Airborne Laser Successfully Tracks, Hits Missile

fructose writes "The Airborne Laser managed to acquire, track, and illuminate a test missile a few days ago. According to the press release, the Boeing plane 'used its infrared sensors to find a target missile launched from San Nicolas Island, Calif ... issued engagement and target location instructions to the beam control/fire control system ... fired its two solid-state illuminator lasers to track the target and ... fired a surrogate high-energy laser at the target, simulating a missile intercept.' The sensors on board the missile confirmed the 'hit.' Michael Rinn, ABL's program director, said, 'Pointing and focusing a laser beam on a target that is rocketing skyward at thousands of miles per hour is no easy task, but the Airborne Laser is uniquely able to do the job.' The next steps will be to test the high-power laser at full strength in flight and do a complete system test later this year. Its success or failure will determine whether the project gets canceled. Looks like the Real Genius fans out there are finally living the dream."

Comments

Just what we need

[grolaw]

Phasers - to attack rockets - if it is not raining...or foggy, or dusty.

Re:Just what we need

[ductonius]

Which is generally isn't above the clouds in the stratosphere.

Re:Just what we need

[jamesborr]

It is frequently not any of the above at higher altitudes where this weapon is designed to operate -- it is on a plane after all...

Re:Just what we need

[GreenTech11]

Or slightly windy. Well, that leaves us about 3 days a year. However, I think these guys have probably worked out a way to get around all that, I certainly hope they have. A high powered laser would be able to burn through most of that stuff, so I doubt it's a problem.

Re:Just what we need

[grolaw]

But the aircraft has to be clear of clouds, sand and fog....

What prevents the target from cloaking itself in LOX fog, by venting ?

Re:Just what we need

[grolaw]

And, that aircraft has to be ready and at altitude.... Are we going back to routine sorties similar to the old B-52 runs? How much will that cost??

Re:Just what we need

[grolaw]

Refraction, reflection, dispersion and absorption. Those are the problems.

How many Joules does it take to burn through silica dust? How reflective is LOX? What if the inbound craft is covered with retro-reflecting beads (like stop signs)?

Re:Just what we need

[ductonius]

Nothing, in theory. Just like there's nothing in theory that says the rocket can't have a zillion other systems designed to defeat this laser. In practice, however, the answer is weight. A rocket's weight is around 80-90% fuel with payload being from 2-5%. A small increase in payload weight leads to a great increase in the rocket's size and fuel load.

A rocket designer ends up having to make a series of compromises between the strength of the rocket itself, the payload and the range. If you want to protect your rocket you're going to have to give up payload, give up range or increase rocket size, all of which make them less useful as weapons.

Re:Just what we need

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently attended a workshop in which the speaker described terrorists putting industrial lasers in a U-Haul with a telescope as a focuser and parked next to an airport. Believe it or not, this makes a usable weapon within reach with modern industrial lasers. No missile trail. Food for thought. How to defend?

Re:Just what we need

[grolaw]

My brother-in-law analyzed satellite throw weights for Sandia Labs. A reflective or camo paint job is a trivial addition to the mass of the rocket. OTOH, a perfectly polished surface might well serve the same end at no addition to the mass.

Re:Just what we need

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

That may be true, but you've got to see the limitations in that too. There are no paints that are reflective over a large amount of the light spectrum, so you gotta pick your poison. A normal mirror, for example, would not hold up against an infrared laser.

Furthermore doing that requires knowing the exact frequency of the airborne laser, something which is presumably not public knowledge. It is these days relatively trivial to change the frequency of the laser, e.g. doubling or halving it. Presumably such tricks could be built in and change the frequency "on the fly".

So yes, given enough information you could probably protect the rocket from a single specific laser, for a few years until the next generation of lasers. But it'd require spies to get the information to start with, it would be dependant on not having spies in your own organisation and you'd need a few doctors in chemistry to actually make the paint (since that paint needs to do more than just reflect laser pulses, it must hold up in mutli-mach flight and not heat up, it must not peel off with a constant explosion just below it, it must stand up to both the freezing temperatures in clouds and the heat the rocket will develop during descent. It must even be able to deal with ice formation on the rocket itself, so it's not like you can buy this in your local toy store).

Re:Just what we need

[inwo42]

But we can make enormous Swiss cheese!

Re:Just what we need

[ductonius]

Paint still adds weight. Remember the Space Shuttle's external fuel tank used to be white, but they stopped painting it because they could save weight.

Reflective coatings have very little utility against high powered lasers. The best mirrors we have only reflect 90% of the light that hits them (these are pampered telescope mirrors mind you) and 10% of 1mw is still 100,000 watts. Any polishing will be distorted and any reflective coating will be baked off in a very short period of time. Such coatings might give the rocket an extra second or two, but no more, and even less if more powerful lasers are used.

Re:Just what we need

[RobertLTux]

givem a few years and i bet UAVs will have these (and if you assume a 1 way trip you just doubled the range/time on station)

Re:Just what we need

[scotch]

90%? citation needed. Dialectric layered mirrors can achieve better than 99% reflectivity for select wavelengths. These types of coatings are probably heavier than polishing the rocket body (or even a simple paint). This whole line of counter-counter measure would depend on the secrecy of the ABL frequency and its ability to change it.

Even if you are right, if it's simple to increase the reflectivity of the rocket by an order of magnitude, then you make the ABL's job an order of magnitude harder. This would be huge of course, increasing the requirements of the ABL to compensate for atmospheric distortion, increasing the time the ABL has to stay trained on a specific spot, probably affecting effective range, and ultimately reducing the overall cost effectiveness of the ABL. All this for a simple polishing of the rocket.

Re:Just what we need

[kdemetter]

With shields , offcourse :-) .

Re:Just what we need

[Anonymous Coward]

Food for thought? Sounds more like paranoid skitzo rantings

Seriously though, if you shine a laser at a plane especially by the airport the police would be on you within seconds.

Anyways, there are videos out there already on Youtube and such of idiots shining lasers at passing jets overhead, sure enough they are all caught eventually.

My favorite one was of the police helicopter flying high out of sigh/sound and the idiot shines his light at a small plane, sure enough you could see where the laser was coming from several miles away and it wasn't even pointed at them.

You don't really defend against something like this because the chances of it actually working and the pilots can always look down to fly from their instrument panel, these guys have thousands of hours of flight and could takeoff/land the plane blindfolded.

Re:Just what we need

[geckipede]

Changing the output frequency of a giant high energy chemical laser is extremely tricky. Frequency doubling demands a very pure coherence to get good efficiency, and even then "good" in this context means above 50% power converted to the new frequency. With a weapons laser, you're going to have a hell of a cooling problem in the converting medium. Then again, if reflective anti-laser coatings become common, it shouldn't be too difficult to add on a free electron laser system to burn off the mirror layer before the main beam strikes. A free electron laser can change operating frequencies trivially, just by adjusting its internal magnetic field.

Re:Just what we need

[Anonymous Coward]

The laser delivers over 1 megawatt for 5 seconds. A just-cleaned telescope mirror might live through this but anything just exposed to a rocket launch won't.

Re:Just what we need

[john.r.strohm]

Well, in theory, nothing.

Except for the HIGHLY nontrivial cost of designing, testing, fabricating, and deploying a whole new missile.

Except for the HIGHLY nontrivial cost of either building a whole new set of launch silos, or trashing out the existing missiles it replaced, because those existing missiles are still vulnerable to the Airborne Laser.

This is PRECISELY the continuing technological obsolescence and financial ruin scenario that Reagan promised Gorbachev, that eventually resulted in the reunification of Germany and the fall of the Soviet Union. It is a LOT cheaper for a technologically-superior adversary to develop a counter to your new weapon than for you to develop a whole new weapon that was immmune to his previous counter.

Read "The Strategy of Technology", by Kane, Possony, and Pournelle. Your library should be able to find a copy.

Re:Just what we need

[grolaw]

It is merely a single contrarian idea. The laser tests would be visible from orbit - and frequency/energy could be sampled as simply by mere spectroscopy: the interaction between radiation and matter as a function of wavelength and easily measured. Displaced / superheated air will reveal the operating wavelength and energy density of the laser.

If we are talking dye lasers or tunable cavity lasers - you still have massive problems dealing with the excitation as frequencies change. It might well prove to be too complex to fit aboard an aircraft.

I built the Scientific American CO2 Laser project back in the 1960s - it was impressive and it could shatter glass at more than 100 ft. Still, the energy necessary to power an airborne device is going to have to be stored - probably in banks of capacitors.

Realistically, an aircraft mounted rail gun might serve just as well and be far less complex to deal with (absent the effects on the aircraft of the massive magnetic impulse).

Re:Just what we need

[john.r.strohm]

Routine sorties would be really cheap compared to what it would cost to replace, say, Seattle or Los Angeles after Kim Jong-Il successfully nuked it.

Nobody ever said freedom was free.

Re:Just what we need

[grolaw]

They still have to be in the right place at the right time. Also, loss of the technology is entirely possible when using UAVs. Suppose you just ran out of fuel and the self-destruct mechanism fails?

Re:Just what we need

[john.r.strohm]

Well, observe that the only significant difference between this test engagement and The Real Thing was the laser output power. Related to that is the fact that the test missile said "Yuh got me, pardner" instead of just dying spectacularly.

So most of the atmospheric issues would appear to have been solved.

Observe that the current generation of candidates for the "inbound craft" role are not covered with retro-reflecting beads, so the question is not applicable to those missiles. How much does your bead coating weigh, and how much does it reduce the throw weight and range of the missile if you just retrofit it?

Now, the Bad Guys could of course discard their current generation of missiles, and design, test, and build a whole new generation, that features enhanced laser survivability. They can't do that overnight, however, and it won't be free, or even cheap. If they do that, that's money they don't have for playing other nasty games.

Re:Just what we need

[grolaw]

Agreed.

Still, who are we defending against? China wants to be the planet's manufacturing giant. India and Pakistan have very limited range delivery systems. A middle east foe does not seem to be a reasonable threat for a few decades. Russia and the former client states are unable to maintain the systems they have now, much less put themselves into another arms race.

The costs will be ours, alone. How bankrupting the nation on the cross of superior military technology will make the US safer is lost on me.

Re:Just what we need

[scotch]

OK, then why don't the build a laser 1/10 the size? Less costly, smaller airplane to carry it, more agile, could build more of them for the same price.

Think about it for a while.

Re:Just what we need

[grolaw]

Kim Jong-il is 68 years old. N. Korea has no ICBM technology. The nation is the poorest excuse for an enemy that the US has had in hundreds of years.

N. Korea is under constant scrutiny - we can, and would, eliminate that nation with a first strike. We don't need to develop yet another weapons system to deal with a caveman....

Re:Just what we need

[grolaw]

So most of the atmospheric issues would appear to have been solved.

Or, they used an optimum testing environment. We have had the target craft carrying a transponder to make the target easy to find, if not hit, in the "star wars" missile defense tests.

And, what "bad guys are you referring to? Russia and China are not a problem. Pakistan, India, Israel, and N. Korea don't have ICBM delivery systems. No other middle east foe is a credible threat today.

Re:Just what we need

[ceoyoyo]

Apparently mirrors aren't nearly as useful as you might think. The laser is high enough power that it effectively creates a small explosion through thermal expansion when it hits something. A perfect mirror that is not affected by the heat or shock from nearby heated air might work, but such a thing does not exist.

Re:Just what we need

[Deanalator]

Modulate the phase variance?

Re:Just what we need

[Gorobei]

Of course, the real point is that flying 747s around with fricking lasers is not a serious military project, it's performance art paid for with your tax dollars.

It's hard to name a single plausible scenario for which this absurdity makes any economic sense.

Re:Just what we need

[failedlogic]

I was about to say this. The bad guys could just make an effort to shoot down the plane first and then launch their missiles.

Re:Just what we need

[Entropius]

Except not.

One week two years ago, our guest colloquium speaker at the physics department where I work was an ABM expert. He pointed out that the chemical laser for this project is so huge that it doesn't even (yet) fit on a 747, let alone a UAV (which is powered by an engine about the same size as the one in a Honda Civic).

Re:Just what we need

[Entropius]

The atmospheric issues are caused by the high power of the real laser, I believe -- a low-power version won't suffer from them as badly.

Re:Just what we need

[grolaw]

I've used kilowatt YAG lasers with 1st surface mirrors in optical labs without problem.

What I suggested would be just one potential way of eliminating the new weapon's effectiveness. Pay me a lot of money and I'll find a defense. Just like any serious superpower would.

Hey, wait a minute, we are the only superpower left.... WTF?

Re:Just what we need

[centuren]

Anti-missile defenses add a factor into your list when considering a rocket's weapon effectiveness:

 

A rocket weapons designer ends up having to make a series of compromises between the strength of the rocket itself, the payload, the range, and it's ability to hit its target accurately and without being intercepted. If you want to protect your rocket you're going to have to give up payload, give up range or increase rocket size, maximizing the rocket's effectiveness as a weapon.

Re:Just what we need

[ceoyoyo]

The ABL is somewhere in the megawatt+ range.

Your mirror also has to be light enough to fly on a missile and survive and maintain it's performance when launched and flown through the atmosphere. Just the launch phase is likely to get it pretty dirty.

I'm sure somebody will come up with some countermeasures, but it's not as simple as "just put a mirror on it!"

Re:Just what we need

[Jared555]

I believe he was thinking damaging the plane.

Also, if you are using a UV laser (with some way to figure out exactly where you are aiming it from that distance) the ability to track where it is coming from is much more difficult.

Re:Just what we need

[ColdWetDog]

Except this sort of threat is targeted at 'Rouge' nations who might launch a missile or two, but are unlikely to have a decent chance at gaining local air superiority.

Not that I fundamentally disagree with the argument that this is (mostly) a waste of money. It's basically an engineering exercise with a Big Plane.

They just should have stuck to sharks.

Re:Just what we need

[Gorobei]

Which rather leads us to question what a 'rogue' nation is (besides a political talking point.)

I assume it:
1. is a nation we don't like.
2. has limited ICBM or long range missile capability (could launch at most 5 at once.)
3. has CBN weapons (because a couple of V2s don't justify this laser program.)
4. lacks a conventional weapon force (SAMs, AA, fighters, etc.)

I'm really struggling here to name a single opponent.

Re:Just what we need

[grolaw]

As I've said, the system may be defeated by something as simple as a mirror or something far more elaborate. I simply pointed out that the system is far from a silver bullet.

Re:Just what we need

[Dahamma]

What prevents the target from cloaking itself in LOX fog, by venting ?

Probably the fact that it would be travelling at a couple thousand miles per hour at the time. Would leave a nice contrail, though!

Re:Just what we need

[grolaw]

No matter what velocity the rocket is traveling at any extruded substance will be carried by the bernoulli effect around the rocket. It is just a potential method of defeating a laser.

Re:Just what we need

[ceoyoyo]

Of course it isn't. I hope the US military never invents a silver bullet weapon.

Re:Just what we need

[elfprince13]

What's far more concerning about this plan then the "what if it fails" factor is the "what if it works" factor. One of the few things that terrifies me more than a nuke going off in a US city is the possibility of a nuke being vaporized in the upper atmosphere above US soil. Instead of killing a few million people, we render hundreds of thousands of square miles of land sterile for the next million years.

Re:Just what we need

[profplump]

I don't believe it. What exactly does the telescope "focus" in the laser output? Focusing uncollimated light might make it more useful -- the sun through a magnifying glass -- but it's not such a great plan for lasers. It also greatly increases operational complexity, since focused light is only focused at a certain distance from the source, so you'd have to track the distance to the plan and continually re-focus to keep on-target.

Re:Just what we need

[Tycho]

3. has CBN weapons (because a couple of V2s don't justify this laser program.)

Consider, that if a 'rogue' nation has CBN weapons, this weapon system is only useful if a ballistic missile is used. For nuclear weapons with small warheads, chemical weapons, which have been used in modern warfare, and even biological weapons, which have not been used in modern warfare, short to medium range targets can be attacked just as easily using artillery or cruise missiles, delivery systems which Boeing's laser would be ineffective. For Boeing's system to be effective, the plane must be in the air, be well defended by friendly airplanes, and then be close enough to the launch site to fire on the rocket depending on rocket type. Solid fueled missiles IIRC are easier to destroy with Boeing's system than a liquid fueled rocket with cryogenic propellants. The propellants in solid fueled rockets are less stable and require less energy to ignite accidentally than the cryogenic liquids in a liquid fueled rocket. However, getting solid fueled missiles to work properly may be beyond the available expertise of a rogue nation, solid fueled rockets may have simple propellant components Ammonium Perchlorate (NH4ClO4) and Aluminum Powder, but have a nasty habit of exploding if looked at funny. Also, liquid propellants for a liquid fueled rocket stable at -40F to +120F are too unstable, reactive, and/or toxic to be stored or used effectively.

Re:Just what we need

[Gorobei]

Hey, I think we are arguing the same point here :)

(my points should be anded together, not ored)

Re:Just what we need

[cayenne8]

"I built the Scientific American CO2 Laser project back in the 1960s - it was impressive and it could shatter glass at more than 100 ft. Still, the energy necessary to power an airborne device is going to have to be stored - probably in banks of capacitors."

Yeah, but can you drive a six inch railroad spike through a board with your penis?

Re:Just what we need

[BKX]

Uh, No. That's not how nuclear weapons work. There isn't enough material in the largest of nuclear bombs to destroy even the smallest of hamlets without a nuclear reaction, let alone sterilize the entirety of the US. Furthermore, a mechanical explosion won't cause the fissible material to come together in the right direction nor will it collapse fast enough to result in a nuclear detonation. A coal powerplant puts out more radioactive material every week than is contained in a nuclear bomb.

Re:Just what we need

[stokessd]

If you want a small high energy density at a distance, you need to expand the beam and focus it down, or diffraction and atmospherics will eat your lunch.

Now lets talk about the issues with this plan:

There's power and water for cooling.
There's a gimbal system for tracking
There's a focusing system that must dynamically adjust focus for both distance changes, as well as atmospherics to keep a high strehl (sp?) number on the target. This means that you'll need adaptive optics or a honking big laser that can eat these losses. (think chemical laser)
There's the issue of planes being pretty big without much in the way of soft underbelly that is vulnerable.(remember, that these are basically buses, rather than missiles)

when you compare that to a simple RPG or other heat seeking surface to air missile, the second option seems a whole lot better.

Also I'm not sure the people who are enough into their cause to ride the plane to 72 virginville would care about you seeing the smoke trail or not.

Sheldon

Re:Just what we need

[stokessd]

Reflective would be the key. There's no such thing as camo when you are red hot ("Red on the head, like a dick on a dog" and old southern missile guy said to me once) against the 4K coldness of space. That missile is pretty obvious that it's there even with a low emissivity of a shiny surface.

Sheldon

Re:Just what we need

[stokessd]

Not really practical for a megawatt laser that's for sure. I'm sure there's a cooling problem with all the optics, even 99.9% reflective still adds up to a lot of heat on that optic.

That's the same problem the target faces. Hot reflective can it really be. It's getting pounded with energy, and it's under considerable stress already. Even the remainder that it can't reflect has to be dealt with.

Rotating the missile would make some sense, so the laser would have a much larger surface area to damage.

Sheldon

Re:Just what we need

[WindBourne]

Realistically, an aircraft mounted rail gun might serve just as well and be far less complex to deal with (absent the effects on the aircraft of the massive magnetic impulse).

That is almost CERTAINLY coming. However, what I find interesting is that few ppl are taking note of the fact that the mirrors are designed to aim at 90 degrees and CAN point straight overhead. From 50K feet, this laser will be able to take out sats or even a number of military space stations holding kinetic weapons of their own..

Re:Just what we need

[grolaw]

All I have tried to convey is that the technology is flawed and expensive. Whatever happens, there will be a workaround a laser defense.

Re:Just what we need

[grolaw]

A planet-based high impulse laser in the UV range would make an effective satellite killer.

Re:Just what we need

[Hal_Porter]

Of course, the real point is that flying 747s around with fricking lasers is not a serious military project, it's performance art paid for with your tax dollars.

It's hard to name a single plausible scenario for which this absurdity makes any economic sense.

North Korea or Iran might decide to field a missile system which consists of a small number of 50's technology ICBMs because that is all they can manage. It's plausible that these could be downed by the ABL operating 300-600km away, out of range of NK or Irans weapons systems.

Against a real adversary - thousands of high tech missiles and the ability to shoot down enemy aircraft hundreds of kilometres away - it's not much use of course, but then no practical ABM system is. My guess is with an adversary with a small number of missiles that can't control more than its own airspace the ABL would be quite handy - one ABL could shoot down 20 missiles. There'd be ships at see firing SM3 missiles at any that got through.

Another possibility would be to use it to shoot down Chinese tactical ballistic missiles fired at Taiwan.

Re:Just what we need

[Hal_Porter]

China wants to be the planet's manufacturing giant.

I have it on good authority from Chinese expats that China wants to replace America as a hegemonic power in the long run.

Re:Just what we need

[Hal_Porter]

Kim Jong-il is 68 years old. N. Korea has no ICBM technology. The nation is the poorest excuse for an enemy that the US has had in hundreds of years.

N. Korea is under constant scrutiny - we can, and would, eliminate that nation with a first strike. We don't need to develop yet another weapons system to deal with a caveman....

They haven't tested succesfully, but that doesn't mean they never will.

http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/nuclearweapons/Taepodong.html

David Wright at the Union of Concerned Scientists has done an excellent analysis of the Taepodong-2 based on the CSS/Nodong configuration. He calculates that the Taepodong-2, used as a ballistic missile, could deliver a one ton payload to a range of 6,000 kilometers, which would allow it to reach Anchorage, Alaska, and, with a 500 kg payload, the missile would have a range of 9,000 kilometers, putting San Francisco within range and all U.S. cities along the Pacific coast north of there.

The Threat

The Taepodongs are large liquid-fueled missiles. As currently configured, they are operated like space launchers, with long assembly times, and launched from fixed, above-ground launch pads. The missiles are expensive for a country as impoverished as North Korea so unlikely to ever be produced in large numbers. These missiles only make strategic sense if they are intended for a limited number of high leverage targets. Almost nothing is known about the accuracy of either of the Taepodongs. Even with a one ton payload, if the payload is a conventional explosive, accuracy of at least several tens of meters is needed before the weapon becomes useful in a direct military role. A conventional warhead could be used to target cities and kill civilians to terrorize a population.

A one ton payload of chemical or biological agent could have a much broader effect and the accuracy of the missile is far less critical. North Korea is known to have the ability to produce both chemical and biological agents. South Korean and U.S. military forces are well protected against chemical and biological attack so, again, the direct military effect would be limited while civilians would remain vulnerable.

The North Koreans have tested a nuclear explosive. The yield of their single test was equivalent to 400 tons of TNT, or 0.4 kilotons. This is less than a tenth the explosive power of most first nuclear tests, yet still a large explosion by conventional standards. Nothing is known publicly about the extent to which the explosive has been weaponized, for example, the size and weight of a potential nuclear warhead. Some have speculated that the small yield indicates a failed test, especially given that North Koreans previously alerted some Chinese officials of a test and predicted a much higher yield. Others have suggest that the explosion might not have been so much of a test as an experiment; The North Koreans might have approached the problem from the perspective of fitting a warhead on an available missile, they made due by designing a warhead as large as would fit on the missile, and then tested it to measure the yield. If this is the case, then their weaponization process could be far advanced. Building a heat shield for the warhead that can survive reentry is a technical challenge and the Koreans would almost certainly want to test that with a missile flight test. Even with an explosive force of 400 tons of TNT, the Taepodongs would have limited direct military application, especially in the very limited numbers and with the accuracy they are likely to have. But a 400 ton warhead would be a frightening weapon if used against civilians in a city, likely to destroy many city blocks and create a lethal cloud of radioactive fallout.

Actually NK is pretty much the optimal adversary for the ABL. Even when they get the missile to work they will have a small number. The US could pro

Re:Just what we need

[gtall]

What makes you think Pakistan is safe? Iran seems to have an infatuation with missiles and nukes. Korea is run by, you know, a bunch of well-adjusted, polite and totally insane maniacs. Nope, no one to defend against here.

Re:Just what we need

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Last time i checked FELs are not flight weight. They are the size *and* weight of a large building.

Re:Just what we need

[TheTurtlesMoves]

There are other reflection techniques that could work very well. They are R&D projects in their own right, but attacks and counters is what war technology is all about.

Off the top of my head I can think of 3 systems that could work well--or not depending on the details.

"Corner" reflectors. Not the big things used in surveying. But little ones that can be stuck to the surface and a lot higher quality than those reflective plastic strips. This sends a lot of the energy strait back and would force the use of optical isolation in a high power laser optics path. The reflection could also be bad enough to damage sensors.

Ablation. A surface that ablates in a controlled way that causes lots of absorption in the ablated material that then gets swept down stream.

A protective gas/smoke layer. This is similar to Ablation. But when an attack is detected a gas is bleed from the nose of the rocket --cause a similar effect to ablation. The gas/smoke gets heated up/reflects a heap of energy and is swept down stream.

Or a combination of the above. But even then there is a pretty strong asymmetry in cost. Its real cheap to launch 10 rockets at once compared to the cost of a plane with a laser.... And these simple counter measures my incress dwell time for critical damage enough to really make a big difference.

Lasers as the future weapon just don't seem to work as well per unit energy than a plain old boring, tried and true, rock throwing....(aka rail gun).

Re:Just what we need

[grolaw]

Dog bites man, news at 11:00.

This comes as a shock? China is becoming the US post WWII - the only major manufacturing giant with cheap labor, no concerns about pollution and a centralized management system that keeps its eye on the prize.

All we need is one more administration like the last to lose everything. As it stands, we are following the Brit's decline and loss of empire.

Re:Just what we need

[grolaw]

You are clearly easily excited.

Put those launchers on the surface and several subs stationed in the Yellow Sea will nuke the launchers in under 10 min.

That would end N. Korea as an adversary and a nation.

What you propose is a threat by a few nukes with delivery systems that (1) do not exist; and (2) at most they could field 3-4 warheads; and (3) the preparation of those non-existent delivery systems to fire would trigger our first strike.

What - you got stock in the development of ABL?

Re:Just what we need

[grolaw]

I merely point out that all lack the technology - TODAY - to create a viable threat to the USA.

Oh, haven't you heard the news - Pakistan is our ally... Why, we gave them the materials that they needed to make the Islamic nuke. Just like we gave Israel the materials that they needed for their nukes.

Face it - you have no hard facts that any of these nations is a clear and present danger to the US.

Re:Just what we need

[Yaos]

The massive trailer filled with LASER equipment may tip somebody off.

Re:Just what we need

[Noose For A Neck]

Which UAV? There isn't just one design of UAV, there's a whole slew of them in service, on the market or in design. Some of them are rather large, think roughly the size of an A-10. There's no fundamental reason that something the size of a 747 cannot be flown in an unmanned configuration.

Re:Just what we need

[Hal_Porter]

You are clearly easily excited.

Put those launchers on the surface and several subs stationed in the Yellow Sea will nuke the launchers in under 10 min.

That would end N. Korea as an adversary and a nation.

I think China would have something to say about this. Even if they don't NK can level Seoul before the US can destroy their artillery. An attack on NK means a major war and I don't think it is something any US President has considered since the end of the Korean War.

What you propose is a threat by a few nukes with delivery systems that (1) do not exist; and (2) at most they could field 3-4 warheads; and (3) the preparation of those non-existent delivery systems to fire would trigger our first strike.

What - you got stock in the development of ABL?

Well I think the ABL is cool and maybe that biases me a bit. Still saying "NO PROBLEMS WE WILL JUST NUKE 'EM" when they have a superpower guarantor and can kill millions in Japan or SK is a bit simplistic. Realistically there's not much the US can do about NK's nukes. Sooner or later they will get them and preemptive military action against NK is not something the US will do. The regime is bonkers enough that they may decide to threaten the US or Japan at some point. Seems like the ability to shoot down their missiles might come in handy at that point because it lets the US avoid a preemptive strike (and likely WWIII) while still knowing that the missiles are not a threat.

It's easier to negotiate with a crazy man with a gun if you know said gun can't hurt you.

Re:Just what we need

[graviplana]

Changing the output frequency of a giant high energy chemical laser is extremely tricky. Frequency doubling demands a very pure coherence to get good efficiency, and even then "good" in this context means above 50% power converted to the new frequency. With a weapons laser, you're going to have a hell of a cooling problem in the converting medium. Then again, if reflective anti-laser coatings become common, it shouldn't be too difficult to add on a free electron laser system to burn off the mirror layer before the main beam strikes. A free electron laser can change operating frequencies trivially, just by adjusting its internal magnetic field.

It's a chemical laser but in solid, not gaseous, form. Put simply, in deference to you, Kent, it's like lasing a stick of dynamite. As soon as we apply a field, we couple to a state, it is radiatively coupled to the ground state. I figure we can extract at least ten to the twenty-first photons per cubic centimeter which will give one kilojoule per cubic centimeter at 600 nanometers, or, one megajoule per liter.

Re:Just what we need

[davester666]

Where did they find a power cord long enough to reach the plane?

Re:Just what we need

[grolaw]

China might nuke them first. They are an impediment to the growth of China's hegemony and if they start to try to muscle in with a nuke threat - China loses, too.

As far as "cool tech" I've had my fill of military waste. The program can end tomorrow.

As for "there's not much the US can do about NK's Nukes" is pure horsepucky.

We are still at war with that nation - we merely signed a cease fire agreement on July 27, 1953. We could easily decimate that nation with cruise missiles (loaded with the nukes that they were designed to carry) and simply exterminate the entire nation. They have done nothing yet to call for such a show of force, but it could easily occur as we only nuke Asia.

The fallout, both actual and political, would be massive and vastly negative for the US. So perhaps carpet bombing with MOAB & Bunker Busters an entire nation with the goal of genocide would be a "kinder, gentler" way of telling the world not to screw with the last superpower.

But we still don't need that ABL system!

Re:Just what we need

[grolaw]

We have already touched on the issue - it would be powered by banks of capacitors, giving a very limited number of discharges before the system was discharged.

How many dumb, but expensive, ideas can the Military-Industrial Complex come up with to rip us off?

Re:Just what we need

[wazza]

On the other hand, there would be widespread chaos as every unprotected electronic device across 2/3 of the continental US is instantly incapacitated.

That's really scary. Welcome back to 1850, boys and girls!

Re:Just what we need

[Hal_Porter]

China might nuke them first. They are an impediment to the growth of China's hegemony and if they start to try to muscle in with a nuke threat - China loses, too.

That's about as likely as the US nuking one of its allies.

As for "there's not much the US can do about NK's Nukes" is pure horsepucky.

We are still at war with that nation - we merely signed a cease fire agreement on July 27, 1953. We could easily decimate that nation with cruise missiles (loaded with the nukes that they were designed to carry) and simply exterminate the entire nation. They have done nothing yet to call for such a show of force, but it could easily occur as we only nuke Asia.

The fallout, both actual and political, would be massive and vastly negative for the US. So perhaps carpet bombing with MOAB & Bunker Busters an entire nation with the goal of genocide would be a "kinder, gentler" way of telling the world not to screw with the last superpower.

But we still don't need that ABL system!

Meh, the US can't do anything to NK because of China, and because they have a load of artillery pointed at Seoul and missiles pointed at Japan. That's the reason they're able to test nukes with complete impunity.

Face it, the US is completely impotent when it comes to NK, your creepy genocidal fantasies notwithstanding. That's right, yankieboy. You may have bigger missiles than the Asians, but you can't erect them.

Re:Just what we need

[grolaw]

NK is an ally of China? It is more like a boil on China's butt.

If we can invade Iraq - we can level NK. We would have China's approval - just lancing that boil for them.

Re:Just what we need

[gtall]

Yep, let's not think for the future. I Pakistan bought their nuclear technology from N. Korea. I don't doubt the U.S. sold some to them, that would clearly be a mistake and won't make the Pakistanis love the U.S. after they go all Taliban..

Re:Just what we need

[grolaw]

Rather the opposite - Pakistan gave nuclear tech to NK. See, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Qadeer_Khan

In January 2004, Khan confessed to having been involved in a clandestine international network of nuclear weapons technology proliferation from Pakistan to Libya, Iran and North Korea. There is evidence to believe that Khan and his network are one of the worst proliferators of nuclear technology that can be used to develop nuclear weapons. However, owing to domestic pressure from radical groups, on February 5, 2004, the President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, announced that he had pardoned Khan, who is widely seen as a national hero. He is credited with helping Muslim countries to develop nuclear weapons.[2]

Re:Just what we need

[kalirion]

Don't you know that shields explode when hit by lasers?

Real Genius Fans?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like the Real Genius fans out there are finally living the dream.

Eh, it's cool and all, but I'd rather see a house explode with popcorn.

Re:Real Genius Fans?

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll be waiting a long time - Mythbusters already explored that one, and busted it.

Re:Real Genius Fans?

[gtall]

Errr...as an Project Manager at DARPA, we'd like to see you and discuss possible funding levels for your popcorn weapon.

Laser tag

[Anonymous Coward]

Billion dollar laser tag. They didn't destroy the missile. The missile's laser tag vest scored the hit.

Re:Laser tag

[Brian Gordon]

Because they didn't use the real laser. It was just to test the aiming system.

Re:Laser tag

[Entropius]

Last I heard they haven't figured out how to make the real laser fit on the plane yet. (That was last year, though.)

How does it aim?

[scribblej]

If it uses mirrors of some type to aim the laser "beam", won't missile designers just make the missile housing out of the same reflective material?

If it does not, how does it get pointed in the right direction fast enough?

These articles are always so light on the interesting details.

Re:How does it aim?

[hampton]

If it does not, how does it get pointed in the right direction fast enough?

Easy. Think of how fast a shark can turn!

Re:How does it aim?

[Anonymous Coward]

Details? It's a FLYING LASER! That almost works! That is cool. Now, if only we had some deflector shields.

Re:How does it aim?

[rumith]

Although it would be difficult to produce a reflective material that could withstand the influence of the atmosphere during launch, it might turn out to be effective to pulverize some substance opaque for that laser frequency around the missile (either by spreading it from auxiliary projectiles launched a second before the real ICBM, or from a device mounted on the top of the missile itself)...

Re:How does it aim?

[YrWrstNtmr]

If it uses mirrors of some type to aim the laser "beam", won't missile designers just make the missile housing out of the same reflective material?

Weight and strength. Plus, it's a game of measure/countermeasure. You invent the gun, I invent armor. You invent a stronger gun, I counter with reactive armor.
Eventually, someone will counter with a missile skin able to defeat this. And then a different type of laser/phaser/deathray will be invented.

Re:How does it aim?

[wfstanle]

Not only mirrors (that occurred to me as well), but have the missile spin so the energy of the laser is spread out over a much larger surface. Spinning would also allow the areas of the missile to cool down somewhat.

In all military advances in offense, the defense will find a way around it (and vice-versa). It's a cat and mouse game. Look at how Iraq tried to foil GPS guided ordinance, they jammed the GPS signals. I don't know how successful they were but given time they might have been successful.

Re:How does it aim?

[vsny]

They've proven that standard mirror materials will ablate and burn up very quickly with this laser power. Even rotating the missile does not help. The missile body still heats up significantly.

The laser optics in the airborne laser probably have to be made out of narrow band reflectors which in practice can be made more than 99.999% reflective to a laser. It would be easy to slightly change the laser wavelength and optics (a few nm's perhaps) and the missile would absorb again.

Re:How does it aim?

[moosesocks]

I think this is one of those "why don't they build the entire plane out of the black box material" questions.

Odds are that high-performance mirror glass is extremely expensive, heavy, and fragile. Similarly, it's difficult to keep something clean when blasting through the atmosphere at 1000mph.

Re:How does it aim?

[rumith]

Spinning is not likely to be useful: the laser impulse is going to be pretty short. I agree with the rest of your comment, though.

Re:How does it aim?

[Animaether]

you can always track a missile optically, or via infra red, or.. etc.

as for 'pointed in the right direction fast enough'... see Phalanx and Goalkeeper systems for some seriously-fast-aiming systems. As long as you can track the missile itself*, you can aim something at it. Lasers come with an advantage over the above systems... the laser tends to travel in a fairly straight line, bullets.. not so much. Even with atmospheric distortions, you should get much better aim with a laser than with bullets.

* As for tracking a missile - keep in mind that this system is intended to be used from some distance. Tracking a missile going 'thousands of miles per hour' just means having to rotate the system (fractions) of degrees. Think of regular ol' human camera operators tracking the space shuttle, which goes much faster than a typical missile, and having no problems doing so. It becomes easier the further away it is, in fact. (well, easiest is when it's still sitting on the launch pad, but you get the idea.)

Re:How does it aim?

[wealthychef]

it's a game of measure/countermeasure. You invent the gun, I invent armor. You invent a stronger gun, I counter with reactive armor.

Eventually this is going to stop being the way we work, I hope. We could also think outside the box: put more resources into improving things for other human beings on the planet. Yes, we need to defend ourselves against REAL threats, and the biggest strength the U.S. has at its disposal is the good will we manage to generate by helping others and spreading wealth and peace in the world.

Re:How does it aim?

[bami]

But the field of view of a camera is a lot bigger then that of a single laser beam.
You still have to point that tiny dot at something moving very fast.

Re:How does it aim?

[Yvanhoe]

Eventually ? Russians have announced at the beginning of this program that their new ICBMs defeated this technology through their specific armor and the very short ignition time they use to gain their maximum velocity. I doubt that the "big laser" technology will be of that much use. The tracking technology, however, could have some applications.

My understanding is that they don't use mirrors, they rotate the whole lasing cavity.

Re:How does it aim?

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably because the interesting details are classified.

Re:How does it aim?

[Animaether]

true, but keep in mind that these camera operators tend to keep the shuttle in the center of view pretty well - a computer would be even better at this simply because it doesn't suffer as much from influences like hands shaking, and a much more solid platform than a (relatively) flimsy tripod. /nokarma

Re:How does it aim?

[KDR_11k]

I wonder what happens if you include a material that, when heated, produces vapor that's opaque to the laser in the hull of the missile...

Re:How does it aim?

[KDR_11k]

What about going the really expensive route and making a stealth missile that the laser operator doesn't even know about until it separates from its payload?

Re:How does it aim?

[Anonymous Coward]

Spinning is not likely to be useful: the laser impulse is going to be pretty short.

As Tom Clancy explained it, imagine a ballerina spinning to deflect a shotgun blast.

Re:How does it aim?

[Phanatic1a]

f it uses mirrors of some type to aim the laser "beam", won't missile designers just make the missile housing out of the same reflective material?

Well, no. First, high-energy mirrors are fragile things. The reflective surface is very thin, and is kept very clean. Get some crud on it, that crud absorbs in the incident energy, the mirror fails. How are you going to coat a missile body, which needs must be exposed to the environment, with this fragile coating and still expect it to be a high-energy mirror?

Second, the energy *density* is smaller at the mirror than at the target. Being able to withstand the energy density of the lasing cavity isn't the same thing as being able to withstand the energy density of that laser, at the target, where it's as close to being a point as the focusing system can manage.

Re:How does it aim?

[couchslug]

"Similarly, it's difficult to keep something clean when blasting through the atmosphere at 1000mph."

Kinda kills the "wino with a rag and Windex" option...

Re:How does it aim?

[ceoyoyo]

The GPS jammers each got a nice anti-radiation missile.

Re:How does it aim?

[CroDragn]

Why stop there? For the ultimate in stealth technology, make a missile that the missile operator doesn't know about till it hits the target!

Re:How does it aim?

[Entropius]

An anti-radiation missile that probably cost ten times more than what the jammers cost.

Re:How does it aim?

[ceoyoyo]

I don't think anyone has ever accused the US military of being cost efficient.

Re:How does it aim?

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't have to be very fragile. I think that a nicely polished stainless steel missile could reflect enough of the heat to turn a few seconds heating time into a minute, which is probably longer than the time it takes them to arrive at there destination.
I'm sure the missile in this test was a nice dark-green painted missile, that would very quickly turn into black. Also, in most of these "tests" (advertisements) on youtube, the laser views the missile from the side, providing the largest surface for heating up.
Net result: use a missile that is bigger than someone else's laser. Another pointless arms race instead of being nice to each other.

Re:How does it aim?

[j. andrew rogers]

Not only mirrors (that occurred to me as well), but have the missile spin so the energy of the laser is spread out over a much larger surface. Spinning would also allow the areas of the missile to cool down somewhat.

All of the "obvious" solutions like you mention generally will not work. The power levels for the lasers are specifically designed to defeat the known technical counter-measures available to a missile designer. This is why laser weapons have a power rating orders of magnitude greater than is strictly required in most conventional circumstances; they are obviating counter-measures before anyone tries to develop them. Among other things, they are designed to ablate the target faster than you can reflect it or physically spin it.

This is also the reason a lot of US military research focuses on hyper-kinetic weapons these days; good ones can defeat all plausible molecular armor and even weak ones can defeat all current armor. The power levels of US weapon systems are getting to the point where any passive counter-measure would have to be very exotic.

In all military advances in offense, the defense will find a way around it (and vice-versa). It's a cat and mouse game. Look at how Iraq tried to foil GPS guided ordinance, they jammed the GPS signals. I don't know how successful they were but given time they might have been successful.

This is based on a media-created myth. The US has never had GPS-guided weaponry, precisely because GPS can be jammed. Therefore, it would not have done much good to have a GPS jammer beyond attracting the attention of missiles designed to destroy RF emitters.

The primary guidance mechanism usually mislabeled as "GPS guided" is ultra-precise inertial guidance, which can't be jammed at all short of altering the physics of the universe. These inertial guidance systems can optionally accept micro-corrections from a GPS input, but only within the (classified) error bounds of the inertial system which are already known to be very small. If the GPS signal deviates from the inertial guidance, the GPS is assumed to be compromised and ignored.

The "GPS-guided weapon" thing is one of many myths about US weapon systems perpetuated by the media. The US never has and never will produce a GPS-guided weapon.

Re:How does it aim?

[b4upoo]

Yeh, and why can't my dentist get a laser that can clean my teeth, drill out a cavity or vaporize a tooth instead of yanking it out? Where is the justice!

Re:How does it aim?

[b4upoo]

Can Ben Laden get a tin foil turbin? Can't you just picture a laser like this firing at the turbin of a terrorist. And what do we call the left overs? Fried,roasted, barbequed or as useless as when the creep was still alive?

Re:How does it aim?

[Anonymous Coward]

They use fiberoptic cables utilizing perfectly reflective photonic crystal cladding. I took a class from the professor who designed them at MIT.

Haha, bets on whether this gets modded visible? I hate logging in.

Re:How does it aim?

[DerekLyons]

Not only mirrors (that occurred to me as well), but have the missile spin so the energy of the laser is spread out over a much larger surface. Spinning would also allow the areas of the missile to cool down somewhat.

However, spinning the missile has a couple of huge downsides:

• It makes guidance more difficult as the inertial system now has to compensate for the rotating vehicle.
• It makes control more difficult as a commanded (for example) positive pitch will be (a fraction of a second later) a commanded positive yaw, then negative pitch, then negative yaw... So your control surfaces (aerodynamic or thrust vector control or whatever) will have to modulated at a high rate.
• It makes maneuvering more difficult, as gyroscopic forces tend to the maintain stability and control inputs behave non linearly.
• Equally, these gyroscopic forces can actually throw the vehicle out of control entirely. (Remember how pushing on a gyro causes an output 90 degrees from the input? You can have some nasty coupling issues arise from that.)
• Finally, if your vehicle is liquid fueled, centrifugal force will throw your fuel away from the suction and towards the wall of the tank. (Which has some interesting effects on your CG.)

So, if you spin your missile, the ABL has already won a minor victory - by making your missile heavier, more complex, and introducing additional failure modes.
 
 

In all military advances in offense, the defense will find a way around it (and vice-versa). It's a cat and mouse game. Look at how Iraq tried to foil GPS guided ordinance, they jammed the GPS signals. I don't know how successful they were but given time they might have been successful.

Even if they'd been successful (in jamming) they have been less successful than they hopes (in stopping attacks), because what most people think of as 'GPS guided weapons' are actually 'inertially guided weapons with GPS updates'.

Re:How does it aim?

[KDR_11k]

The point of stealth until separation is that once the warheads separate they overwhelm any anti-missile defense and stealth no longer matters so you don't have to worry about the stealth coating not surviving reentry.

Re:How does it aim?

[TheTurtlesMoves]

It would be easy to slightly change the laser wavelength and optics (a few nm's perhaps) and the missile would absorb again.

No its not. It very hard and would require a complete refit of the optics... After rockets have already got through. If its easy to change the mirrors in the optics path, its easy to do on a rocket...

Re:How does it aim?

[NelsChristian]

We could also think outside the box: put more resources into improving things for other human beings on the planet.

And yet, that would do nothing for the folks who want us dead or enslaved because we don't kneel in the right direction when we pray. Envy is only one of the evil impulses out there, and even that simple problem isn't as easily appeased as you think it is.

Re:How does it aim?

[wealthychef]

What makes you think that the problem of evil impulse is simple, or that I think it's "easily appeased?" In fact, I'm not seeking to appease evil impulses, nor am I claiming that my way is "easy." I'm actually being very realistic about human nature. When people have the sense that they are being treated fairly and decently, they tend to respond in kind. It's more effective than dropping bombs, including all the collateral damage (innocent deaths and destruction)? We still have to watch our back, but it's safer to turn your back on someone that believes you mean them no harm than on someone who thinks you will kill them if you get a chance.

Re:How does it aim?

[NelsChristian]

When people have the sense that they are being treated fairly and decently, they tend to respond in kind.

I suppose so, if they actually think you are like them. Osama bin Laden doesn't think you are like him, and isn't going to respond to nice treatment. He want's you to bow to Mecca, and doesn't plan on stopping until you do. Or is bowing to Osama's will part of 'being fair and decent'?

Envy is a simple emotion. You want what the other guy has. Handling it so it doesn't cause trouble is not simple, and I didn't say it was.

You really must have a strange reading of history to believe that dropping your weapons and turning your back on Genghis Khan would have saved your life. You can mean no harm to a thief or rapist and even prove it to a thief or rapist, but that certainly won't stop them from their predilections, it just makes it easier.

There's a whole world of options between pacifist (means them no harm) and murderous psychopath (will kill them if you get a chance). You've totally left out any options for self-defense which seems insane.

Re:How does it aim?

[Anonymous Coward]

The US Military has a GPS Guided model of Artillery that is far past the prototype stage...

Watch the Artillery episode of Lock n' Load with R. Lee Ermy (on the history channel) they show a live demonstration of the GPS guided mobile artillery.

What'd you think the military designed the GPS system for? To allow civilians to buy navigation systems?

I apologize that I cannot find a link. The History Channel's website is seriously lacking in their TV Show department. All that is there is the episode about Tanks...

I checked YouTube as well... the artilery episode is not there yet.

The only thing I can find is this clip from superweapons that shows the military and a private corporation working on a GPS guided projectile called Excalibur.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1SxQ0arrSo

While this is not the GPS Guided Artillery I was talking about, it proves active development of GPS based weaponary.

The question is...

[rumith]

...how do they plan to target and shoot down ICBMs on a cloudy day, of which in a certain large northern country (but not Canada) there are plenty? :)

Re:The question is...

[nysus]

They will place these lasers in New England. They say you only have to wait 5 min. for the weather to change there.

Re:The question is...

[nysus]

Actually, the lasers are on a plane, presumably above the clouds. See article.

Re:The question is...

[rumith]

In order for that to work, it would be required to bring the ICBMs to New England as well. Which is precisely what they are working to prevent.

Re:The question is...

[Deanalator]

You just gave me a great idea for a new movie.

Re:The question is...

[tuxicle]

"Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherfucking lasers on this motherfucking plane!"

Re:The question is...

[ducomputergeek]

Point isn't to counter the russians or chinese as nations. MAD still applies to anyone with more than 100 warheads. This designed at countries that may have a few dozen missiles at most and the bravato to rattle them around in return for respect. Or it is designed to prevent things going bad if say a single missile gets hijacked by evil doers and manage a launch of holy fire against the heathens...or something like that.

Basically that means North Korea and Iran. If you can shoot down those missiles in the event of a launch, then you have the option of using conventional means of dealing with the people who launched them as opposed to having to use the "Automatic Radioactive Glass Parking Lot" option.

The Navy's SM-3 system seems to work if there's an Agies Crusier/destroyer in theater. And in those theaters, there are generally a couple around at any given time. The Air Force's "hit a bullet with a bullet" approach probably will never work.

ABL seems to be something in between. I view it as more of a back up option in case the SM-3's fail to hit in the initial boost phase. But the aircraft has to be on station and in theatre.

Now this only works for ballistic missiles. In the case of North Korea, you might be able to save Japan. But this does nothing to stop cruise missiles. Which is mostly what Pakistan has.

Re:The question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

IR sensor sees through the clouds. Not an issue.

If a Boeing can do it...

[Sumbius]

So, when can we expect to see these things on sharks?

Re:If a Boeing can do it...

[scotch]

OMG you are so funny.

I'm sure that...

[Hashey]

This technology will be quite useful when we are facing the Space Chinese in 2385.

okay well...

[ILuvRamen]

What happens when the enemy mirror coats the missile? Like totally chrome it out so it reflects like 99.9999% of light?

Re:okay well...

[jjohnson]

Doesn't matter, apparently. The total amount of energy in the laser overheats the reflective surface long before a significant amount of the light is reflected. One of the problems of aiming high powered lasers is that the mirrors that guide the beam melt.

Re:okay well...

[confused one]

so, we tune the laser to a color that your reflective surface doesn't reflect; or, since no reflective surface is 100% reflective (some energy is always absorbed) we amp the laser up until the absorbed energy is enough to vaporize the reflective coating. Then, you're toast.

Re:okay well...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Like totally chrome it out so it reflects like 99.9999% of light?

And if that doesn't work, they could try adding some spinner rims.

Re:okay well...

[Anonymous Coward]

You won't need to wait for the surface to vaporise, it'll discolour pretty quickly once it starts to heat up, and bye bye reflectivity.

Does this mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

That now we'll have to fit sharks with wings too?

Good

[WindBourne]

WHile I am a BIG believer in Gates(robert, not bill), I think that his idea to kill ABL was dead wrong. If anything, we should be building these faster. These are absolutely ideal for dealing the current and future situation. Now, we just have to learn to quit allowing the specs flowing to other countries.

Re:Good

[KDR_11k]

Weren't anti-nuke measures cancelled during the cold war due to an international treaty banning them?

Also wouldn't one country having anti-nuke systems and noone else make a global thermonuclear war much more likely as it no longer becomes "everybody loses"?

Re:Good

[falconwolf]

WHile I am a BIG believer in Gates(robert, not bill), I think that his idea to kill ABL was dead wrong. If anything, we should be building these faster.

Like these lasers are going to help prevent a smuggled bomb from being detonated in LA Harbor. And the US needs another treaty to break, well Bush already broke the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Falcon

Re:Good

[mark_osmd]

Yes, but the ABM treaty of 1972 was signed with the USSR, which ceased to exist when the USSR dissolved in 1991. There was a "memorandum of understanding" signed again in 1997 with four of the states that came out of the remains of the USSR but the US Senate never ratified it so it's not official. Later in 2001, the US pulled out giving six months notice as allowed in a clause in the original ABM Treaty.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

The ABM was null and void when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Re:Good

[Entropius]

The "current and future situation" meaning a massive federal debt and crumbling infrastructure?

Money for health care...

[IdleTime]

Mr President!

Yesterday in a Townhall meeting, you had some problems coming up with another 30 billion dollars in order to fund health care reforms. Please inform the NRA-clown who asked you the question that the 30 billion can easily be taken from the military budget seeing that the US already spends more money on the military than the rest of the world combined, reducing the budget with 20 billion from 500 billion to 470 billion would not be any problem whatsoever unless you think the socialistic program called the military is not able operate on only 470 billion dollars per year.

Canning useless systems like this laser show is a good start to reduce the budget with 30 billion!
Thank you!

Re:Money for health care...

[quercus.aeternam]

Wait, you're deriding the military program as being socialistic while suggesting that money should be redirected to health care reforms? Perhaps you should rethink that one a little...

Re:Money for health care...

[Rogerborg]

Deriding by using the same language that's used by opponents of socialised / single payer health care. It's OK, the smart readers understood it.

Re:Money for health care...

[bendodge]

A system like this won't seem nearly as useless when the missiles actually start flying. There are plenty of folks who might do the flying - been keeping up on Iran? They're not slowing down for Mr. "O"pologies. A much quieter but possibly worse threat is Russia. Mr. Putin of KGB success hasn't exactly retired, and Putin-critical journalists are dead or missing. Radiation poisoning is a nasty way to die, whether you're Litvinenko investigating your friend's assassination or a liberal enjoying your healthcare when the missiles arrive.

The world isn't getting better and better every day and in every way. World War I didn't originally end in I. An entire generation had their ideology shattered when Hitler rose to power. Another in the near future is going to find that hoping for change is a poor defense against a megalomaniac, especially one so ruthless and clever as Putin. And with war comes true sacrifice. Just ask an old person.

Re:Money for health care...

[Entropius]

You really think that a system like this is going to make a war with Russia all candy-coated and friendly?

If the missiles start flying as you put it, we are all fucked, lasers or not.

Shoot it down

[The_church_of_funzie]

Being able to aim a laser turret at moving object for a few seconds is impresive, but shooting it down another beast altogether. Protective coating from dense material or ablative coating for missile is pretty easy to make, all you really need is another booster stage to compensate for extra mass. Making missile spin to reflect heat better is also pretty simple. Moore's law makes computational power necessary to spin a missile faster, easyer then makeing a more powerfull laser. Air borne laser is also infrared, it will not travel far through the atmosphere. Does anyone have some hard numbers? Or is this another cost understated, ability underated, "Flying Edsel" funded by Republican party, just for sole purpose of being "Strong On Defence" ?

Re:Shoot it down

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure where to begin.
Your post is a summary of every wrongheaded idea that's been posted in the thread so far.

Protective coatings add weight.
Which means either more propellant or a smaller payload.
And since this is rocket science, it isn't as simple as "add another booster stage".

You literally cannot (with current technology) make a missile strong enough
to survive the rotational forces needed to shrug off a high powered laser.

As for being infrared, they're using a really freakin' powerful laser.
Once you're above the clouds, it doesn't matter all that much how dense the atmosphere is.

Hopefully they didn't fake it again

[copponex]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/star-wars-fake-fooled-the-world-1461979.html

I see a press release from the people who claim to have pulled it off... which doesn't mean a thing.

Re:Hopefully they didn't fake it again

[dkleinsc]

Especially since the project's funding depends on successful tests like this. For some reason, companies like Boeing always want to get their contract renewed.

Time to buy lots of popcorn

[j741]

Time to buy lots of popcorn and tinfoil. You're in for it now Hathaway; hope you're house is insured.
-
There. Now you've had your nod to 'Real Genius'. ;)

Real Genius laser was in SPACE

[localroger]

I'm here to tell you I'm not living the dream until I see scum-sucking bad guys brought down from SPACE, preferably vaporized in their lawn chairs while their horrified guests look on in awe.

Re:Real Genius laser was in SPACE

[zippthorne]

Real Genius laser was turret mounted in a B1 bomber bay. Did you even watch the movie?

Furthermore, Val Kilmer's character had it all wrong. Assassinations are way better than wars. In wars, the peasants who join the armies do all the dying, while in assassinations, only the assholes who command the wars get killed, because it's too expensive to assassinate each member of an opposing army individually.

Re:Real Genius laser was in SPACE

[Nidi62]

The initial concept video shown in the little presentation to the evil military guys at the beginning shows a ship in space(or at least, right at the edge of it) shooting the guy in the lawnchair. The TEST was out of a B1.

just remember.

[nimbius]

this technology is totally useless in its current state. high power flying lasers will never find a use without a high power flying shark to combine it with.

Re:just remember.

[dunkelfalke]

here you are.

Re:just remember.

[Anonymous Coward]

This one is more entertaining.
It proves that flying sharks, even without lasers, can be used to take down planes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skYRZ_-RXtk

Was REAL GENIUS wrong?

[wisebabo]

I mean the technical idea behind the laser which I've always wondered if it would work. In the movie, some (Caltech?) students take an optically pumped up gas (like the gas used in a carbon dioxide or neon laser I suppose) and freeze it into a solid while it is still optically pumped up. Since the now solid gas is still optically pumped up and is many many times denser than a gas, they achieve a corresponding increase in the power density which allows a small rod of it to pop a lot of popcorn. Sure beats the oxygen-iodine(?) chemical laser they're putting in the 747 for the airforce. The gas tanks are huge which is one reason why it's limited to 40 shots I think. Also the environmental impact from that much combusting iodine is probably not good (wonder what it does to the ozone up there).

I know it was just a movie and probably for some very simple thermodynamic/quantum physics based reason it couldn't work but why not? Would the atoms/molecules in a "pumped" up gas have to be lowered to a lower energy state before it could be frozen? Is there a correlation between the energy levels of the electrons in their shells and the temperature of a gas? Any answers out there?

Re:Was REAL GENIUS wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer: IANAP(hysicist)

If I remember the laws of thermodynamics from my physics courses correctly, things at lower temperatures have lower amount of energy. Things are frozen by taking away the matter's energy at the molecular level. If you "pump up" some matter (i.e. give it lots of energy or make it hot) then the effect of pumping it up is negated when the matter is frozen, since you need to remove all the energy.

Re:Was REAL GENIUS wrong?

[Legendre]

The quantum processes of state inversion, pumping electrons, etc. are all done assuming 0 K temperature already.

Re:Was REAL GENIUS wrong?

[ceoyoyo]

Lasing gasses don't just sit there with electrons at high energy levels until you decide it's convenient for them to release some photons. It happens quite quickly.

If the gas you choose is opaque when it's frozen (like CO2) how is light going to shine through it? Remember, LASER is an acronym for Light Amplification through Stimulated Emission of Radiation.

Finally, one of the biggest reasons military lasers are often chemical is that storing and using that much energy is a problem. Even if your hypothetical frozen CO2 laser worked, you'd still have to have the energy to pump up all that gas, frozen or not. With chemical lasers you can mix the two chemicals and they produce their own energy, nicely distributed and in convenient for for starting a laser reaction.

Moral of the story? Don't get your science from script writers.

anti-laser system

[confused one]

coat the missle in a layer of popcorn kernels, with a wrap of aluminum foil.

I don't trust the source of this story

[nysus]

Wouldn't Boeing have a lot of incentive to hype this to ensure that the contract got renewed for further research? It's possible that they set the bar for success so low and/or made the experiment so contrived that they couldn't help but achieve it.

Countermeasures

[gurps_npc]

Several people talk about counter measures.

They cost money to do. A lot of money.

More importantly, such as system provides immunity to all the old out dated missiles.

We are no longer facing a gigantic super-power threat. Russia and China are friendly, (and Germany and Japan are some of our best friends).

Our enemeis now a days are Terrorists

They are not known for scientific innovation. They are not known for expensive equipment. They make do with what they have. They do suicide missions because they can't afford robotic drones.

They will not be able to test their countermeasures easily. Effectively this development can triple or quadruple to cost for them to fire a missile.

More importantly, it will require them to spend more time and get better engineers. That gives us more time and places to detect their work.

This innovation might delay their attack enough for us to stop them.

Re:Countermeasures

[nysus]

So how will this anti-ICBM technology be used against a terrorist carrying these suitcase a-bombs that are said to exist?

The problem is, ss soon as we get a 100% effective missile shield, enemies will find a way to deliver nuclear armaments. It wouldn't even be that hard. They can just park a ship off a Manhattan and light one off if they wanted to.

This whole idea of shooting down missiles is a waste of fucking time and money. If we gave the money we were spending on this bullshit to the countries to foster good will, we'd be a lot better off.

Re:Countermeasures

[Anonymous Coward]

When the terrorists blow up Los Angeles, they aren't going to be using an ICBM. They're going to be floating a bomb into the harbor on a container ship. Your fancy airborn lasers will be useless.

But don't let that stop you from wasting billions of dollars on this. It's just all the sooner China takes over as the world's primary superpower.

Re:Countermeasures

[tjstork]

They can just park a ship off a Manhattan and light one off if they wanted to.

Ships move at 20-30mph. Ballistic missiles move at 15,000mph +. If we make it so that our enemies have to get a ship into one our harbors, it becomes a much simpler problem. We would need to have more Coast Guard people to basically board every ship, with neutron detectors, but, its something we can do. We can track ships as they are approaching the USA, track them as they leave ports, follow them, and pretty much monitor every boat on the ocean.

Re:Countermeasures

[tjstork]

When the terrorists blow up Los Angeles, they aren't going to be using an ICBM. They're going to be floating a bomb into the harbor on a container ship. Your fancy airborn lasers will be useless.

Will they?

I mean, everyone seems to think that loading a ship full of explosives is some unstoppable defense, yet, we certainly have the means to board, inspect, and if necessary, sink pretty much any ship.

Re:Countermeasures

[iceborer]

The problem is, ss soon as we get a 100% effective missile shield, enemies will find a way to deliver nuclear armaments. It wouldn't even be that hard. They can just park a ship off a Manhattan and light one off if they wanted to.

That's when we deploy the sharks!

Re:Countermeasures

[PPH]

If we know which ships to stop.

The occasional container load of immigrants has made it here. What's to stop them from loading up a bomb?

Worse yet, they'll stash one in an old freighter and pile bails of pot on top of it. If they make it to port, they can sell the dope and fund future operations. If the Coast Guard seizes the boat, the first thing they do is tow it into port for the obligatory press briefing on the big bust. The bomb goes off when the network cameras are rolling.

Re:Countermeasures

[Alphanos]

If any official claims this is to stop terrorist attacks, they're lying. This type of tech is to break the "mutually" part out of MAD. Once the US can confidently stop ICBMs 100% of the time with a mass-produced set of these things, it need not worry any longer about who it can threaten.

Re:Countermeasures

[PPH]

We can track ships as they are approaching the USA, track them as they leave ports, follow them, and pretty much monitor every boat on the ocean.

We can?

Re:Countermeasures

[h4rr4r]

And how will you detect this cargo ship that has one nuke in one container at the bottom of the stack?

Unless you work for Boeing it should be clear that this system is a just a handout to Boeing.

Re:Countermeasures

[bendodge]

Terrorists aren't the real threat. The old powers are. Russia and China have no great love for the US, and they have real missiles. I applaud whichever far-thinking generals are pushing these programs.

Re:Countermeasures

[Entropius]

The Russians have enough submarine-launched ballistic missiles to kill hundreds of millions of Americans. These lasers have a fairly short range (a few hundreds of miles at most). Are we really going to blanket the entire globe with these flying ABM lasers in the hopes that, if all those subs surface and launch, we'll catch enough of those missiles to seriously affect the outcome of a nuclear war?

They've also got ICBM launchers in the interior of Russia, and somehow I doubt a big flying brick like a 747 would survive a few minutes during wartime over Russian airspace.

Re:Countermeasures

[Entropius]

You don't have to board and inspect any ship.

You have to board and inspect *every* ship.

Re:Countermeasures

[falconwolf]

If we make it so that our enemies have to get a ship into one our harbors, it becomes a much simpler problem. We would need to have more Coast Guard people to basically board every ship, with neutron detectors, but, its something we can do.

They can't stop drug and firearm smugglers, they wouldn't be able to stop smugglers with a suitcase bomb either. Heck, the Mexican narco-terriorists have bazookas, grenades, and rocket launchers. And you can't blame the trade in those on the US, they are just as illegal here as they are there.

We can track ships as they are approaching the USA, track them as they leave ports, follow them, and pretty much monitor every boat on the ocean.

Drug runners use fast boats, just as the boats were used during Prohibition. Now though they can use Cigarette boats. Or small subs can be used. The US has thousands of miles of coastline,Florida alone has 1100 miles of beach, which doesn't include all of the coastline. Florida also has more than 700 airports.

People talk about how porous the US Mexican border is but the US Canadian border is even more porous. Forget all the roads that cross the border between Minnesota, I live in MN and can drive into Canada without ever seeing a single border crossing, and Washington state there are thousands of miles anyone can hike across the border. What can the US do to stop people from crossing a US border, build a Berlin Wall, er Apartheid Wall, and plant minefields? The Soviets weren't able to stop people who were desperate enough.

Falcon

Re:Countermeasures

[falconwolf]

If any official claims this is to stop terrorist attacks, they're lying. This type of tech is to break the "mutually" part out of MAD. Once the US can confidently stop ICBMs 100% of the time with a mass-produced set of these things, it need not worry any longer about who it can threaten.

Sure the US will still have to worry, China and Russia could smuggle a bomb into LA Harbor easier than terrorists can.

Falcon

Re:Countermeasures

[falconwolf]

I mean, everyone seems to think that loading a ship full of explosives is some unstoppable defense, yet, we certainly have the means to board, inspect, and if necessary, sink pretty much any ship.

Perhaps you can inform the DEA and all the other drug warriors of your fantastic method of stopping smugglers. Even if the US really did get serious about stopping smugglers there's no way it could.

Falcon

Re:Countermeasures

[graft]

You're wrong about countermeasures being expensive. Ted Postal at MIT talks about this kind of stuff, and I once attended a lecture where he went over the obvious failings of any similar anti-ICBM systems. It's trivial to create countermeasures: once you're in the ballistic phase, you can merely deploy a bunch of balloons as decoys. These are light-weight, extremely cheap, and from a distance are extremely difficult for any kill system to distinguish from the actual warhead. Especially since you can, if you like, actually put your warhead inside a balloon also, making it totally impossible to distinguish it from the decoys. Now you've made the kill problem N times more difficult, where N is the number of decoys. If your defense system previously had 80% success rate, with 20 balloons per warhead you can reduce that rate to a mere 4%. Therefore, the only SURE way to kill the thing is a boost-phase attack, which means you have to have satellites or aircraft parked directly above the launch site. I'm sure China and Russia will be happy to oblige the US there.

Re:Countermeasures

[DNS-and-BIND]

If we gave the money we were spending on this bullshit to the countries to foster good will, we'd be a lot better off.

It is best to be loved and feared. If both cannot be achieved, which is rare, then it is better to be feared than loved.

In addition, unrequested gifts from a strong entity are interpreted as weakness in many of the world's cultures.

Re:Countermeasures

[tjstork]

They can't stop drug and firearm smugglers, they wouldn't be able to stop smugglers with a suitcase bomb either.

Small nuclear munitions would not really be all that powerful. Wikipedia gives the yield of a small nuke at Heck, the Mexican narco-terriorists have bazookas, grenades, and rocket launchers.

And when is the last time you have seen someone in the USA killed by a bazooka?

Re:Countermeasures

[tjstork]

You don't have to board and inspect any ship.

You have to board and inspect *every* ship.

Then do it. Cut off all the imports. Come now, are you so enamored of your Japanese cars that you wish to expose your own cities to nuclear attack? Keep it simple, just cut off the ships.

Re:Countermeasures

[tjstork]

Perhaps you can inform the DEA and all the other drug warriors of your fantastic method of stopping smugglers. Even if the US really did get serious about stopping smugglers there's no way it could

Most drug warriors that I have talked to have said that they could curtail the drugs much more effectively if we placed our assets in a more of a defensive cordon. Instead everything is forwardly deployed and its more about power projection in the carribean than it is any real effort to end the imports of drugs.

Re:Countermeasures

[Entropius]

It must be very sad to be so paranoid of the entire world.

Yes -- I am so enamored with living as a citizen of the entire world, rather than just a tiny little piece of it -- that it's worth the very remote risk of terrorism.

It's not about this import or that import -- it's whether or not we're going to cower in a dark little cave of fear or not.

Re:Countermeasures

[Anonymous Coward]

Our enemeis now a days are Terrorists

> Our enemeis now a days are Terrorists

Fixed that for you. The bug in your post wasn't the typo. It was where you put the emphasis.

Re:Countermeasures

[bertok]

They can just park a ship off a Manhattan and light one off if they wanted to.

Ships move at 20-30mph. Ballistic missiles move at 15,000mph +. If we make it so that our enemies have to get a ship into one our harbors, it becomes a much simpler problem. We would need to have more Coast Guard people to basically board every ship, with neutron detectors, but, its something we can do. We can track ships as they are approaching the USA, track them as they leave ports, follow them, and pretty much monitor every boat on the ocean.

Why doesn't the US do that now?

Several analysts have pointed out that the easiest way to get a nuke into a major US city is by shipping it a standard shipping container. Many cities have container docks near the central business district, where even a small nuclear explosion from a low-tech device would inflict massive damage.

Containers can't even be properly scanned for radioactive materials when they're being unloaded in the harbor. The billion dollar project to install radiation detectors at US ports is apparently a failure - it detects false positives on things like shipments of granite, but fails to detect several varieties of Uranium and Plutonium, including the forms used in nukes. Not to mention that detecting a nuke at that stage is a bit late, it's already in the right place. And even if container scanning is perfected, there's dozens of other ways of smuggling a bomb in - cruise ships, private yachts, oil tankers, scuba divers, submarines, indirectly through Mexico or Canada, etc...

I read a great American Scientist article on why the current border protections against nuclear materials are a joke, but I can't find it now. I did find another research paper that covers most of the key points though.

Re:Countermeasures

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not intended to intercept ICBMs. You may want to read up on it's intended deployment before dropping an F-bomb. You just come off as unintelligent and on this site, that's a serious deficit.

READ about the weapon system. JOIN the army. SERVE in wartime. THEN say this is a waste of time.

If you don't have the guts for that, go to 'the countries' to assist in the 'fostering of good' will and see what life is like outside of your computer chair.

Re:Countermeasures

[tjstork]

Yes -- I am so enamored with living as a citizen of the entire world, rather than just a tiny little piece of it -- that it's worth the very remote risk of terrorism.

But you are not a citizen of the world. You are a citizen of your country. Legally, there is absolutely no such thing as a citizen of the world.

Re:Countermeasures

[falconwolf]

Small nuclear munitions would not really be all that powerful.

The attack on the WTC and Pentagon wasn't that powerful either, but we live the results of it. Neither was the first bombing of the WTC or the Oklahoma City bombing. The psychological damage from a nuclear explosion in a US port would be even worse.

Wikipedia gives the yield of a small nuke at Heck

I've never herd of the atomic unit heck, what is it?

the Mexican narco-terriorists have bazookas, grenades, and rocket launchers.

Why did you copy and paste this from another post of mine?

You have not addressed the issue I brought up, so I conclude you're trolling and will not response any more.

Falcon

Not living the dream - yet.

[fahrbot-bot]

Looks like the Real Genius fans out there are finally living the dream.

Sigh. Not until I can hammer a six inch spike through a board with my penis.

Re:Not living the dream - yet.

[Smooth and Shiny]

You mean you... can't? Dammit! She was right. I AM some sort of freak of nature!

Re:Not living the dream - yet.

[couchslug]

"Sigh. Not until I can hammer a six inch spike through a board with my penis."

You can do it! Trust me.

Simply strike the opposite surface of the penis with a large hammer in order to drive the spike.
The penis will cushion the spike and leave a nice polished surface when you are done.

"

Those are toys

[Cannelloni]

Airborne laser? Pffffffffff, just toys. What's needed is a real Death Star.

Re:Those are toys

[iggymanz]

aahhh, airborne starfish with frickin' lasers attached to their heads! mwuhahahahaha.

Next up - negative refraction skins?

[MartinSchou]

Will take a while to achieve, but I'm somewhat curious if materials with negative refractions still vaporize if hit by a powerful laser at the frequency at which the material exhibits that quality.

the problem with that trick is

[RobertLTux]

Even if 99.999% of the energy was reflected then you would still damage the surface (causing the refection amount to drop) and then you still have the problem of SHINY != STEALTH.

the best way to evade is to NOT BE WHERE THE BULLETS ARE
and with this system even if it just "paints" the target i would bet is has a nice range to it

Re:the problem with that trick is

[grolaw]

Our anti-rocket defenses have been gross failures. This technology has a long way to go to be viable. Meanwhile, we spend vast sums on this technology when we really ought to be looking to get outside of Earth orbit. 40 years is 30 years too long. We ought to have manned Moon and Mars bases by now.

Re:the problem with that trick is

[tjstork]

Meanwhile, we spend vast sums on this technology when we really ought to be looking to get outside of Earth orbit

The better we get with lasers, the better we can do fusion, and a laser make a holram fuse is definitely something we would want for propulsion, rather than chemical rocket crap. Why spend all this money on chemical rockets, when if we get really good at lasers, and then fusion, we can be on our way to Mars with container ship sized payloads, rather than a boy scout tent?

Re:the problem with that trick is

[grolaw]

Deuterium-based fusion reactors are one thing. Aircraft mounted laser weapons are something entirely different.

And, exactly how do we exit the planet's gravity well with fusion power? Steam?

Re:the problem with that trick is

[Entropius]

The problems inherent in laser propulsion and fusion are drastically different than the problems in making a practical ABM laser.

Re:the problem with that trick is

[John Hansen]

Our anti-rocket defenses have been gross failures. This technology has a long way to go to be viable.

I'm glad that we have established that you just spout rhetoric made by idiots long before you. That line was first used by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (may he burn in hell). Mind you, that was the same man who was responsible for the Edsel at Ford and practically every idiotic military idea during his tenure at the Pentagon.

The Nike Zeus system was consistently shown to be able to achieve missile kills in the 1960s using its standard nuclear warhead. I've also heard that there was a (classified) number of tests where the Zeus rockets made skin kills without said warhead. A modified variant was also capable of ASAT kills. The Zeus system, combined with a bomber such as the B-70 Valkyrie, would have rendered ICBMs obsolete. It was only the fact that we had a SecDef with a hard-on for ICBMs that ensured their survival.

And, by the way -- Zeus + B-70 would have saved the US a ton of money, relatively speaking, compared to all the money we spend on missiles. We were forced to build hundreds of massive, hardened missile silos to protect our ineffective ICBMs from counterattack. This is an incredible waste of money compared to the cost it would have taken to upgrade our Air Force bases to be able to support an active fleet of B-70s. Not to mention we already had Nike missile sites in place around most major cities; these could have been simply upgraded to Zeus missiles, as had been done with the upgrade from Ajax to Hercules.

Meanwhile, we spend vast sums on this technology when we really ought to be looking to get outside of Earth orbit. 40 years is 30 years too long. We ought to have manned Moon and Mars bases by now.

I believe the wording you're looking for is "Meanwhile, we have spent vast sums on ground wars and Space Shuttle technology when we really ought to be...". The amount of money spent on ABM technology is a drop in the bucket compared both of the above mentioned boondoggles.

Re:the problem with that trick is

[Guysmiley777]

Nah, all it takes is thermonuclear bomb buried in in a mile deep shaft with a folding chair sitting on top of it. Instant fusion powered space vehicle!

Re:the problem with that trick is

[grolaw]

If your idea of an anti-missile is a nuke, yeah it is effective - about as effective as horseshoes played with hand grenades.

http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/4925129/description.html
is the patent for the transponder - enabled target missile.

The very idea that we should detonate nukes in the atmosphere is nuts. It is even more absurd as a defense to incoming weapons from enemies that don't exist any longer (China owns our debt; Russia has enough to deal with from the former client states) and Israel, N. Korea, India and Pakistan don't have ICBM delivery systems.

WHO are we developing this new system to defend against?

Re:the problem with that trick is

[grolaw]

Are the Helium-filled balloons optional for that lawn chair?

Re:the problem with that trick is

[Atlantis-Rising]

Let me guess, you're a fan of Stuart Slade's, aren't you?

Re:the problem with that trick is

[jabuzz]

Using nuclear pulse propulsion. If you can have pure fusion explosions ignited by laser, you get over the fallout problems when using conventional thermonuclear devices and it becomes a viable rocket propulsion system.

Project Orion

Basically you need 800 0.15kT explosions 1 second apart to lift 1600 tonnes into low earth orbit or 1200 tonnes to the moon or 800 tonnes to Mars orbit and return.

If you go to 0.35kT explosions then you are looking at 5700 tonne to the moon, and 5300 tonne to Mars orbit and return.

There where designs for 8 million tonne "ships"

It should also be possible to accelerate the ships to around 10% the speed of light.

Re:the problem with that trick is

[grolaw]

Your massive craft size is due to shielding and shock absorbers -- and the impulse comes from massively dirty fallout. Hell, the article you link to contains more than enough information to show how impractical this idea is.

The only viable mechanisms to obtain low earth orbit is a rail-gun single-impulse launcher (for supplies, humans can't survive pulling that many Gs) and conventional chemical rockets.

Write when you solve that F=M*A problem for G.

Re:the problem with that trick is

[jabuzz]

Your massive craft size is due to shielding and shock absorbers -- and the impulse comes from massively dirty fallout. Hell, the article you link to contains more than enough information to show how impractical this idea is.

The massive craft size is due to the fact that you can now viably start to lift that amount of material. Why go from a few tonnes of payload to 100 tonnes, when going to 1000 or 5000 tonnes is just as easy? Why mess about assembling something like the ISS when you can lift a much bigger structure into space in one go?

The fallout is why Project Orion was abandoned. However if you can use laser inertial confinement to ignite a pure fusion explosion there is no fallout and it is back on.

The only viable mechanisms to obtain low earth orbit is a rail-gun single-impulse launcher (for supplies, humans can't survive pulling that many Gs) and conventional chemical rockets.

Write when you solve that F=M*A problem for G.

Wrong nuclear pulse detonation is a perfectly viable method from a technical standpoint. The problem is current thermonuclear devices have fallout issues that make them unacceptable. Switch to a pure fusion explosion the fallout issues disappear and off we go.

Re:the problem with that trick is

[grolaw]

Dream on, wizard. If the reaction could be contained you would still need the massive shock absorbers. That F=M*A problem for G remains...

Re:the problem with that trick is

[John Hansen]

If your idea of an anti-missile is a nuke, yeah it is effective - about as effective as horseshoes played with hand grenades.

http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/4925129/description.html is the patent for the transponder - enabled target missile.

The very idea that we should detonate nukes in the atmosphere is nuts. It is even more absurd as a defense to incoming weapons from enemies that don't exist any longer (China owns our debt; Russia has enough to deal with from the former client states) and Israel, N. Korea, India and Pakistan don't have ICBM delivery systems.

Regardless of the merits of nukes in anti-missile defense, the fact is that ICBMs were effectively obsolete in the 1960s. However, due to rampant idiocy and other political blunders, we forged ahead with them. Did it work out in the end? I suppose so. We're alive, aren't we? Does that mean the people in charge made the right decisions? I doubt it. We were left to foot a bill for a ridiculously overcomplicated, expensive system that has done absolutely nothing to help us in quality of life or scientific advancement.

For what it's worth, a high-altitude airburst releases less radiation into the atmosphere than your average coal plant spews out in thorium... yeah, that's a tragedy.

WHO are we developing this new system to defend against?

We're not. Nike Zeus was a strategic ABM defense system. It neatly countered the Russian threat of the 1960s. Would it be right to deploy an analogous system today? No -- as you said, where's the threat? The airborne laser, on the other hand, can be deployed to a small combat theatre, or any possible danger zone where some idiot with some secondhand IRBMs might be tempted to shoot them off. It's a technology testbed more than anything else -- a proof of concept, if you will. Base a few out of Japan, keep them on patrols, and you've effectively neutralized any chance North Korea had of shooting anything off at their neighbors. High energy lasers, frankly, make more sense in the modern battlefield than anti-missile missile defenses. Why shouldn't we be developing the technology?

Re:the problem with that trick is

[John Hansen]

Let me guess, you're a fan of Stuart Slade's, aren't you?

What a nice ad hominem. If you have a problem with someone's arguments, provide a well-thought out, logical rebuttal and see what happens. On the other hand, if you don't have the decency to do that, you're just trolling and can kiss my ass.

Re:the problem with that trick is

[grolaw]

You just said MAD worked in the 1960s - who needs another deterrent against NK?

Re:the problem with that trick is

[Atlantis-Rising]

I simply ask because Stuart Slade makes an identical argument and he's the only person I've actually seen make it. In fact, he wrote a series of books about it.

Given your defensiveness, I'd say that my question was answered in the affirmative.

Re:the problem with that trick is

[John Hansen]

You just said MAD worked in the 1960s - who needs another deterrent against NK?

Nice try. I never said MAD worked in the 1960s -- MAD was never an official US State Department policy, so how could MAD ever have possibly worked?

My actual point was that we are still alive today, therefore we must have done at least something right as a species, regardless of how flawed political policies were. That doesn't mean we should use the 1960s as an example of good practice for the future. We need to learn from our mistakes, not repeat them endlessly. Then again, Congress is a great example of the latter...

Regardless, with North Korea, they seem to be so absolutely batshit insane over there that I would definitely not want to bet my life on the assumption that they would treat assured destruction as sufficient deterrent to not, say, launch a missile at Japan. By that reasoning, it is a sound policy to have some form of anti-missile defense in the region if just to protect NK's neighbors from this. Does it mean we should foot the entire bill? No, of course not -- but I'm sure that South Korea and Japan would have no issues paying their share to ensure their own security.

Re:the problem with that trick is

[grolaw]

Oh, give it up. NK is not a sleeping giant - it is a delinquent left over from the cold war proxy-wars. The best comparison is a kid with a molotov cocktail and a single match v. the entire U.S 5th Fleet.

The danger (and, costs to assuage your fears) are way out of line with reality. It is phantom risk.

And, that aircraft has to be ready and at altitude

[falconwolf]

Are we going back to routine sorties similar to the old B-52 runs? How much will that cost??

That's what I was thinking too. The only way I could see something like this as being feasible would be to have planes up in the air all the tyme which would be expensive.

Love those B52 though. My dad retired from the Air Force as a mechanic on them and he used to take me to look at and explore them.

Falcon

How about retroreflective coatings?

[vadim_t]

Ok, a mirror won't work because it's not perfect and will quickly ablate, at which point the laser makes a hole in the missile even if it takes a second or two longer.

But what if you make a missile covered with retroreflectors that reflect that 90% or whatever a mirror can manage, but back at the laser itself?

Could an anti-laser missile be developed, which instead of a payload has several layers of retroreflectors to try to make the laser fry itself?

Re:How about retroreflective coatings?

[ceoyoyo]

You're aware that a laser works by bouncing laser light around inside until it's strong enough, and collimated enough, to be worth releasing, right?

Also, your retroreflector is going to be vaporized before it can reflect much light. Then the light it does reflect has to go all the way back through the atmosphere again.

Re:How about retroreflective coatings?

[vadim_t]

You're aware that a laser works by bouncing laser light around inside until it's strong enough, and collimated enough, to be worth releasing, right?

Yes. However, I remember reading somewhere that pointing a high powered laser pointer at a mirror in such a way that the beam is reflected at the laser may end up damaging it.

Also, your retroreflector is going to be vaporized before it can reflect much light. Then the light it does reflect has to go all the way back through the atmosphere again.

The beam emitter may well be able to deal with it, but how about making the laser go a bit off course, so that it might hit other parts of the laser, the operator, or anything else that might be found nearby? Having it get reflected back and hit some soldier's eyes would probably make them really hate the laser.

Even if the retroreflector doesn't last long, and there are losses, something that can make a hole in a missile isn't going to need that much time to leave somebody blind.
 

Re:How about retroreflective coatings?

[ceoyoyo]

Simple solution - don't look at the missile you're shooting at.

Re:How about retroreflective coatings?

[vadim_t]

I doubt that's very helpful for a laser that should be capable of slicing limbs off in a fraction of a second.

Re:How about retroreflective coatings?

[ceoyoyo]

Presumably you're not going to be hanging onto the outside of the airplane.

It should be much easier to make your 747 resistant to the little bit of laser light that comes back at you, after travelling twice as far, before the missile's retroreflector burns out, than to make the missile resistant to the full, once-attenuated beam. Particularly since you know what wavelength the laser is.

Re:How about retroreflective coatings?

[jjohnson]

I doubt that would be economical, even if it were feasible, which I don't think it is. Besides the fact that the retro-reflectors would need an absurd degree of control to reflect back precisely down the incoming path without losing coherence, you have the fact that lasers in air are constantly losing energy due to atmospheric interaction. The laser that leaves the plane at, say, 100MW, is at 50MW when it strikes the missile 10 miles away.

Think of a bullet: its highest velocity is its muzzle velocity as it leaves the barrel. After that it's continually being slowed down by air resistance (and for high velocity rounds, the shockwave built up). If you could reflect a bullet perfectly down its path with no loss of energy, it would be going too slow to do much damage when it hit the barrel from which it came. And with both a laser and a bullet, you're guaranteed to lose some energy on the 'retro-reflection'.

kids don't remember it's an old story

[Anonymous Coward]

/**
03/11/1983
@author T. Axdollars
**/

class StarWars implements SdiSpending { ...

try
{

frikkinLasers.pretendToShoot ( missle );

missle.pretendToGetHit ( frikkinLasers );

}

finally {

profit();

} ...

}

Space Chinese

[falconwolf]

This technology will be quite useful when we are facing the Space Chinese in 2385.

By then we'll be cruising around in Fireflies. In another star system because the earth became too crowded.

Falcon

There is an even easier work around

[aepervius]

Beside suitcase bomb, jsut multiply the number of missile or decoy with a "heat" source in it or whatever.

Can you imagine the energy requirement and the number of laser necessary to deflect a full scale attack of say, the russian ? Even if only 50% of the missile go through (and from seeing the dfficulty of development I am being generous) , your country is about as parking-lotted as it can be.

Re:There is an even easier work around

[PPH]

The ABL isn't intended to knock down warheads in mid flight. It goes after missiles during the boost phase. That's when they can get the laser relatively close to the target, its easy to spot (from the propulsion IR signature) and it hasn't released decoys yet.

What I'm wondering is whether the full power tests will be conducted against targets equipped with ablative or reflective coatings. Or worse yet; corner reflectors.

Re:There is an even easier work around

[hcdejong]

Actually, this is one of the reasons laser weapons are being developed. It's much cheaper to shoot lasers at a bunch of decoys instead of missiles costing >1e6$ apiece.

Also, weapons like the ABL can be used to shoot at missiles during the boost phase, before decoys can be deployed.

And, the best defence against a full scale nuclear attack by the Russians is deterrence. The ABL is meant more for use against tinpot dictators firing Scuds.

Re:There is an even easier work around

[Anonymous Coward]

This system isn't for stopping a mass launch from a major super power; it's meant to stop the small rogue states that only have a small number (1-5) of unsophisticated missiles.

Re:There is an even easier work around

[wumpus188]

Cheaper? My friend, when you'll start shooting anti-ICBM missiles, money won't mater anymore.

Re:There is an even easier work around

[hcdejong]

At $1e6 apiece, your supply of missiles is going to be constrained. A single warship, for instance, easily has $100 million worth of missiles on board; ISTR stories of a few years ago when the US Navy had problems buying enough missiles for all their ships. The same goes for anti-ICBM missiles.
Production is also a problem: when you expend your entire production run of missiles (iirc this happened in Gulf War 1) you'd have to wait months for new ones to be manufactured. A laser can easily be recharged.

Re:There is an even easier work around

[Anonymous Coward]

The concern is entities like North Korea (Iran?), that have a small number of weapons and are considered unstable. I'm sure Israel will be lining up with open check books to purchase the plane & laser kit.

Re:There is an even easier work around

[Blakey Rat]

Can you imagine the energy requirement and the number of laser necessary to deflect a full scale attack of say, the russian ?

Which one?

Re:There is an even easier work around

[VocationalZero]

First off, the Russians would never launch their nukes at the US; they are worth far too much money, if only as nuclear fuel. China would never nuke the US because then who would be left to pay their massive debts? Who is left? Who it was designed for: rogue states that may only have one or two missiles in their arsenals, in which case this laser has the ability to potentially save millions of lives. Most of them would even be tax payers probably.

Re:There is an even easier work around

[fermion]

This is why airborne missiles are the best choice for the scenario. This is not the Reagan/Bush faith based impractical star wars. This is a defense against a very few missiles launched from a limited number of locations to the US mainland. Given the probable locations of these launches, the problem boils down to destroying the missiles before their trajectory would allow them to penetrate the west coast, even if they lost power and guidance.

Decoys, within the scenario as I understand it, are not an issue. If the missile is destroyed during boost phase, which is what the laser does, the missile has not yet released the warheads, with is where the decoys are likely to come in. A missile might carry one warhead and many decoys. The chance of warhead after release is slim. The problem statement, as I understand it, does not allow for decoy missiles. As has been widely reported, such a system is not intended to neutralize the major powers ability to attack the US, which would jeopardize the long standing policy of mutually assured destruction, but to neutralize the emerging powers, to maintain a policy of unilateral destruction by the US.

So these panes will be flying around with lasers, and if they can detect and verify a launch, there is no reason why they will not be able to destroy a missile. And this is why the reported test is of so little consequence. It simply means that the relatively simple problem of destroying a known boogie has been solved. This was just a matter of scaling up a laser and creating a form factor that will fit in a plane.

It does not identify a bogie in a time frame that is measure in tens of seconds rather than minutes.

To do this a launch must be detected and confirmed form a hostile and possibly unknown location, meaning no one site survelience. The launch must be confirmed as hostile, and probably trajectory to US soil. Likely very little time for human human verification of high level briefing. We are talking software sophisticated enough so that the decision made by the software is trusted, and sensors sensitive enough sot hey can detect a launch and verify the projectile. Despite what was said earlier, it would be possible to launch large tin cans as decoys if the detection software is bad.

Here is my issue. We will be spending money for several of these planes. We will be spending money to fuel and staff these relatively large planes. For what purpose? To defend against a minor threat that does not yet even exist? This, to me, is wasted money and misguided. For instance, N. Korea was well on the way to giving up nuclear capability, but then they had a food crisis again. The nuclear capability can be used by N. Korea to get hard cash, for instance by selling nuclear material, which can be used to feed it's people. It is not a geat solution, and they were willing to stop the program for food, but then everyone said, hey, n korea should feed themselves, which is what they are doing. Israel has bombs, and their history proves they have no problem going to war, so any sane enemy of israel is also going to have nuclear capability. QED.

We are going down the rabbit hole, and it is a freaky world were nations with one or two bombs can cause massive expenditures in their more wealthy neighbors. It is one way to even the playing field.

The problem with ABL

[tjstork]

ABL is certainly a cool concept but the problem is they are working on the wrong kind of laser. Since the ABL project has started, free electron lasers have made way more progress than the chemical laser used in the ABL. With a free electron laser, you don't have to haul around all the nasty chemicals, can have more shots, more power for the beam and even offers the hope of adjusting the beam frequency. I'm not one to really want to kill a defense project, but, if I were in charge, I would junk the chemical laser part of the program, and go straight to free electron.

I think Raytheon just got a contract for a 100kw FEL, from the Navy. Perhaps the AF won't ever really succeed with the chemical ABL, but, if the Navy comes through with a free electron laser mounted on ships or even carrier borne aircraft, the capability of the ABL is something that we can get much more quickly.

Re:The problem with ABL

[Anonymous Coward]

You say wrong kind of laser, I say different kind. the 100kW FEL and 100kw SSHCL being developed as weapons right now are less than 1/10th the power of the ABL. The actual maximum output of the ABL is still classified (as far as I know) but is in the multi-megawatt range.

Useless

[h4rr4r]

So basically they have a system that must be on station when the missile is launched and can be defeated by launching more than 1 missile.

The Russians or Chinese would just use mobile launchers and launch 10+ ICBMs at one time, or better yet just launch from a submarine out in the middle of nowhere in the Atlantic.

If any useless program needs to be canceled this is it.

Re:Useless

[jjohnson]

How many missiles it can handle depends on how long it takes to destroy one missile. One second per missile (or less) means it can handle several missiles a minute, at least. And all you need to do is have multiple planes in the air at all times, as the U.S. maintained for 50 years after WWII with its strategic bomber force.

The Tactical High Energy Laser was a ground based system that was able to destroy multiple artillery/mortar shells in flight almost simultaneously. We're not talking about focussing a laser on something and taking minutes to burn through. We're talking about a high energy laser instantaneously dumping a ton of heat energy into an object. It's like getting hit with a bullet, only the energy is thermal rather than kinetic.

We do this enough...

[tjstork]

and the biggest strength the U.S. has at its disposal is the good will we manage to generate by helping others and spreading wealth and peace in the world.

The USA has a trillion dollar trade deficit. Every year the USA buys more junk than it can possibly afford, made all over the world. Look at what the good will this has gotten us. Nothing. Germany and Japan and South Korea and China dump all their junk on the USA, and take our market for granted, but what have they done for us lately?

Conversely, the British are in worse shape than we are, but, when push comes to shove, if the USA needs an ally, the British come through.

You know what I think? I think the USA needs to recognize that it has some friends and others are not so much friends, no matter how much money you put on the table, and reprioritize its trade based on that. Don't you think its kinda B.S. that a British or Canadian soldier that actually fights alongside the USA in Iraq or Afghanistan, deserves in peacetime more of a job working for some company that exports to the USA than, say, a South Korean or a German? Certainly the British and the Canadians are no lovers of war but they stood with us and actually have made some real contributions in money and in blood.

If we were really going to do the right thing, we would be importing cars from Britain, not Korea.

Re:We do this enough...

[h4rr4r]

Do you work hard to be this wrong?

The Germans have soldiers in in Afghanistan.

If you want an oil leaking POS british car feel free to buy one. If I wanted that kinda junk I would by a GM vehicle. I buy cars not from folks I like, but from people who build good cars. This is called capitalism, you should check it out it is a great system.

You are a fool if you think we have "friends", or if we should give those folks free money. The system you propose is no more than a hair's breadth from corporatism. Your appeals to nationalism are would make Mussolini proud.

I surely hope this is not the view center-right in this country.

Re:We do this enough...

[wealthychef]

There are other ways of helping others than giving bloated and corrupt foreign governments more "foreign aid." I am proposing we actually increase effort to really build wealth and prosperity and freedom around the world. We do this not by making broad policy statements and sticking to dogma (and then fighting those who disagree with it), but by really BEING the kind of country and individual citizens that value freedom and prosperity for the world and not just ourselves.

Re:We do this enough...

[Entropius]

The USA has a trillion dollar trade deficit. Every year the USA buys more junk than it can possibly afford, made all over the world. Look at what the good will this has gotten us. Nothing. Germany and Japan and South Korea and China dump all their junk on the USA, and take our market for granted, but what have they done for us lately?

They've made better products at lower prices than we are able to do ourselves. The Japanese can make a car, put it on a boat, pay for the boat, pay US import duties, and STILL sell a better product at a lower price than Ford. (Same with the South Koreans, I think.) Japanese and (especially) German scientists contribute to our wellbeing by the advancement of knowledge.

The Germans did us an even bigger favor. Y'know how a really good friend tries to stop a drunk buddy from hurting himself? "Hey, bud, you're drunk -- that's probably a bad idea." That was the Germans during the Iraq war -- they tried to warn the USA (metaphorically drunk with a corrupt/incompetent administration) that we were about to do something stupid. Not our fault that we didn't listen. That's more of a contribution than the Brits made... they got into the car with Dubya drunk at the wheel, not tried to take away his keys.

Re:We do this enough...

[RoccamOccam]

The Germans did us an even bigger favor. Y'know how a really good friend tries to stop a drunk buddy from hurting himself? "Hey, bud, you're drunk -- that's probably a bad idea." That was the Germans during the Iraq war -- they tried to warn the USA (metaphorically drunk with a corrupt/incompetent administration) that we were about to do something stupid. Not our fault that we didn't listen.

Sure, the German government behavior didn't have anything to do with their many strong ties to Hussein nor the corruption involved in the oil-for-food program and sixty-something German companies. In addition, I really can't see how people can try to continue to paint the Iraq War as some sort of failure. It seems to me that it was incredibly successful, with an average U.S. casualty rate that is close to or lower than that of the general military during peacetime in the 1980's. During the three-day Battle of Gettysburg, there were more than 10 times as many American casualties as there have been during the entire Iraq War.

Re:We do this enough...

[h4rr4r]

You might try looking into the body count of Iraqi civilians. That and the little fact that we have now setup them up to have a fun civil war.

Re:We do this enough...

[tjstork]

The Germans have soldiers in in Afghanistan

By their own admission, German soldiers in AFghanistan aren't really doing much, the army is poorly disciplined, and really is just not cutting it.

This is called capitalism, you should check it out it is a great system.

All I have to say is, if you start waving the flag in my face while driving a Korean car, you can shove it up your rear.

I surely hope this is not the view center-right in this country.

It's exactly how Reagan won the rustbelt.

Re:We do this enough...

[tjstork]

They've made better products at lower prices than we are able to do ourselves. The Japanese can make a car, put it on a boat, pay for the boat, pay US import duties, and STILL sell a better product at a lower price than Ford. (Same with the South Koreans, I think.) Japanese and (especially) German scientists contribute to our wellbeing by the advancement of knowledge.

They do this because they hoard our currency to prop up its value, rather than spend it and release it back into the marketplace. Then they exclude imports themselves, adopt an essentially racist culture than refused to accept anything foreign... its like, you want to trade with these people? That's just stupid.

The Germans did us an even bigger favor.

That's just a rationalization. Everyone talks about how Reagan stood in front of the Berlin wall and said "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,", but what no one remembers is all the German greens fear mongering. I don't blame the Germans avoiding any sort of an idea of war at any price, no matter what. Nearly every German that there is has a relative that was killed either in allied bombings or on the Russian front. If we had lost 10% of our population and had our entire country destroyed and then occupied for 50 year, we'd probably be the same way.

All I'm saying is, since Germany and France is so myopically anti-war, there's absolutely no point to defending them via NATO, and there's certainly no point in involving the USA in the middle east. It's just stupid to be in a military alliance with a people that won't fight.

The USA is not in the middle east to get oil - its so Europe can get oil. The USA could get more efficient, jack up CAFE, and rely on its own domestic production.

Re:We do this enough...

[tjstork]

You might try looking into the body count of Iraqi civilians. That and the little fact that we have now setup them up to have a fun civil war.

The Iraqis make their own choices. We have given them every opportunity to choose peace. If they don't choose it, that's not our fault, that's theirs.

Re:We do this enough...

[gtall]

You mean the civil war the Shi'ites and Sunnis have been engaged in ever since the 3rd imam took one for the team and his nephew failed to become the Big Dork of Islam? Or the one that pleasant Iraqi president started with Iran a few decades ago...what was his name...Sad...Saddo...Saddom...Gommorah? Ooo...that wasn't a civil war, not by anybody's stretch of imagination. Or maybe it was the Kurdish war against everyone else, because, damnit, no self-respecting Islamic society should have to live in peace with their Islamic brothers.

Get a clue, Islam means Surrender...please feel free to surrender yourself to it's tender loving mercies. The U.S. tried to civilize one small Islamic microcosm in the apparently mistaken belief the people wanted a better life. The Iraqis decided that killing each other was a wonderful pasttime and supported by the Koran...all sides. Neat trick.

Re:We do this enough...

[mjwx]

no self-respecting Islamic society should have to live in peace with their Islamic brothers.

Oh yes, the majoirty of the Islamic world is like that. The warmongering Malaysian and the absolutely hateful Indonesian people just cant stop killing. Whaaa, you didn't know the majority of the islamic world lives in SE Asia.

Were you born stupid, or is it something you had to work on. Take your own advice and get a clue (not from AngryRightWingWhiteSupremisist.com either)

Re:We do this enough...

[gtall]

Maybe you should read on the conflict between the Muslims and Christians in Indonesia. Periodically, it erupts into that foundation of Islam, violence. Maylaysians also have conflict between Muslims and Buddhists, Hindus, Christians...just about anyone not Muslim. They've got laws that discriminate against non-Muslims. Check out the Muslims in S. Thailand, they don't live peacefully with non-Muslims either.

Hmmm...accusations of Nazism, must be Democrat. Did you have to play that card so soon, it gets sooooo tiring.

Frequency tuning gets you...

[tjstork]

won't missile designers just make the missile housing out of the same reflective material?

Free electron lasers, I think, can actually have their frequency tuned. It's like Star Trek. The Borg put up a shield, the Enterprise changes its phaser frequency.... blammo.

Transpart Aluminum

[inject_hotmail.com]

I think this will be a fantastic use for transparent aluminum. If you can't see the thing, you can't shoot it down. Even if you could see it (to aim at), it won't absorb the energy from the laser too much.

Re:Transpart Aluminum

[ceoyoyo]

You have some transparent rocket fuel, transparent guidance electronics and transparent explosive to go with your mythical SATP transparent aluminum, right?

Re:Transpart Aluminum

[inject_hotmail.com]

I was thinking about that too. I imagine rocket fuel being translucent, which won't likely absorb much energy (though I could be wrong...it might be solid. If it is, hopefully it could be made white to reflect most of the energy). If the guidance and explosive is the only thing that is opaque, it would make for a tiny target. Hopefully that'd be enough.

Re:And, that aircraft has to be ready and at altit

[grolaw]

It is a costly idea with serious limitations.

I enjoyed seeing (and coming close enough to touch) a SR-22 Blackbird at the Boeing museum in Seattle. Never saw a B-52 up close and personal.

paying for health care by reducing military spendi

[falconwolf]

Please inform the NRA-clown who asked you the question that the 30 billion can easily be taken from the military budget seeing that the US already spends more money on the military than the rest of the world combined

That wouldn't really help as a lot of military spending is off the books. On the other hand we didn't need to build a billion dollar embassy in Iraq about as big as Vatican City. Or the hundreds of millions spent on other embassies.

On the other hand, if you think health care is expensive now wait until it's free. Costs will either skyrocket or be health care will be rationed. What would help is a freer market in health care, medicine, and insurance. Either those who buy and pay for their own health insurance should get the same tax breaks as employers who offer insurance and the employees that get it, or those employers and employees should not get tax breaks. It should also be easier to open walk-in clinics with expanded use of Nurse practitioners and physician's assistances who practice under the supervision of doctors.

Falcon

Our enemeis now a days are Terrorists

[falconwolf]

This innovation might delay their attack enough for us to stop them.

It might slow terrorists down if they plan to launch a missile and not smuggle a bomb into LA harbor. Guess which method terrorists are likely to use, a method that requires an expensive rocket as well as a warhead, or one where most of the cost is in making a bomb?

Falcon

Re:And, that aircraft has to be ready and at altit

[falconwolf]

I enjoyed seeing (and coming close enough to touch) a SR-22 Blackbird at the Boeing museum in Seattle.

The SR-71 was the Blackbird. More than just seeing one, I'd love to fly it.

Falcon

Re:And, that aircraft has to be ready and at altit

[grolaw]

You are correct. The one I saw in Seattle made the fastest transcontinental flight on record - less than an hour.

The beast is TI and leaks like a sieve until it is up to temp so it is constantly being refueled during missions. I expect that was the problem that killed the SR-71.

What's the worst case...

[Anonymous Coward]

...if the laser fires and misses the target?

I'm curious.

Not just missiles...

[Anonymous Coward]

So many here assume that the stated purpose and actual purpose are identical.

Think of this: Known terrorist in a building with lots of innocents. You can't blow it up without killing a bunch of people that you don't want to hurt.

However, said Dr. Evil walks out of building to get in his car, and the orbiting a/c 25km away at 12,000m zaps him at the speed of light, in the 3 meters from the door of the building to the car door.

Missiles move fast, a person is what, maybe 1 m/s ? Damn easy target.

Still agree with above- useless until attached to sharks.

Strategic implications

[vuo]

Here's a good reason why it would promote peace not to develop it: it enables first strike. For example, currently nuclear missiles and artillery shells are difficult or impossible to effectively intercept. That means that a counter-strike is likely to be devastating and thus provides a deterrent against first attack. An example affecting the U.S. is North Korea, which is within range of conventional artillery from South Korea's capital. But, given a weapon that mostly neutralizes the counter-strike, there is suddenly an incentive to strike first.

This is also the reason the American government is so eager to build a missile defense system to defend against Iran; not because Iran would suddenly try to annihilate the entire United States in a fit of unreasonable rage, which is not even possible given their competency, but because the American government wants to attack the country with impunity and fears the few (and probably not even effective) ballistic nuclear missiles that Iran would then launch for terror purposes.

Of course the argument applies that the adversary develops it, too. Yet what'll happen is that Russians steal it like Soviets did with the atomic spies, and others such as China copy it otherwise, and Britain and France will simply purchase it. The result is even more dominant Security Council permanent members, which is harmful to international relations, even more so than the current situation, and produces even more bullying of small nations. This is because the technology will be applicable to conventional projectiles, too, not just the doomsday missiles. The technology sounds cool but developing it takes a lot of money that, especially in the current depression, could be spent better. And where the American government gets the money, if not from China et al.?

Re:Strategic implications

[cpghost]

Of course the argument applies that the adversary develops it, too. Yet what'll happen is that Russians steal it like Soviets did with the atomic spies, and others such as China copy it otherwise, and Britain and France will simply purchase it.

And what if the Russians or Chinese developed their own missile shields, and the US didn't? Me thinks it would give them first strike capability too. Of course, the US could then steal that tech from them just as well, but that's not the point.

You can't escape the never ending competition between shield and sword. You can always refuse to compete for some time, but your adversaries won't, and that would give them a strategic advantage, therefore mitigating the equilibrium, and probably even inducing new strategic wars.

"surrogate high energy"? wtf?

[ridgecritter]

It isn't a test until the whole system works end-to-end. Using a "surrogate" for the actual high-power COIL that kills the target doesn't give you "success" bragging rights. This test leaves out a bunch of perturbations that only come in play when operating at full power with the real laser. This is just PR to save a program that's very likely to be cancelled to save $.

Re:"surrogate high energy"? wtf?

[Anonymous Coward]

This test leaves out

(Maybe, maybe not. I don't have a need to know. I don't even have a need to know if you have a need to know, so don't answer that. :)

Sounds like a reasonable test programme to me. Eliminate the variables by establishing that everything else works. Then throw the full-power laser at the tracking system, and let the dice fall where they may. Toss aside any political implications, how else would you test such a thing?

That, and I just like lasers. Sharks, 747s, it's all good.

Socialistic is not a 4-letter word.

[denzacar]

And yeah...
Armies in democratic societies are inherently socialist.

No single man, group or corporation owns ANYTHING, down to a single nail, bullet or a shoelace that belongs to the armed forces.
It all belongs to the PEOPLE i.e. - citizens of the state. You know... those same people that get drafted in the event of war.
Those same people whose taxes PAY for the whole thing.

Who has private armies? Dictators and warlords.

Re:Socialistic is not a 4-letter word.

[quercus.aeternam]

Good point, armies can't really get around that- unless we look at militia, but it seems that it would be difficult for them to be competitive nowadays; the middle east seems to be a good example of that.

Due to the personalized nature of health care, I don't see that health care would significantly benefit from socialization.

At the same time, there are significant similarities - but at first glance, I don't see any benefit to socialized medicine.

Re:Socialistic is not a 4-letter word.

[denzacar]

Tell it to those who can't afford the basic health-care.

Couple of hours ago there was a story on CNN about a guy who tried pulling two of his teeth with pliers - cause he had no money to pay for the procedure.
I mean - COME ON!

For fuck's sake, I've had free health-care whole my life here in Bosnia.
And despite the fact that state coffers are being filled by only about 700.000 employed (out of about 3.5-4 million people) - most health-care is free here.
Granted... system is swamped with elderly who often abuse it (going to doctor every other day is the only entertainment to some), there aren't enough resources (you will often wait for an ultrasound exam for a month) and most medicine that is not free is WAY too expensive for your average worker or retired person - health care is still essentially free. Some procedures and medicine require "participation in cost" but none of the basic health care does.

All of the problems health care here has are the same ones every other public system here has - general poverty, rampant corruption on every level of government and general ignorance and lack of education among the population.
We have about 700.000 employed, while at the same time we have about 750.000 illiterate.
Who keep voting for people based on religion and nationality. So it is perfectly normal that a pensioner barely survives on ~$200 a month, while his representative(s) in the government get ~$10.000 (+perks and benefits and bribes) a month to sit on their asses. (Couple of months ago some reporter did a story about how much work has the government done in the past year, from their own plan that they had for that year. No ministry did more than 15% of the promised. Most did less than 5%. Several did absolutely nothing. No action was taken to fix that.)

Still. No (sane) Bosnian would even consider doing amateur dental work on himself - as it has been free for all his life. Other dental care too.

And if you can't wait - you can always go to a private ordination or clinic. And pay out of your own pocket, naturally.

Come on.
If Bosnia (and other former Yugoslav republics - most public systems in these countries are just slight modifications of the pre-1990's system) can give its citizens free health-care, why couldn't United States?
It can't be for economical reasons.

The ONLY reason USA is even having this debate at all is because it has been taught for the last 100 years or so that socialism = communism = evil.
General public is so brainwashed that they can't even accept the basic economic of buying a keg of beer.
Everyone chips in, everyone gets the beer way cheaper than if they bought a bottle for themselves.
You want to drink something else, and have the money for it?
Chipping in a buck or two won't kill you, you get not to be a selfish bastard, everyone gets to enjoy the party, you can still BYOD and the beer is essentially free for everyone.

Re:Socialistic is not a 4-letter word.

[quercus.aeternam]

I strongly disagree with many of your statements, particularly with respect to the reasoning of those in the US.

I am not without personal experience. I've lived in a socialist country (Argentina) and seen first hand its health care. From my perspective, the US system works better - much better. As to Bosnia, I can't directly relate. I certainly hope it's better than Argentina, but regardless, please recognize that it is difficult to fully understand the differences without prolonged personal exposure.

10-7

Re:Socialistic is not a 4-letter word.

[Anonymous Coward]

I basically second this, with the addition:

- If a gov't option healthcare is socialism, then doesn't that make:

education, transportation, police and fire departments

all socialist enterprises as well?

P.S...

[denzacar]

Avoid Texas afterwards.

Particularly Dallas.

O Yee of Little Imagination...

[denzacar]

Why hammer?

Simply freeze the penis first.

Haven't you ever used a frozen sausage in a fight?

Mirror coating the missile isnt enough by itself

[DanielRavenNest]

Destroying a missile in boost phase has some options besides burning thru the missile. The nozzle is unlikely to be highly reflective, it is too necessary for it to be strong and hear resistant. The exhaust is also unlikely in the extreme to be reflective. Your laser only needs to deposit enough energy on one or the other to create a shock wave that will damage the nozzle, and you are done.

The nosecone is also not likely to be reflective, because it has to be strong and heat resistant, and flying through the air often generates fog streaks as water vapor gets compressed. Again, you don't have to burn through the wall of the missle, just deposit enough energy to make a shock wave that will damage something important.

Think of it this way: with a hand grenade, the chemical explosives contain the energy to go boom. With the airborne laser, the iodine-oxygen fuel for the laser contains the energy, and the laser is just how you deliver the energy to the near vicinity of the target. Whether heat to failure or shockwave to failure is easier, I will leave to the experts, but there's more than one damage mode to consider when imagining countermeasures

Isn't this kind of old?

[Anonymous Coward]

I work with a guy who helped design the plane and prototype it more than 10 years ago. It's been around for a while, they're just starting to make it public knowledge.

The German Mortal joke was said unearthed

[chanio]

It seems that some poliglot hackers succeded in finding where was the WW1 mortal german joke burried.
The translator team is very worried about laughing at their part of the text...

TSA

[Anonymous Coward]

So how are they going to get this laser through airport security to mount it on the plane in the first place? :-)

So what

[smoker2]

Woo hoo, America blows something up - wake me up when you do something non-destructive.

awaiting flamebait mod ...

Re:So what

[smoker2]

sorry, missed out the "fuck, yeah" !

I don't know about that being so hard

[JumpDrive]

I seem to recall a great hub bub, when a number of people were targeting over flying jets with green lasers.

Maybe they should dump the targetting computers and get some nerd boys to play around with their cool laser.
This way we could finally find these dweebs a job.

1st problem solved.

[matsoo]

Great!

Now they just have to get around the fact that the laser might not be able to focus on the same spot long enough to actually take the missile out, is ineffective if the target is more than 10 miles away, or if its windy, cloudy, dusty or if there is any turbulence. It is also ineffective if the missile have gained any significant speed in which case the instability of the firing platform makes it impossible to fire on the same spot long enough to burn through.

Of course, you also have to have the 747's crusing around over enemy airspace to actually be able to target any missile launches, which might be the largest problem of all with this system.

It is also interesting that these news appear shortly after it has been announced that there won't be a second 747 airborne laser testbed for economic reasons.

Problems with the main laser..

[JRHelgeson]

The airborne laser has a problem in that the primary beam used to destroy the target missile is so hot that it turns the air in front of the beam into a plasma, causing the energy to dissipate long before it reaches the target. The result is needing the ability to dynamically focus the beam so that it only reaches its focus on the target (3' diameter at the plane, 1" diameter on the target). The other is that it needs to be fired at as high an altitude as possible which puts the aircraft at the service ceiling, so it isn't exactly a rapid response solution. Third, it is best if it is firing at an ICBM at its apex in flight where the atmosphere is thinnest.

Cool stuff though...

"Costs will skyrocket" - your evidence?

[Kupfernigk]

The US medical industry already represents 16% of the GNP and is higher than any other developed country, including the ones that have "socialist" health systems. Under your present system costs have already "skyrocketed". In the US, healthcare is already rationed by (a) ability to pay and (b) the attempts of insurance companies to maximise shareholder return. In Europe, we just happen to think that our health systems are best managed by people who answer to the electorate rather than people who answer to shareholders. I think that's called "democracy" rather than "socialism".

Re:"Costs will skyrocket" - your evidence?

[falconwolf]

Under your present system costs have already "skyrocketed".

Ah but the US does not have a free market in health care and medicine. I said as much in the post you replied to. I want the system reformed, but by opening up the markets.

In Europe, we just happen to think that our health systems are best managed by people who answer to the electorate

And I suppose you want democracy to manage your life as well. I however want to live free. So long as I am not harming anyone else government has no business in how I live. But that's what government does when it takes the money I work to earn and gives it to someone else.

I think that's called "democracy" rather than "socialism".

Hitler and the NAZIs, National Socialists, came to power in a democracy. As a matter of fact democracy is a system of government whereas socialism is an economic system. Therefore theoretically you can have both.

Falcon