Slashdot Mirror
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."
Which is generally isn't above the clouds in the stratosphere.
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...
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.
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.
Laughter is the best medicine, except if you have a broken rib.
Billion dollar laser tag. They didn't destroy the missile. The missile's laser tag vest scored the hit.
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.
But the aircraft has to be clear of clouds, sand and fog....
What prevents the target from cloaking itself in LOX fog, by venting ?
This technology will be quite useful when we are facing the Space Chinese in 2385.
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??
What happens when the enemy mirror coats the missile? Like totally chrome it out so it reflects like 99.9999% of light?
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
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)?
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.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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" ?
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.
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'.
- James
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.
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.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
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.
Good people go to bed earlier.
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?
coat the missle in a layer of popcorn kernels, with a wrap of aluminum foil.
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.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
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?
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.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Sigh. Not until I can hammer a six inch spike through a board with my penis.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
They will place these lasers in New England. They say you only have to wait 5 min. for the weather to change there.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
Airborne laser? Pffffffffff, just toys. What's needed is a real Death Star.
Beauty is in the beholder of the eye.
Actually, the lasers are on a plane, presumably above the clouds. See article.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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).
But we can make enormous Swiss cheese!
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.
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
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
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)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
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
Should there be a Law?
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.
XML causes global warming.
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?
OMG you are so funny.
XML causes global warming.
With shields , offcourse :-) .
Slipping shoelaces ?
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
Should there be a Law?
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.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
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.
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.
This is my sig.
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.
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.
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.
This is my sig.
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).
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.
This is my sig.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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
Should there be a Law?
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.
XML causes global warming.
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....
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.
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.
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
Should there be a Law?
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.
The government can't save you.
Modulate the phase variance?
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.
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.
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).
You just gave me a great idea for a new movie.
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.
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?
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.
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!"
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.
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.
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.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
"Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherfucking lasers on this motherfucking plane!"
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
Should there be a Law?
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.
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.
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.
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.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
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!
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.?
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.
Of course it isn't. I hope the US military never invents a silver bullet weapon.
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 $.
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.
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.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
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
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.
Impersonating Tycho from Penny Arcade since before there was a PA.
Hey, I think we are arguing the same point here :)
(my points should be anded together, not ored)
sorry, missed out the "fuck, yeah" !
Yeah, but can you drive a six inch railroad spike through a board with your penis?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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.
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
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
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
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..
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
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.
All I have tried to convey is that the technology is flawed and expensive. Whatever happens, there will be a workaround a laser defense.
A planet-based high impulse laser in the UV range would make an effective satellite killer.
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...
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
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.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
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.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
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
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
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.
Last time i checked FELs are not flight weight. They are the size *and* weight of a large building.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
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".
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
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).
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
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.
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?
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.
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.
Software piracy is victimless theft.
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.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Where did they find a power cord long enough to reach the plane?
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
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!
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?
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!
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.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
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.
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..
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]
Don't you know that shields explode when hit by lasers?