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?

Comments

Anyone know

[solevita]

When the last time this system would have saved an aircraft?

Re:Anyone know

[Lord_Slepnir]

They do, they're just harder to track than radar guided missiles. It's basically a "Interesting, there's now a small object traveling at Mach 8 right for me" kind of system.

Re:Anyone know

[kharchenko]

It doesn't "fire" anything - it illuminates the missile warhead with high-intensity infra-red beams to oversaturate its sensors, so that the missile looses tracking. So the worst thing that could happen is that you could illuminate some schmucks' face, but (according to TFA) the laser intensity is not high enough to cause eye damage.

Just install them in airports

[Monkeyman334]

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.

Aren't countermeasures cheaper?

[KDR_11k]

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.

Re:Aren't countermeasures cheaper?

[Harmonious Botch]

Apparently the secret service thinks so too. Both Air Force One and Marine One ( Marine One is the chopper that the prez uses ) are equipped with flare and chaff countermeasures. And neither has been seen sporting a belly bulge like TFA shows to mount lasers.

Made in California?

[spike2131]

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?

Why not install this at airports?

[giafly]

designed to defend against shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles during takeoffs and landings.

Wouldn't it be better and cheaper to base this on the ground at the small proportion of airports used by large passenger aircraft, not on the aircraft themselves? That way size and weight wouldn't matter, it would be in a less hostile environment, and maintenance would be easer?

And for trains I presume?

[cliffski]

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.

Re:Who Cares If It Makes You Feel Better?

[nido]

It just has to be something that counteracts the fear that some Americans live with.

The simple fact of the matter is that there is nothing to be afraid of, and Americans are only afraid because of the corporate media propaganda machine.

A False Sense of Insecurity? [pdf] [google cache]:

Throughout all this, there is a perspective on terrorism that has been very substantially ignored. It can be summarized, somewhat crudely, as follows:

• Assessed in broad but reasonable context, terrorism generally does not do much damage.
• The costs of terrorism very often are the result of hasty, ill-considered, and overwrought reactions.

A sensible policy approach to the problem might be to stress that any damage terrorists are able to accomplish likely can be
absorbed, however grimly. While judicious protective and policing measures are sensible,extensive fear and anxiety over what may at base prove to be a rather limited problem are mis-placed, unjustified, and counterproductive

I don't know that I've yet seen an apology from a newspaper's editors for being taken by last summer's "liquid bomb plot". They can't, of course, because they're selected by the paper's corporate owners to advance the "consolidation of power" agenda. If the media barons were to suddenly say "sorry, there never really was anything to fear, and 9/11 might have actually been a 'false flag' operation..." Well - however would George Bush justify setting up permanent bases in Iraq, and his plans to attack Iran and Syria?