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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?
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
Off-topic, but does anyone know where I can get a lithium refill around here?
How can I get one for my cubicle? A few mods, and it could be my APHBM. If you can't figure out what the acronym is, you probably are a PHB.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Jerry? Is that you?
How's the popcorn?
"Ooowww my eye!!"
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. Explain that they are big flying pinatas. At the end of a month or when everyone is out of SAMs you tally up how many FedEx planes are left and see which group they were in. Easy.
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
Are you trying to be funny? Were you attempting to use your humor skills on Slashdot readers? Are you an idiot? Do you realize that Slashdot readers cannot recognise humor without a humor detection program? Oh, you're going to suffer. You think you're so smart, but you will SUFFER for your attempt at humor. We don't WANT it here. Humor is spam to us. We don't want anything funny here. Take your funny and go home. GET OUT . LEave with your funny comments now. Don't come back until you can be serious like me.
(This has been a public service announcement to let you know what the dumbass who moderated you as a troll was thinking.)
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Thank god that FedEx is finally protected against those UPS militia death-squads.
The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent those of anybody at all. Deal with it.
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.
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
Sure, lets do that right after we adopt the same strategy for food, autos, toys, and workplace safety since we know that markets are perfect, people are rational and make sound judgements about risk, and the interplay between people and markets can be relied upon to produce the best outcome in almost all cases. That explains why MS Windows runs well over 90% of all PCs.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Dude! You're giving the terrorists too many ideas. I'm sure they have never thought of those, and going onto a public forum and posting these ideas is treason! You're a terrorist. Now we can arrest you, detain you without a hearing, and never give you a trial.
You terrorists make me sick.
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
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.
This is where the slashdot moderation system breaks down.
Thats because they've rerouted power to the anti-missle defense system.
and the lameness filter killed my ascii missle. That system sure works.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
- Knock-knock
- Who is there?
- CIA.
- CIA who?
- See I a terrorist with too many ideas for attacks!
So say we all
Numbers that are completely meaningless. If these billions of dollars ultimately save less than 100 lives, are they still worth it? What about when you consider how those billions of dollars could be used to save far more lives in other areas of research? For $300 per flight we could probably train monkeys with BB guns to patrol the airport runways looking for terrorists with shoulder launched missiles. Would that be a worthwhile investment?
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
I'd pay an extra $2 per flight to see armed monkeys. Not that it has anything to do with terrorism, I just like the idea of armed monkeys.
Man, you really need that seminar!