendly. Foreign relations has really taken a turn or the worse in the last 6 years or so. Or we can continue the current trend, and then just travel everywhere in personal sized mini tanks, with anti missile/IUD technology.
People keep on trying to put bandages on the problem, instead of addressing what is actually wrong, kind of like treating a fever with some aspirin, instead of treating the infection.
..........FULL STOP.
Has a range of around 3km straight up, slant range of around 8 km. So you can fire from well outside the airport perimeter.
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Imagine this jet taking off from NYC at 4th of july. the system will run amok and kill a lot of people.
Many other scenarios from software defects to proximity to other aircrafts may cause a "kill".
In combat, 10% friendly fire kill ratio may be acceptable, but this may not be acceptable in commercial aviation.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Dependent upon the missiles being laser guided.
What about the old heat seekers? There are bound
to be plenty of those lurking about.
Given the way the passengers on Flight 93 reacted during the hijacking, so is the fear that someone will successfully carry out that particular attack again, but if there's a threat you need to at least look at ways of negating it.
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This is the sort of ridiculous, slippery-slope argument that the government loves to throw in our faces when trying to justify the erosion of our civil rights and the wanton military spending that are ostensibly necessary "because of the terrorists."
There are not going to be actual "gangs" of Islamic fundamentalists running around in your neighborhood, killing people in front of your kids. First, there are not actually enough fundamentalists to make this happen. Second, we do have a police force, you know -- it's their job to deal with gangs. You could argue that they don't do a particularly good job of that in some parts of LA, but to be honest, even there is nothing like it is in the movies. People with families live in Compton. There are gangs, to be sure, but even there, people killing others in front of your kids is an uncommon occurence, not an everyday affair.
Let's talk about a "reasoned" response: 3000 people died on 9/11, that's all. It's tragic, but come on. How many people die in car crashes every year? The reason people keep bringing it up is because, every year, nearly 40 thousand people do!
Here's the reality of the situation: 6 years later, we've accomplished nothing that is actually relevant to 9/11. Osama Bin Laden is still at large, as much as the government tries to understate his importance. No replacement for the WTC is on the horizon, despite much in the way of planning.
However, we have used the event to justify tremendous, unreasonable spending on cockamamy schemes like this one that will do exactly nothing to help prevent terrorism. Seriously, the people that came up with the 9/11 plan and executed it were brilliant, from a logistical, strategic, and creativity perspective. Do you really think they're a one-trick pony? That now that they've done 9/11, the only possible terrorist attack they can think of involves running a plane into a building? Because that seems to be the way our administration thinks.
We've gone to the ends of the earth to make flying a pain, hurting our economy and annoying our passengers. And for what? To prevent another 9/11? Why not just blow up a building? Why bother with the plane? We're expecting it, it would be stupid.
Maybe George Bush was right, after all -- maybe they did attack us because they "hate our freedom." Lamentably, our response seems to be to throw our freedom away to appease them.
Here's a wild thought: how about just ignoring them?
What ever happened to good ol' flares, chaff, and evasive manuvers?
If every jet is going to have this guidance confusing laser on it, all the terrorists need to do is switch to laser guided. No need for any spotters to track the plane when the plane basically paints a pathway o' death to itself.
Wasn't there a package called snowstorm or something similar that was used by military cargo plans for automated detection and flare/chaff response?
What's to stop people from using nickel plated, chromed, or otherwise mirror finished missiles?
I think El Al equips quite a few of their airliners with such equipment.
Have gnu, will travel.
Not sure how this is flamebait, it's dead on.
Say bad words about my book, in cold oatmeal, or I shall sue!
...contained a funny story that wasn't so much lasers, but airport security. http://www.registerguard.com/news/2007/01/18/c2.wa .airlinerunaway.0118.p1.php?section=nation_world
9 year old boy bypasses security at two airports.
This is after years of getting news about how secure the american airports are. There are so many jokes here that making a remark is shooting fish in a barrel.
And now frickin lasers for a problem that doesn't actually currently exist?
It would be interesting if someone actually put a group of people in charge of looking at actual plane and airport security/safety issues.
To take down a hijacked plane? I mean, isn't the big terrorist activity HIJACKING, and not firing missles?
This is great, now when the next plane is heading towards a tower, we can't even shoot it down.
Everytime something gets announced or proposed with the intentions of spending billions or trillions of dollars on in the name of defense, it makes me think that all this time, all this money could have been pooled together to develop shield technology. Every alien race seems to have this technology from all the movies I've seen. We better get cracking.
Might make planes safer, that just makes something else a more attractive target. This constant "closing the door after the horse has bolted" is just throwing money away.
What if the US spends less money on defense , and instead behaves less like a dick.
1) Keep outsiders angry and your own people scared.
2) Be part of huge military-industrial complex.
3) Build a bazillion weapons (they don't have to work).
4) $PROFIT$!!
FIOBABIG.
The cold war was an ever-escalating chain of threats, the actual execution of which was always extremely improbable (as both sides knew the end result)... For decades the threat of nuclear war was carted out as an excuse for giving away billions upon billions to defense contractors.
Shortly after the cold war ended, various skirmishes and, then, Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom became the new dog-and-pony by which Congress to appease their constituencies and lobbyists in states where defense contractors represented significant employment. But now it's blossoming into another Vietnam and is beginning to blow up in Congress' face.
So, what's the answer? Give the defense contractors a new mission: Counterterrorism! Since the supply of irrational fear is virtually limitless, the demand for solutions to calm these irrational fears is equally unbounded. Naturally, this could go on for decades, just like the cold war...
How can they convince the people to buy into it? Remember Lisa Simpson and the tiger-repellent rock? You don't see any terrorists around do you? That's the beauty of irrational fears... you don't need to use a rational argument to soothe them.
This is not to say that counterterrorism is bunk... No, it's necessary. But there's a pragmatic approach to identifying real threats and determining the cost of real solutions to them, and then there's the Chicken Little approach. The sky is falling. Watch out for terrorists in Fargo, North Dakota. Attack them before they attack us.
The big problem with this mania that has been exploited by the Bush administration and Republicans in particular is this: While they are quick to point out that no terrorist attacks have occurred on Bush's watch since September 11, 2001... I am equally quick to point out that the worst terrorist attack in US history did, in fact, occur on Bush's watch.
Will it be able to deal with sidewinders? Next time I'm on a plane hijacked by terrorists and some person in a darkened room with half a cigarette and some stubble decides that something is worth shooting the plane down and killing me for, I'll be wanting a defence system on the plane that stops that happening.
I'm not keen on getting killed, but I'd rather it be at the hands of terrorists than my own government trying to protect me from terrorists.
This is a good example of market failure. Protected airplanes do certainly have a positive social externality. Even though the consumers might take the risk into account, the demand for protected airplanes will be lower than the optimal demand for the society. This is caused by the society demanding protected airplanes more than every individual does, just like the society has a higher demand for electric cars and a lower demand for drugs.
[sig]
Ah, but what do you do when the terrorists come up with an anti-anti-missile-laser-missile?!
-Peter
They could install flare launchers on the planes, like military jets.
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer." -Adolf Hitler
"We are one Nation, we are one People." -The One 'leader'
Sure... acquiesce to the world's body politic and cease to become a sovereign nation. Sounds like a plan.
Perhaps, nations should keep their own house in order and worry less about what the US is up to and how they could politically extort more money out of the US.
Or the almighty UN might actually try doing something... like rectifying the Darfur situation, or addressing the fact that Hezbollah attacked Israel as a de facto representative of the Lebanese govt. Or perhaps just prosecuting, and investigating aggressively the previous Secretary General for violations of the oil for food program... Considering both his son and brother-in-law have had shady dealings therein.
None of this is likely, even as the smug people that complain about USA policy still come to the teat at supper time.
I'm not sure why we need the anti-IUD technology. Are we trying to impregnate women with some kind of sperm cannon mounted on the mini-tank?
> Sure... acquiesce to the world's body politic and cease to become a sovereign nation. Sounds like a plan.
I know of a specific occasion when thirteen sovereign states acquiesced to the regional body politic, and few of the current generation of their citizens are complaining about it.
Have you ever heard of the concept of "enlightened self-interest"?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
They want to implement this within 20 years? By then you will be able to buy the easy-bake missile kit to give to the kids for their birthday. Way to spend tons of time and money on a system that will protect you from 20-year-old tech.
I second the "way to fight the symptom not the problem"
"All stealth bombers are upgraded with Cyberdyne computers, becoming fully unmanned. Afterward, they fly with a perfect operational record."
No, it was Elvis you dimwit. BTW, you were adopted and your parents are lying.
Lets see, the senators approving the project are because the companies developing the system is in own state, about the rest. it does not make any sense
Oh, this is absolutely a good idea! Finally, a way to prevent all those passenger aircraft from being shot down by shoulder fired rockets here in the U.S. every year. At last, a viable solution to a problem that has plagued this great nation for so long!
x newstellsmetohatetoday pulled a shoulder-fired rocket out from under his trenchcoat. If it hadn't been for the quick, decisive, unilateral action of some texan knocking the guy down (then trying to raise support for knocking the guy's neighbors down, which I didn't really understand but support wholeheartedly anyway), he might have shot down YET ANOTHER passenger aircraft right here in the land of the free.
Just the other day, I was at the airport, waiting at the security checkpoint like a good citizen, when some muslim/iranian/videogamer/teenager/goth/whoeverfo
In other news, a man was killed by perforation at Los Angeles Intl., when he foolishly fired up a welding torch on the airfield.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
Security theater doesn't treat the disease, which is that we're being told to be afraid of everything, so we should spend more money and let the government peer into every aspect of our lives. If the government says ok, ECM on large planes is mandatory, a lot of people will say, well, they must have heard something, we must have been in real danger if they spent all that money. That just perpetuates more fear. What's next, cameras installed in neighborhoods near airports, ostensibly so they can monitor for people toting RPGs? How about microphones in mosques nearby? These things would make some people feel safer, also.
If terrorists really want to bring down commercial airliners, wouldn't it be much easier to get a job as baggage handler on an airline, or package loader at FedEx, and just plant a cheap, homemade bomb in the cargo bay, than try to smuggle in a manpad or buy one from a probable undercover agent to try and shoot down a moving aircraft?
Exercise and eating right to extend your life.
Sigh.
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
The US knows it won't be the only superpower for long and not everyone that's at our heels will be looking to share the top spot. I for one would like to welcome our would-be crazy dictator overlords with rail guns and laser wielding 747s.
It may be insanely optimistic but I have a theory that much of what is going on is "waving the big stick" so that we can just speak softly if there's a major conflict with a major player later on. Say what you want about the mess right now, but AFAIK Iraq actually had a respectable army that didn't protect it's leaders for long.
the more miserable you are now, the funnier the story will be later
...the considerably unlikely chain of events that has to properly line up in order to result in a downed aircraft.
1) First you have to get ahold of a missile. Hollywood notwithstanding, shoulder-launched SAMs are relatively rare, even in mainstream standing armies. The scales of issue just aren't all that large. They are expensive and fragile units, much more so than any other weapon, so they don't get handed out to just anyone.
Probably the largest concentration was in North Vietnam during the 60's, but North Vietnam had tons of time to accumulate them, and a direct threat (daily US bombing raids) to counter.
There just aren't a lot of them out there to be had.
2) Then, if you can find one, it has to be operational. Explosives and electronics have shelf-lives, and as mentioned, these things are fragile. If it hasn't been well treated, there's a nontrivial chance that some critical component will fail to function, and it won't fire, guide, or explode.
3) If you've got one and it is operational, then you have to find a trained operator. Even "fire and forget" missiles require some skill to operate, and even if the weapon is American-proof simple to use, the operator still needs to be familiar with the ideal operating envelope - what aspect should the target be engaged with (head-on? tailchaser? deflection?) Does the position of the sun matter? Do you aim at an engine, or centre of mass? Lead or lag?
4) Assuming an operational missile and a trained operator who takes a good shot, the accuracy rate of these devices is not high. I'd imagine a commercial jet would be an easier target (although with cooler running turbofan engines, maybe not) but even so, there is a high statistical percentage of these missiles that will fail to impact even when fired in perfect conditions - they work best in volleys.
5) Assuming a hit, the odds on downing the aircraft are not good. Airliners are big, solid aircraft, and shoulder-fired missiles by design cannot have very large warheads - you have to package propulsion, guidance, and warhead into something light enough to be carried by a single person. Being struck by a missile is certainly unpleasant, but I'd expect any modern airliner to be able to suffer catastrophic failure of a single engine and still be able to fly (long enough to get back down at least). That's not to say that the missile *couldn't* bring down a liner (sever the controls to a control surface and I think you've got a crash) but neither are you looking at a Hollywood style giant fireball.
While it is certainly *possible* that one could experience a terrorist organization bringing together a fresh missile, a trained operator, and a lucky shot, it's not very *likely* - to the point where I think the defensive device is just silly.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
It's not a nuke, it's not an army. It's just a shoulder-launched missile. If someone's pissed off enough and is not afraid to conduct a shopping trip to certain areas of our planet, he/she (I'm talking about just one person here!) can do it. You can't be friendly to anyone at once, especially when they hate each other.
If Missile Defense defends against missiles, does an Anti-missile defense system make sure that the commercial jets can fire missiles that will penetrate all defenses?
She and other members of Congress are hoping to equip all US commercial passenger liners with this system in 20 years
And with what power source will these commerical liners be flying?
Biofuels? Hydrogen? Mr. Fusion reactors? Positive thoughts?
As oil becomes more scarce, marginal uses like planes will give way to continued use in the chemical market so that we may continue to have plastics and other chemicals.
Which is more likely...terrorists to sneak into the country with a full missile setup and be able to set it up and launch it undetected or them hijacking a plane and using the defenses to not get shot down. Hmmm...
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
If you don't love America, then you can just git out.
"Is this good common sense or the costly future of a society hobbled by fear of terrorism?"
i nton.missiles/index.html
It will be the costly future of a society hobbled by fear of terrorism and all Bush's fault as told by the left liberal mainstream propaganda machine known as mass media until... a plane is shot down and lives are lost.
Then it will be more than common sense, it will be necessity. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/12/02/cl
The same applies to the lefts take on the War on Terror and the Bush Admins policies in regard to this including Iraq. The left works day and night to convince us Bush is the real evil until we lose an American city to a militant islamic nuke and then, if they're skin isnt falling off, will maybe regard his policies as common sense necessity.
Nah, they'll just blame Bush for militant islams militancy like those illegals are blaming our society for their criminal scumbag ways.
United States of Victimhood and all because we allow it, dumbasses united in liberlism DUL.
Convenient if you leave out the part where they were defeated in open warfare just prior to the part where they acquiesced.
And there are a lot of people who complain about it regularly. Some whackos and some not. Much of what they complain about, the Writ of Liberty for instance, isn't too far afield from the practices of the current administration.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
Here's a CNN articlefrom 2004 about how the Israeli airline, El/Al, is equipping all its planes with a ground-air missle defense system using flares. They have already installed it... the technology has been around for years.
Why did't we just borrow it? Why did they spend $90 million already and lose years of opportunity to secure our planes to develop a new system?
--Aaron Greenberg
quotes from t0rkm3 (666910)
"Sure... acquiesce to the world's body politic and cease to become a sovereign nation. Sounds like a plan."
He didn't say that he said "be less of a dick" to me that means not getting invlolved where we have no business and stop playing world police, one in the same I suppose. I and many other Americans agree with this. We need to fix the problems here before we go galavanting around the globe playing cop.
"Perhaps, nations should keep their own house in order and worry less about what the US is up to and how they could politically extort more money out of the US."
Perhaps the US should do the same thing minus the money part. although I sure feel like I have been Extorted when I see the amount taken out of my check for "taxes" but that's another subject.
"Or the almighty UN might actually try doing something... like rectifying the Darfur situation"
If the US is going to play world cop then why haven't we fixed it. I don't agree with policing the planet but if it's going to go on why not actually help instead of just taking over places that have lucrative natural resources.
", or addressing the fact that Hezbollah attacked Israel as a de facto representative of the Lebanese govt."
They didn't attack our country or our people so what does it matter. The Israelis are far from saints themselves and have done a lot to provoke attacks. I'm not saying the any attacks were warranted just that some were provoked.
" Or perhaps just prosecuting, and investigating aggressively the previous Secretary General for violations of the oil for food program... Considering both his son and brother-in-law have had shady dealings therein."
Good question and I agree with them but the US has enough of it's own shady financial dealings to look into. Haliburton(sp?) is the first one that comes to mind. How many people in our governement have friends and family making a ton off the "war on terror".
"None of this is likely, even as the smug people that complain about USA policy still come to the teat at supper time."
I for one am not coming. I am actively seeking employment outsdide the US because I can no longer live in a place where my rights are slowly being stripped despite having a constitution that is supposed to always protect them. I have gotten invlovled in politics and tried to make changes that way but unless you have a few billion to throw around change is not going to happen. Enough ranting for now hopefully I don't lose karma but I did reframe from using the term ass hat even though I really wanted to.
WTF?
Isn't this likely to cause even more foreign policy problems?
Perhaps installing a mobile weapons system using our civilian transport jets as a platform is not the *best* idea in the world. I get the feeling that many other countries won't like that idea that we're bringing such things into their airspace many times a day.
I do have to admit that the idea of a Boeing 747 shooting down a model rocket is amusing, though.
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
you sir are an idiot.
Sure we can stick our head in the sand just like we did in WWII and let the slaughter of millions of people occur and only get into matters when they are their absolute worst and suffer more casualties than we currently are in our afgani/iraq war. Like in the good sheppard the statement "we keep the wars small ones" is a true fact. If we let nation states have at it all willy nilly, The jews would be exterminated and their homeland destroyed (though they did a pretty good fending off in the 7 day war back in the day) which you would have help contribute to as the mid-east state are the most powerful in the region with all their oil monies(and don't think that if you DON'T drive a car you aren't using oil, There are millions of thing that use oil/made from oil/or powered from oil like the generator at the power plant your getting your electricy from right now)
This world could do a lot worse if the US wern't playing global cop. Sorry to inconvience you while you sip on your caffinate beverage of choice but that freedom you so righty feel free to flaunt would be be repressed/squelched if we weren't so villigiant.
What if the US spends less money on defense , and instead behaves less like a dick. Instead we should concentrate on being a little less arrogant, and be more world friendly. Foreign relations has really taken a turn or the worse in the last 6 years or so.
Actually, isolationism was Bush's plan for about the 9 months ranging from January-Sept 11, 2001 (remember that whole "We are not into nation-building" stuff?). It didn't work out to well.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
1. How many people are forecast to die in the next 10 years from a short-range shoulder fired missile hitting a passenger airliner? 2. How many people are forecast to die in the next 10 years from starvation? 3. How many people are forecast to die in the next 10 years from cancer? 4. How many people are forecast to die in the next 10 years from ____(fill in the blank)_____ etc. etc. (repeat through the most deadly scenarios) Now rank the above in terms of the likelihood of solving the problem weighted by the number of lives saved. That's where you put your billions.
Then would you recommend it as a solution for everything?
Think republican.
Could the airport not employ UAVs with this system that tag a long during the vulnerable stages?
Not sure how this is flamebait, it's dead on.
Saying the US behaves like a dick is flamebait. What you call "behaving like a dick" others call "giving the populace the chance to vote", "allowing women to go to school" and "preventing children from being killed or starved to death because their parents are part of the wrong religious sect".
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I think this is more about money than it is the GWOT. Cragen
The article said that it could take 20 years to see this system in wide use. Won't the technology behind these anti-stinger systems be sadly obsolete by then? Either someone will have developed a better "stinger-equivalent" that isn't deterred by these lasers, or else they'll come up with an entirely new attack method. It seems like this is worse than close the barn door when the horse is gone--more like closing the barn door after the horse is dead and someone else has bought the farm!
Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?
He didn't say that he said "be less of a dick" to me that means not getting invlolved where we have no business and stop playing world police, one in the same I suppose. I and many other Americans agree with this. We need to fix the problems here before we go galavanting around the globe playing cop.
I find it sad that mass graves filled with mothers and their children is filed under "not our problem". Would you say the same of tsunami or earthquake victims overseas? How about at a state level? Was Texas wrong for taking hundreds of thousands Katrina evacuees? After all, it was Louisiana's problem, not Texas'.
It's nice to say "we should fix our own problems first", but compared to others around the world, we don't have any problems.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
My belief (and I wish I had the source to prove it) was that there were concerns about planes at low altitudes starting ground fires if flares were released. Seems like the least of your worries in regards to missile defense in general but hey gotta make sure everyone is happy.
...in bed
WWII was actually a very complicated situation. There were many reasons the USA did not get involved earlier than it did that had nothing to do with sticking "our head in the sand" (e.g. the possibility of a war with the Soviet Union). In many respects WWII was a continuation of WWI and a major theme was transitioning to a post-colonial world order.
It's not entirely clear what millions you're referring to but, if you mean the Nazi death camps, they didn't really get going until after the USA entered the war.
Actually, isolationism was Bush's plan for about the 9 months ranging from January-Sept 11, 2001 (remember that whole "We are not into nation-building" stuff?). It didn't work out to well.
Regardless of whether or not Bush could have done anything to prevent 9/11 I severely doubt his 9 months of foreign policy actually caused 9/11 (which was probably in the works long before).
I stole this Sig
What if this system fires laser at a kid, who unsuspectedly tries to shoot laser-pen to an aircraft? Or will it fire some burning laser blasts at a hikers' campfire by mistake?
Great system. Can it deal with simultaneous attacks? It seems to me that it's a lot of money to spend which someone with a modicum of military knowledge can probably circumvent. If I am a terrorist, and I know that all the US airliners have anti-missile devices, I a) abandon my plans for mayhem? b) shoot down a non-US Airliner? c) exploit one of the weaknesses that any such system is bound to have or d) fire my spare missiles at a boat...or a building...or a train...or a stadium. I'm thinking not a). But...reality aside, I'm sure we'll continue to try to spend our way out of terrorism.
"and deliberately crash it". The paradigm before 11/9/01 was to co-operate fully with the hijackers, as that was likeliest to result in the best outcome. The paradigm after (once the new threat was understood) was to NOT co-operate. But the threat had to be understood first...
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That's Intra-Uterine Device for you geeks who are scratching your heads.
guns do!
Strangely enough, there are a number of countries where the populace is able to vote, women are required to go to school just like everyone else, and there aren't mass killings of children of the "wrong religion". Many of these countries are able to conduct their foreign policy in such a way that they don't get accused of being a dick.
Some of them even manage to enter into free trade agreements with each other without requiring that the smaller country implement something like the DMCA.
Etc, etc.
Disclaimer: I may live in such a country.
Pretend that something especially witty is here. Thanks.
Speaking as an American, we are dicks to the rest of the world, not just Iraq, the rest of the entire world. It's not flamebait if it's true. And as far as your examples, what? Do you actually think that women in Iraq weren't allowed to go to school? Do you seriously believe that? My advice, meet someone from Iraq. As for the "religious sect" bullshit, that stuff for some reason was never a problem before we lead the insurrection into Iraq. The voting thing, yes true, but it's a shame that now that they voted we've decided we don't like their choices and are still fucking with them.
Say bad words about my book, in cold oatmeal, or I shall sue!
Funny... GP was talking about foreign policy. I don't know about anyone else, but if the US was telling MY country how to vote, who can go to school, and whether children are allowed to stay with their parents based on religious belief, I'd call it "behaving like a dick" too. What the US does inside its own borders is its own business, however.
giving the populace the chance to vote
Because that worked SO well in Palestine, Lebanon, and the rest of the places where people got to vote and immediately voted for more terrorists. Maybe in 20 years the countries we propped up will use the weapons we gave them against us and we'll try again and make the exact same mistakes we made 20, 40, and 60 years ago with the Shah, bin Laden, and Saddam.
their parents are part of the wrong religious sect
Yeah, none of that happens now that America "fixed" Afghanistan.
How dare you question our divine right to tell others how to live!
It's right here in the Bible somewhere...hold on...I'm looking...looking...looking...
Right here, in the Book of Butt-head, it says, "I'm the President of the United States of America, and you must bow down and kiss my butt!"
HEHEHEHEHEHE
What you call "giving the populace the chance to vote", others call "giving the populace of another country the chance to die" and "underfunding the schools in our country to pay for a war somewhere else" and "causing children to die because their parents are part of the wrong religious sect". Or was the civil war in Iraq worse before we invaded?
Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to conviction
And as far as your examples, what? Do you actually think that women in Iraq weren't allowed to go to school?
See Afghanistan.
My advice, meet someone from Iraq.
I have. I spent 6 months over there.
As for the "religious sect" bullshit, that stuff for some reason was never a problem before we lead the insurrection into Iraq.
So you agree that it was a problem. Funny how that slavery stuff was never a problem before the civil war! Just because something wasn't considered a problem before X happened, doesn't mean that it wasn't a problem.
The voting thing, yes true, but it's a shame that now that they voted we've decided we don't like their choices and are still fucking with them.
We've overthrown their new government? When did this happen?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Wouldn't this be more useful to detect RPG's? Then we could install them on our choppers out in the field and save military lives (more of a guarantee than this commercial airliner crap). Anyone know the feasibility of this? The article made me think of the two choppers we lost in Somalia, a story portrayed by the movie Black Hawk Down, to RPG's.
"i stand on the edge of destruction" -shai hulud
I'm disappointed with the comments on this article : no-one has mentioned the TECHNICAL problems here. Quite simply, this expensive and complex laser system only defends against a very specific type of missile : IR guided SAMs. I would have thought that the smart people here would have immediately pointed out : what about radar guided shoulder launched missiles? I'm sure there must already be a russian radar guided variant. In addition, today there are single chip Doppler radar systems that could easily fit inside a SAM nose cone : how hard would it be for a smart terrorist to re-engineer a missile to have a different kind of guidance? Although home-brewing a radar seeker is probably a big job, the control algorithms to slew the missile are already in the missile's firmware. Hacking this to allow for input of signals from a manual remote control system should be pretty simple and no more complex than the mods posted here every day.
Doing this, the terrorists would be able to control the missile via a joystick.
OR...go cheap and easy and put a bomb on the plane, maybe in the cargo hold. Think of how easy this would really be : just go apply for a JOB as a baggage handler! A baggage handler could probably slip a nuke on a plane.
The op wasn't advocating isolationism, he/she was advocating diplomacy and multilateralism. If you'll remember, the months following 9/11 Bush stated that we would move unilaterally, regardless of what the UN thought "because they don't run this country," and that we'd pretty much do what we damn well please.
Also, nixxing the ABM Treaty and giving an emphatic middle finger to the Kyoto Treaty pretty much pissed off everyone, harming our relations further and scaring the hell out of the Union of Concerned Scientists. The US being less of a dick would help things a lot, but you don't do that by locking yourself in your room, you do it by working together with other countries towards common goals and through diplomatic channels.
if the US was telling MY country how to vote, who can go to school, and whether children are allowed to stay with their parents based on religious belief, I'd call it "behaving like a dick" too.
Not if you were one of the people who were not allowed to attend school, vote or leave the house unattended.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
at first glance i wondered why the OP placed this into the story "Sen. Barbara Baxter (D-California) is one of the supporters of the system" I had assumed it was a bit of the now typical slashdot political bias to show that a democrat can publicly be tough on national security. As i read further it seems to have backfired as the Pork label got thrown into the mix. Bless you level headed people for pointing this out. i wish we could get /. back to news about tech without the preachy leftist spin on every story.
How much for just a sticker that says "This jet protected by anti-missile system"?
Or, when the system detects a missile launch, an alert sounds, Nintendo controllers drop from the ceiling and every kid on the flight with overdeveloped thumbs gets to try to shoot it down...
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
No, this sounds like a very effective idea. In fact, if I were a terrorist I'd post a bunch of comments on slashdot about how it's a bad idea.
It's not the cost of the safety equipment. Airbags are a big expense (hundreds of dollars) but they made it into cars. The difference between a racecar and a minivan is convenience.
Call me back when you can convince the average consumer to forego every ammenity that requires a hard surface near the occupant (cup holders, dashboards, radios), then put on a full-face helmet and armored/fireproof shoes, suit and gloves before setting out on a three mile jaunt to the grocery store.
Bonus points if you have kids and can imagine trying to get two of them (simultaneously) into said gear.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
What you call "giving the populace the chance to vote", others call "giving the populace of another country the chance to die"
See Halabja poison gas attack" for an Iraqi example. I hope I don't need to give you one from Afghanistan.
and "underfunding the schools in our country to pay for a war somewhere else"
You mean our schools were adequately funded before the war?
and "causing children to die because their parents are part of the wrong religious sect". Or was the civil war in Iraq worse before we invaded?
Again, see Halabja poison gas attack" for an Iraqi example. I hope I don't need to give you one from Afghanistan.
If you need links to mass graves and the real torture that went on before both of these wars, I guess I could dig those up too.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Regardless of whether or not Bush could have done anything to prevent 9/11 I severely doubt his 9 months of foreign policy actually caused 9/11 (which was probably in the works long before).
Very true. I wasn't pinning the blame of 9-11 on Bush's foreign policy, but pointing out that 9-11 proved that the US is not immune from attack and can not simply "turtle" into our shell.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
So with this system in place, the NEXT time Al Qaeda decides to hijack an airplane and crash it into a n American landmark, the US military will have a HARDER time shooting it down? That's just idiotic. Let's build a defense system for a non-existent threat that makes the tried and true threats more effective.
Isn't it about time we voted these idiots out of office yet?
Isolationism? We still had military bases sitting in Saudi Arabia--which was the sole complaint of the terrorists. We are supporting an evil dictatorship there (essentially) and preventing the natural election processes for such a government (overthrow).
)
How is that being nice, or even isolationist?
We could also get into the massive amount of money we pour into Israel--making the entire region hate us (well, except for Israel itself which at least tolerates us and almost never attacks us http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident/
And no, it's not just GWB, it just happened on his watch--previous presidents were better, similar, or maybe worse (is that possible?)--but our policies are all very self-centered and we pay no attention to the needs of the countries we manipulate, I think that was the point of the post you replied to.
Spinal Tap: Oh forget it! Turn on the lasers!!
*Laser hits group member in the eyes*
Spinal Tap: "ow, me vision!"
Spinal Tap: "Goodnight Springton, there will be no encore!"
sfsp
The point was, baring ANY of your comments about WHY of WW2, is that THEN the US wasn't a world police, nor any other nation, and look what happened, all out World War AGAIN broke out.
Yes I was refering to the holocaust, however if you think that the holocaust STARTED with the nazi death camps such a achwitz you need to go study up, It started way before that, it just didn't get into full swing until we entered the war. For example : Early elements of the Holocaust include the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 8, 1938 which is far earlier than Dec 7,1941.
with a couple of valium, free booze, and a frisky female companion
the amortized cost to society would be MUCH lower
Speaking of the ABM treaty:
The US being less of a dick would help things a lot, but you don't do that by locking yourself in your room, you do it by working together with other countries towards common goals and through diplomatic channels.
How has that worked out with respect to N. Korea? Last I heard, they tested a nuclear weapon and a missile that could hit the west coast of the US. Do you think that the Union of Concerned Scientist have a better way to knock down a N. Korean Nuke headed for LA? do you think they really care?
I'm sorry, but if taking action to protect your citizens is being a dick, then I hope that we are blue-veigned Ron Jeremy sized dicks!
Kyoto is just a means to cripple the US economy in the eyes of many. Other countries that did not sign onto Kyoto:
# Afghanistan
# Andorra Andorra
# Angola Angola
# Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina
# Brunei Brunei
# Central African Republic Central African Republic
# Chad Chad
# Comoros Comoros
# Republic of the Congo Republic of the Congo
# Côte d'Ivoire Côte d'Ivoire
# Iraq Iraq
# Montenegro Montenegro
# Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Kitts and Nevis
# San Marino San Marino
# São Tomé and Príncipe Sao Tome and Principe
# Serbia Serbia
# Somalia Somalia
# Tajikistan Tajikistan
# East Timor Timor-Leste
# Tonga Tonga
# Turkey Turkey
# Zimbabwe Zimbabwe
# Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic Sahrawi Republic (Western Sahara)
# Palestinian National Authority Palestine
# Republic of China Republic of China (Taiwan)
# Holy See Holy See (Vatican City)
Are they all dicks too? Why are you not bashing Tonga Tonga's environmental policies? (OK China would be a better example)
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Well, one thing is for sure, those folks lighting up cigarrettes near the airport are going to be in for one heck of a smoking cessation plan if the laser targets their lighter.
Obviously your visit to Iraq didn't involve meeting and talking to too many Iraqis. Curious, was you visit before or after our insurrection?
Say bad words about my book, in cold oatmeal, or I shall sue!
Mod points in the wrong hands = bad karma
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Someone's getting pork to create a new lazer-based system, when existing chaff and flare dispensers could be retrofitted inexpensively. Chaff and flare has been proven time and time again, why make something new, unless you had a large source of money coming?
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
Because those countries aren't, by and large, contributing to the environmental problem? They have nothing to contribute one way or the other (no offense to Tonga Tonga). And what does it matter what other countries do? There's a problem, we're a leading contributor to that problem, we're a leading nation in the world, and instead we decide that our economy is more important. Ironically, countries that have agreed to better environmental practices, particularly concerning the auto industry, are stomping American corporations on efficiency, productivity, and value.
And yeah, Bush broke a treaty Clinton had established with NK when he came into office. We were giving them food/medicine and light water nuclear reactors for energy so long as NK stopped its nuclear program (which they did). Bush decided not to and set up a blockade instead, prompting them to begin their nuclear program once again.
she and other congress members probably have some incentive to push this solution as opposed to other simpler competeting solutions. or even perhaps disregarding the problem as a whole, as nonsense (which it probably is). some contractor paid them money, and therefore got the contract. thats how these things work, usually in the form of some sort of private investment or something to that effect.
frankly id prefer they kept the things in better repair, as most airline crashes are caused by faulty wiring or some such shit. but do you really think this will ever be in every commercial jet? i hope not, because it means more money for an airplane ticket, and more money in taxes likely all so these 2 partys can get richer at the expense of the people. which is what it appears our government is becoming a huge machine geared towards extorting the populus.
So, let me get this straight...
Instead of testing this on a passenger jet carrying a whole bunch of people, they opted to install it on a jet carrying, at most, 4 or 5 people and a shit-load of stuff.
I know us Americans are materialistic, but this is fucking ridiculous.
As long as our economy is protected!
Given the history of Muslim radicals, I doubt your "shower the world with hugs and kisses" strategy would do anything but make us even more vulnerable. But thanks for trying, Nancy.
Very true. I wasn't pinning the blame of 9-11 on Bush's foreign policy, but pointing out that 9-11 proved that the US is not immune from attack and can not simply "turtle" into our shell.
I fail to see how not taking aggressive international action (not just invading other countries Iraq but exerting significant pressure on their internal politics) could be described as "turtling". The US wasn't attacked because terrorists hate freedom, it was attacked because the US continually, and aggressively, involves itself in Middle Eastern politics. Honestly if the US stopped with Afghanistan then worked to make friends with the Middle East I very much believe that most, if not all of the major attacks against the west (ie train and subway bombings) would not have occurred. Now much of this aggressiveness is due to things like support for Israel which you may believe is a worthy cause, nevertheless that's why Islamic extremists are attacking the West and not countries like China.
I stole this Sig
I've seen people rhetorical questions on here like "When has this kind of attack happened before?" - I'll tell you when, except it wasn't from a "terrorist" or "guerilla fighter" using a shoulder fired AA rocket - it was a flight from New York City, refueled in Alaska, and was destined for South Korea, shot down by a USSR missile from a fighter jet back in the Cold War, who then claimed that it was a deliberate attempt by the US to probe Soviet Air Defenses...
Korean Air Flight 007
The reason I see for this system is primarily for commercial jets over hostile Mid-East countries and others in the Far-East such as China and North Korea. An incident such as this, which happened in the early 80's and could very well initiated WW3 between the US and USSR - now imagine how a country even more paranoid than even the USSR was such as North Korea, Iran, or China, would react if we even got slightly pissed they had shot down commercial jet...
You might want to look up this little thing called "colonialism". In particular, you might want to look up the Philippine-American War (note the concentration camps that were operated by the USA).
Given that the USA was refusing to accept Jewish refugees from the Nazis, I'd say the USA wasn't too concerned about what the Nazis were doing to Jewish people. A good analogy to how people in the USA felt about what the Nazis were doing to the Jews would be how people in the USA currently feel about what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians. A lot of Americans aren't aware of what's happening and many of those that are aware think it's a good thing.
Re:Spend less money on defense, and be less of a dick(Score:2, Insightful)
by ArcherB (796902) * on Thursday January 18, @02:31PM (#17668394)
Not sure how this is flamebait, it's dead on.
Saying the US behaves like a dick is flamebait. What you call "behaving like a dick" others call "giving the populace the chance to vote", "allowing women to go to school" and "preventing children from being killed or starved to death because their parents are part of the wrong religious sect".
50% Insightful
50% Overrated
Total Score: 2
Not sure how this is "overrated," it's dead on.
And kudos to the Fedex Ad Exec who finagled this product placement. Man, this is going to be the basis for like a whole year long advertising campaign I am sure against those UPS folks.
I thought that UPS plane was a missile ... whoops.
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -- "Step Right Up", Tom Waits
Well, all the missile would need is to fire an anti-antimissile-missile.
(yes, I know this proposed system is a laser thingie -- a missile would first need an antimissile missile to fire its anti antimissile missile at and a laser would only be good at popping a massive Jiffy-pop).
>The sky is falling. Watch out for terrorists in Fargo,
... I forget which position the techie hip are
>North Dakota. Attack them before they attack us.
Wait, which one is it again? Terrorists are all powerful
and unstoppable so all our countermeasures are useless,
or, as you say now, they don't exist (despite what we
imagined happened in 2001)?
I must not have got my latest Slashdot position fax
today
supposed to have.
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0212/pt_index.h
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=126&a
In case you'd like to brush up on some of our other activities in the area before the recent wars, here's another good place to start.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral
Say bad words about my book, in cold oatmeal, or I shall sue!
Is this good common sense or the costly future of a society hobbled by fear of terrorism?
The evil doers are trying to force us to spend ourselves into bankruptcy in an effort to protect ourselves from them. They can do horrible things at very little relative cost. We are supposed to pay enormous amounts to protect ourselves because we are civilized and don't do random horrible things.
Maybe we should simply make a "hell" list: if this thing is done to us then we will do this horrible thing to this place and these people; no exceptions, no mercy. Then if a group of murders decide to shoot down a commercial airliner at landing with a missile, they will know that a city (but not which city) will be bombed in such a way to result in tens of thousands of causalities within a few days.
Then we could say that the airplane murders are directly responsible for not only the murders of the airline passengers, but also for the tens of thousands that died horrible deaths.
After a few times the message will be clear. Do some cheap horrible thing, and be responsible for some huge horror afterwards. Nobody's god could be used to justify that.
Perhaps we should stop being so civilized when we're dealing with monsters who have convinced themselves that their god wants them to die.
>Terrorists will just attack somewhere else.
...
Um, have you noticed that they haven't?
Successfully, I mean? Despite dire Slashdot
warnings about their invincibility since 2001?
Let me guess, it's because they haven't really
been trying. We've just misunderstood them and
they're really nice guys after all
>Here's a wild thought: how about just ignoring them?
/. seems to notice,
And you seriously think that we wouldn't have had more
successful attacks (which, nobody at
we *haven't*) with that approach?
Don't bother, I dug a few up for you. A tad more recent event than your link I'm sorry to say. An incident that came to be known as "The Turkey Shoot" or also "The Highway of Death".t mlr ticle=14772&archive=true
/
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0212/pt_index.h
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=126&a
In case you'd like to brush up on some of our other activities in the area before the recent wars, here's another good place to start.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral
Strange, I didn't see any civilians, much less women and children in those pictures. I was thinking more along the lines of these pictures.
Your comparing the deaths of fleeing uniformed Iraqi soldiers to mass graves filled with civilians is like comparing a German machine gunner on D-Day to Anne Frank!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
A reasonable calculation of the odds of being killed by any form of terrorism yields something in the order of the same odds of being struck by a meteor. Only a very small subset of that would be dying because your plane was hit by a surface to air missle. Spending mulit billions for this is utterly ridiculous.
>Foreign relations has really taken a turn or the worse in the last 6 years or so.
What had bin Laden's gang cheesed off was the US troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, something which went back to 1990. And which might not even have been arrogant, except for the complete failure to realize how humiliating it was to the Saudi people to be reminded that they were incapable of defending themselves.
Since there are people in the Middle East who are still stoked on outrage over the outcome of World War I, it would take a very long stint of being less arrogant before the violence slowed down.
I had an interesting discussion with one of the design engineers for the antiballistic missile systems Raytheon's been working on for a decade or so. His contention was that if the system ever did finally work, it was a trivial fix for the opposing side to mask their targets, so it was a stupid project to begin with. His suggestion for a workaround for the masking system was to have a secondary targetting system that would track the masking system.
I can't help but think of the same thing with this. Plane takes off. Nogoodnik launches missile with IR sensors, targetting an engine (one assumes.) Plane notices exhaust signature, turns on big IR spotlight/laser to blind the IR sensor. Clever missile sees IR sensor saturate, and since it has two fins in a + shape over the sensor, it can then determine by comparing the gain on the four quadrants of the sensor, exactly what direction the incoming IR spotlight/laser is from the missile. (I built one of these, only it wasn't a missile: it just tracked flashlights or the sun. It used about $3 of audio amplifiers and a couple of motors, and four solar cells.) Now, the missile has a very strong signal leading it directly where it wants to go. If the plane turns it off, the missile is back to going after an engine.
So, by installing something that's incredibly expensive, to fight off a nonexistent danger, we might be making it easier for a clever missile by giving it a much bigger signal to track.
It's likely that the people who designed this have already thought about it a lot, but given my experience talking to the ABM engineer, I bet what they've decided is "oh, well, those don't exist right NOW, so let's release this and kludge something else together when it DOES exist."
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
No you can't. You'd probably destroy the engine and force the plane to circle around and land immediately (no airline that I know of would fly a route with only one engine, and most airliners only have two), but unless the pilots are totally incompetent everyone on the plane would be fine. FOD is something aircraft designers and pilots know about and plan for; intentionally causing a relatively commonplace event (compared with other engine failure causes, anyway) to happen isn't going to shut down the whole air traffic system.
Watch the video of a similar laser system in action here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt2qaTfT8QY
it was also developed by Northrop Grumman
then they talk about the laser here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5n-e_NITHY
Guardian commercial airline anti-missile system.
>most of the security efforts I've seen in place do comparatively little to make anyone safer
If the government had public safety as a goal, then it wouldn't have dropped security standards for chemical plants. If there's a manmade Bhopal in New Jersey, it's because the government chose not to prevent it.
If the government had public safety as a goal, there would have been screening for port personnel sometime in the five years after 9/11, and ABC news wouldn't have been able to put a steel cylinder with a uranium slug in it into a cargo container shipped from an area of al-Qaeda activity. Twice.
If the government had public safety as a goal, the intolerably dangerous liquids confiscated from passengers wouldn't have been poured into barrels in the middle of crowds.
Remember, the next time another chunk of Constitution is violated and the government says it's to protect public safety, that public safety is not the government's goal.
I've seen quite a lot of arguments defending the United States. Some of them were good ones. Some were not.
Never, ever before have I seen someone attack the Kyoto Treaty by pointing out the nonsignatory status of the Vatican, which is about a kilometer wide and largely consists of St. Peter's Basilica and the Apostolic Palace.
Please do any kind of fact-checking before presenting your facts.
Hi,
Welcome to reality. I can see this is your first time here so let me give you a little primer on how things run here. Contrary to your fantasyland where all foreign relations deal with countries that act in a somewhat rational manner, in reality we have to deal with threat vectors from non-government organizations like Al-Qaeda and HAMAS and Hezbollah. These organizations do not act with the best interests of a group of people in mind. No they act with the best interests of their prophet Mohamed. Their goal is not to get other countries out of it's business. They by definition have no business existing anywhere on Earth. They only have two idealogical goals in mind. They want to turn every world government to the control of Islamic Courts that practice Sharia law. In addition they want to convert every single person on earth to Islam. They will use any and all means to achieve these goals. This includes spreading their religion by the proverbial sword (READ:9/11).
Not all Muslims are like this and this represents a radical view of the Koran. However my point is that in reality no amount of being nice will make this specific group of people want to harm us less. Sorry if that is shocking to you since you've spent so much time in fantasyland.
thats y they spotted a red mark on the pilot's butt... it can even neutralize a fart i guess...!!!
>taking no countermeasures against some people who want to kill us?
Straw man.
>some kind of reasoned resistance to this tendency must be offered.
So why isn't the government suggesting something reasoned, like hiring Arabic speakers to do intelligence work, instead of spending titanic amounts of money on barely-real threats?
If one of my clients wanted to spend that kind of money on that screwed-up a threat assessment I would urge them to redirect the expenditure.
what about the massive amount of money we pour into Egypt?
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Read the whole ... paragraph.
This will be adopted BECAUSE it is expensive.
We've wasted billions trying to stop people with box cutters.
We could have helped create opportunities for poor, disenfranchised people for a lot less, and done more to reduce the number of people who want to harm us.
Having said that, I still think it is a great idea. But that is because of how many shoulder-fired rockets the NeoCon military companies have sold. 99% of these are from US or Carlysle companies.
Then of course, they will sell a premium Laser reflective missile and then urge congress to upgrade the anti-missile laser.
Assume that war is a racket, and force them to prove otherwise.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
They are going to make sure that you can't shoot down jets that get hijacked and used to attack public places.
Its a costly future of a society hobbled by fear of terrorism, until a jumbo jet is shot down, then it'll be good common sense.
"The future can only affect the present if there is room to write its influence off as a mistake." - Yakir Aharonov
To actually emit a beam that the missiles can use (after a software upgrade) to actually walk right into the aircraft.
This will improve accuracy by from about 30% to at least 60%
Thanks!
Agree except for two nits:
No they act with [*] the best interests of their prophet Mohamed.
Insert "their perception of" at the [*]
They want to turn every world government to the control of Islamic Courts that practice [*] Sharia law.
Insert "their version of" at the [*].
Before going after the West the Wahabis/Salafis had plenty of practice on Muslims of other segments of Islam. Ask the Sufis if you want some real horror stories.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I was kind of hoping for a controlled experiment: you have a group of FedEx planes with the system and a control group of FedEx planes without the system. Then you hand out SAMs at the street corner and tell everyone to fire them with wild abandon at FedEx planes.
If you handed out paintball SAMs that would actually work. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The whole point of asymmetric warfare is to get maximum damage from minimum input. Terrorism is one tool:
The "terrorism" algorithm:
1) Make a (perhaps) small, scary, hit.
2) Let the target do lots of damage by its reaction.
3) When the reaction slows, stir it up again by making a credible threat. Go to 2).
4) When 3 stops working, stir it up again by making another hit. Go to 2).
See _Wasp_ by Eric Frank Russel for a fictionalized version - with explanations - of such a program. (It was written (but not deployed) for use against Japan by Britain in WW II, then recycled as a Science Fiction novel after the war. Russel and Ian Fleming were in the British "Department of Dirty Tricks".)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
But it still doesn't do anything for the most vulnerable flightpath of an aircraft on takeoff or landing approach. In which case an aircraft is also likely to be vulnerable to wire guided or non-guided ballistic weapons. If some airport feels under threat, a better approach would be to extend its security perimeter or advise aircraft to take a significantly steeper flight approach.
Although the equipment could be considered nice insurance, it's probably more likely an aircraft would encounter trouble from some pot-shot with an RPG or heavy caliber small arms as they're a lot more common and cheaper than heat seeking missiles.
the people firing missiles dont give a shit you moron. they dont care about things like foreign policy all they care is if you are a muslim or not. if you arent a muslim they want you to be one of their sect.
How do you propose cuddling osama will make him stop trying to kill infidels. it seems someone has been drinking too much of the happy go lucky coolaid
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
I actually found out maybe a more useful measure of the missile damage, which (anecdotally) appears to be a blast with destructive capacity of about half an f-14. F-14's are 62'X38', so if we approximate the destructive area of the explosion as a sphere with diameter = 20', you're not far off on its (somewhat) limited capacity for damage. On the other hand, as we've seen with the shoebomber et al (and I think this is really the more important point) actually destroying your intended target is not a requirement for terroist mission success. Even if a hit plane managed to land (which gets pretty unlikely unless the damage is constrained to one engine - think catastrophic failure of a wing, or a gaping hole in the side of the craft), it would be all of 24 hour cable news for days, and if it happened in mainland US, I can promise you there would be terrible consequences for the airline industry and the federal budget. Of course the joke is, we would ultimately be the ones to punish ourselves the most by throwing away billions to (maybe) save another plane and 100 lives rather than perhaps thousands by spending that money on medicine or car safety (for instance).
Relax I just want some peanuts.
Afghanistan-During the time of the drafting, nobody but Pakistan recognized Afghanistan's government, so they were not invited.
Andorra-They are really really small, with no industry whatsoever, I don't see why they would join.
Angola - They have had a civil war to worry about for the last 30 years.
Bosnia and Herzegovina- They were still occupied by NATO during the drafting.
Brunei-They are a large oil exporter, no surprises here.
Central African Republic- Civil War
Chad - Civil War
Comoros - Really, Really, small.
São Tomé and Príncipe Sao- Really small islands off the coast of Africa.
Montenegro - Did not even exist until 7 months ago
Saint Kitts and Nevis - Really really small tourist based island economy.
San Marino- They are one fucking city! They are not even in the UN!
Côte d'Ivoire - Really bad civil war
Republic of the Congo- Civil War
Iraq - Sanctions would have conflicted with most of the Kyoto Protocol(The parts on carbon trading)
Serbia- Did not exist until 7 months ago
Somalia- Has not had a central government since 1991
East Timor Timor-Leste - They control about half of a tiny island, was part of Indonesia at the time of drafting.
Zimbabwe - has a evil dictator too busy destroying his citizen's homes to bother with it.
Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic Sahrawi Republic - They are claimed by Morocco, not recognized by... anyone.
Palestinian National Authority - Not a country, Not recognized by... anyone.
Republic of China(Taiwan) - Would not have been allowed to join even if they wanted to. Not diplomatically recognized by UN or the developed world.
Holy See - Granted Observer Status in the UN, about the same status as the Knights Hospitallers
I think governments have the whole idea of "protecting" passengers as the ethos of ensuring airtravel wrong. I think reasonable meausres should take care of most problems: improve perimeter security so no one can sneak in, fire guns or anything at planes from a reasonable distance, fix the internal secruity of the airport: the baggage handlers, people behind the scenes and security screening on the planes are really whats needed most for security.
Here's why I think airline travel is down (or at least why I don't/hate to fly):
1) Luggage. I need it. Don't make it go missing.
2) Crappy food.
3) Endless delays. If you're leaving at 3:00 and you want me to show up at 1:00 for "screening" me, why can't you leave at 3:00? I sometimes leave 2 or 3 hours later.
4) The bigger one I'm "afraid" of but I know its prob out of proportion: plane safety/maintenance. If I'm supposed to be so afraid of airline terrorism, shouldn't I be eqaully concerned of electrical fire, hailrine stress cracks in the metal finally giving in mid-flight, or the mechanic not tightening a few bolts correctly?
5) No sex anywhere on the plane.
Given that my odds of being killed by a terrorist are several magnitudes less than my odds of being killed driving my car, which I do everyday, I think I can live with the risk.
I'll take freedom, please. Do the words of Patrick Henry mean nothing to you? What is wrong with this country?
Maybe it is not piratical for USA airlines. A few airlines don't allow El-Al planes because they fear the flairs might start a fire or something. While that isn't a major problem for El-Al. It could be a major problem for USA airlines. However, this solution solves the problem in 90% of cases and should be good enough for now.
Actually, Elvis has an alibi. He was on Amazon at the time.
So since it's dimwitted to operate on the basis of evidence, are you saying its intelligent to buy what the state tells you?
Actually, isolationism was Bush's plan for about the 9 months ranging from January-Sept 11, 2001
Really, does anyone recall the US stopping all "foreign aid" in 2001?
The US wasn't attacked because terrorists hate freedom, it was attacked because the US continually, and aggressively, involves itself in Middle Eastern politics. Honestly if the US stopped with Afghanistan then worked to make friends with the Middle East I very much believe that most, if not all of the major attacks against the west (ie train and subway bombings) would not have occurred. Now much of this aggressiveness is due to things like support for Israel which you may believe is a worthy cause,
In order to "make friends" the US would need to adopt an at least neutral stand on Israel (e.g. "no more money and weapons, you're on your own"). This is unlikely to happen when you have a US Congress which is more pro-Zionist than The Kenesset.
You might want to look up this little thing called "colonialism". In particular, you might want to look up the Philippine-American War (note the concentration camps that were operated by the USA).
Following on from the Spanish-American War, in which the US occupied (and continues to occupy) an entirely neutral country.
The idea of an isolationist US appears to be nothing more than a myth. Maybe you'd need to go back to the early 19th century to find an example of this.
I'll take freedom, please. Do the words of Patrick Henry mean nothing to you? What is wrong with this country?
How is having an anti-missile system on a jet an affront to your freedom???
Are you also opposed to the requirement for an oxygen mask system and seat-cushion/flotation-devices on commercial aircraft?
These things are expensive, but they don't impinge on your human rights in any meaningful way. Unlike, say, the 'fasten seat belt' and 'no smoking' lights...
Warheads of this nature tend to be fragmentation (as opposed to an anti-armour shaped charge) so the actual effects are a semi-spherical spray of metal fragments, coupled to the blast shockwave from the detonation itself.
If this goes off inside a tailpipe, you get catastrophic engine failure, as the blast is confined in a small space.
If it goes off *near* the aircraft, the blast effects are much less serious (the blast is unconfined, and the aircraft is moving away from it at 600 MPH) and the primary effects are from the flying fragments.
The fragmentation density will be higher near the centre of the blast, steadily reducing as the volume of the blast sphere increases.
The aircraft skin and structure, being lightweight aluminum, offers little to no resistance to these fragments, and it can be expected that they will rip right through the aircraft. They will punch holes in the skin, sever hydraulic lines, cut structural members, etc.
But the *actual effect* on the aircraft itself is highly dependent on the position of the blast relative to the aircraft. It might rip a big hole in it (blast close to the aircraft) or it might puncture the aircraft with thousands of tiny holes (blast far from the aircraft)
A big hole that tears off a large chunk of a flap - or the space between a flap and an aerielon - may have little to no effect. But a little hole that jams a rudder full lock might make the aircraft impossible to fly at all.
But where military aircraft are designed to be as compact as possible (making them systems-dense) commercial jet liners are designed for maximum cargo capacity. There are large spaces in the aircraft that are completely fight-inessential.
A missile that struck the baggage hold quite possibly would have no effect on the aircraft's flight whatsoever - and would at least give Air Canada a decent reason for losing my luggage for once.
By way of example, look at some of the pictures of battle-damaged B17s and Lancasters that remained flying despite (in some cases) thousands of punctures.
Note, however, that we're talking about shoulder-fired missiles. If you can get ahold of a proper SAM, the warhead becomes very much larger and poses a grave danger to any aircraft - but we're talking about flying telephone poles in that case.
I agree that a missile that struck, but did not down, a commercial airliner would have a chilling effect on the airline industry and so might constitute a "successful" attack - but I contend that even that has to spring from a chain of highly unlikely events. I might also contend that a missile shot down by one of these PDS might produce the same chilling effect - and so the system is really for naught.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
OK. I'll buy that people won't get blinded by this.
But the most likely place for such an attack is precisely at landing and take off and not at 30,000 feet.
SOOOOOO, the missile can't find the target plane. GOOD.
What if it hits the air terminal with all the waiting passengers? NOT SO GOOD.
And what about radar guided or wire/optical guided missles?
I'm glad to see an improvement, just not so sure that this is a comprehensive solution.
If the amount of terrorism is a measure of how our foreign relations are, then they have become much better in the last 6 years. 9/11 was the culmination of a decade of increasing terrorist attacks on the US. Terrorists may or may not be state sponsored - and foreign relations are relations with states.
As for being less of a dick - well - probably a better word might be duck - as in dead duck. Or perhaps, ostrich might be a more suitable bird for your prescription.
It's a changing world out there. Back in the cold war era, our enemies only wanted to rape, pillage and enslave us after taking all we had. That was the good old days. Note that there are plenty of nostalgia types out there trying to bring it about again - that is the rape pillage and enslave part not the cold war which was the resistance to that happening. Note too that this was the wet dreams of a small handful of rulers and not the desires of the populace already under their boot heels. Our current enemies aren't so nice and are not the same. They'd rather see us dead than alive and this is a bottom up mentality shared by all involved with radical islam. In fact, many of these radical islam types are eager to die just for the priveledge of killing you and your family. In this case, the leadership has harnessed and perverted a religion (a religion easily perverted) to achieve this goal (heck - who wants to go die for brezhnev and the polit bureau).
Until terrorists are dealt with more brutally than terrorists themselves act, they're going to be around. Then there's the private sector - criminals who might also be enticed into the act.
It's an unfortunate waste of resources to deal with terrorism and it can easily lead to serious losses of freedom. The big gov. type
California has a new Senator? Since the election? I don't think so.
C'mon,
Exercise the least modicum of political awareness!
Or editing...
Nitwits.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Say bad words about my book, in cold oatmeal, or I shall sue!
As for the Saudis, they are not incapable, they are unwilling because for the last 50 years, they have paid others to do everything for them. It's a wonder they go to the bathroom by themselves. It's easier when you have slaves to do it for you.
Where do I start given such good ammunition?
"you sir are an idiot."
What a highly intelligent way to start a post. I don't like what you said so you don't what you are talking about, brilliant! I'm sure that kind of attitude will help you in life. I however will reframe from such name calling.
"Sure we can stick our head in the sand just like we did in WWII and let the slaughter of millions of people occur and only get into matters when they are their absolute worst and suffer more casualties than we currently are in our afgani/iraq war."
Excuse me but I am missing something here. Why on earth are you comparing WWII to the Afghan/Iraqi war? First I would say were absolutely justified in going to Afghanistan considering we KNEW Al Quaeda was stationed there. The mission there does need to be accomplished and the rest of Al Quaeda there and every where dismantled. Iraq on the other hand was doing nothing. Did I like Saddam no I also did not agree with any of his actions. He was a disgusting dictator who killed his own people on a whim. That doesn't change the fact he had nothing to do with 911 and at the time we went in was pretty quiet within his own borders. He didn't even have any nukes or biological weapons so why are we there? If his people wanted him gone they could have gotten to together and overthrown him. The same thing we did when we got sick of England. The same thing the French did when they got sick of being persecuted by their kings. The same as countless others did through out history. You can't force freedom on someone they have to win it for themselves.
"Like in the good sheppard the statement "we keep the wars small ones" is a true fact. If we let nation states have at it all willy nilly, The jews would be exterminated and their homeland destroyed (though they did a pretty good fending off in the 7 day war back in the day) which you would have help contribute to as the mid-east state are the most powerful in the region with all their oil monies(and don't think that if you DON'T drive a car you aren't using oil, There are millions of thing that use oil/made from oil/or powered from oil like the generator at the power plant your getting your electricy from right now)"
We have no right to keep wars small if we are not asked for help by the people actually fighting. The holocaust was horrible but has no relation to today. That was then and everything was different comparing the 2 is apples and oranges. I do very little to contribute to oil consumption. I don't drive a car. I use very little juice at home; my bill is below 50 bucks a month. Thanks to energy saving bulbs and being very conscience of turning things off and only turning them on when needed. I also strive to use only products that are made of renewable sources and manufactured in eco friendly ways. Once I buy a home I will be installing solar cells and looking at making my own hydrogen. I do everything I can to use as little oil as possible.
"This world could do a lot worse if the US wern't playing global cop. Sorry to inconvience you while you sip on your caffinate beverage of choice but that freedom you so righty feel free to flaunt would be be repressed/squelched if we weren't so villigiant."
Actually I think we would be a lot better off. Our involvement has created some of the worst tyrants that we are now dealing with. We put Saddam in power that is a fact not speculation. We put Castro in power another fact. It seems the US playing world cop hasn't helped much. What good did we do in Korea? After a long bloody war that we lost North Korea is now producing nuclear weapons that possibly have enough range to reach our soil. So what good have we done by playing cop? I also don't drink any caffeine besides the occasional cup of tea. That stuff can kill you.
WTF?
"I find it sad that mass graves filled with mothers and their children is filed under "not our problem". Would you say the same of tsunami or earthquake victims overseas? How about at a state level? Was Texas wrong for taking hundreds of thousands Katrina evacuees? After all, it was Louisiana's problem, not Texas'."
I find it sad we have thousands of people in the US that live on the street despite having jobs. The government refuses to help because they make too much money. Yet if they quit they could get welfare. There are problems all over and we could spend an eternity trying to fix them all. I say we fix the ones here and our solutions would help a lot more. If we found a good way to help the poor it would apply to the poor in other countries too. We could take our knowledge to solve things instead of our guns. it is too bad that horrible things happen but I stand by protecting our own first. I have a great hypothetical question a professor once asked me. You are in a position where you can save either your loved one or a bus load of people you don't know which would you pick? It's a hard choice but most people would pick a loved one. Protecting our own is what George Washington wanted us to do and I think he was right.
Comparing a natural disaster to a highly debatable war in my humble opinion is idiotic at the least. I said take care of our own that means if you live on property controlled by the US you are our own. So why would Texas not tak in people from Louisiana? I also went and helped with my hands and my dollars. I started a campaign for food, clothes, etc at my office and we took 2 truck loads of stuff to Katrina victims. I still donate to charities that are helping down there since our government still has not cleaned up whole neighborhoods. I practice what I preach, do you?
I never said not to help people in trouble I said don't play world cop. A natural disaster is something we should get involved in and I don't think we do enough to help in those areas. Would you say you were playing cop if you pulled over and helped someone change a flat tire? It's called being a Good Samaritan and has nothing to do with policing anything.
WTF?
So since it's dimwitted to operate on the basis of evidence, are you saying its intelligent to buy what the state tells you?
Never said that, but there you go jumping to conspiracy again. I will say that your 'evidence' certainly appeals to those that can't think logically.
Nothing is more lucrative to a fascist regime than fear. It all about cash. It really doesn't matter is the technology/idea is sensible or feasible as long as its lucrative for the contractor and his political "buddy".
A while back a USA leader gave a speech during a time of crisis:
"So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days."
The USA has not had such a leader in a Very Long Time.
But fundamentally, the PEOPLE must force the politicians to do the right thing. Unfortunately, this is longer the case in the USA.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/11/evacuation/index. html
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