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Hypersonic Radio Black-Out Problem Solved
KentuckyFC writes "Russian physicists have come up with a new way to communicate with hypersonic vehicles surrounded by a sheath of plasma. Ordinarily, this plasma absorbs and reflects radio waves at communications frequencies, leading to a few tense minutes during the re-entry of manned vehicles such as the shuttle. However, the problem is even more acute for military vehicles such as ballistic missiles and hypersonic planes. Radio blackout prevents these vehicles from accessing GPS signals for navigation and does not allow them to be re-targeted or disarmed at the last minute. But a group of Russian physicists say they can get around this problem by turning the entire plasma sheath into a radio antenna. They point out that any incoming signal is both reflected and absorbed by the plasma. The reflected signal is lost but the absorbed energy sets up a resonating electric field at a certain depth within the plasma. In effect, this layer within the plasma acts like a radio antenna, receiving the signal. However, the signal cannot travel further through the plasma to the spacecraft."
Is this PC? Maybe use "slave out"? What do you think, Linda?
The SNR and BER of that scheme are going to suck.
Until the creation of the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System, the Space Shuttle would, like Gemini, Mercury, Apollo, and others, endure a 30 minute long communications blackout before landing. However, the Shuttle can communicate with a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite during re-entry. This is because the shape of the Shuttle creates a "hole" in the ionized air envelope, at the tail end of the craft, through which it can communicate upwards to a satellite in orbit and thence to a ground station.
Damn Obama, wasting our taxe... oh? Whats that? Russian Scientists you say?
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3758862.html
(except it's patented)...
The space program has been used for military research and military purposes. There's quite a bit of overlap between sending a man to orbit and sending a missile to orbit. That GPS satellite can be used to get you from point A to B or that ballistic missile to Moscow. Satellite cameras to search the stars aren't altogether different from spy satellites to search the ground. Maybe some of the experience they've gotten from, say, the Mars rovers was useful in building the various military drones they have now.
I think it's fair to say that the military would find ways to use civilian technology in relevant fields, and space exploration has some pretty big overlaps.
SSC
I read the full summary. The last sentence that the signal cannot travel into the craft from the plasma. How is that solved?
The cause of, and solution to, all technological problems in the 23rd century.
since we have a 168 of them, I don't really see a problem with the project not being funded. Add to this its 20 year old tech, and not fighters are moving away from having a pilot in the craft, it was a good decision. And I love the things.
FIY: being canceled, and being no longer funded are different things.
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The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
At the end of TFA they give the original reference, a paper preprinted in 2007. One way to tell if this holds water is to see if other research groups have done follow-ups in the intervening three years.
You're really limit in your thinking.
Technology is constantly developed to make killing more precise; which means LESS killing.
And there are a hell of a lot of spin-offs that are used in civilian markets. I don't see why you have created some sort of demarcation between killing tech and non killing tech. there is just tech that is used. The same tech is often used for killing as it used for non killing.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The closest analogy I can liken it to are plasma speakers. They are excellent at reproducing sound. However, using plasma as a microphone, they would take a lot of work and amplification to get any meaningful signal back from them.
I'm a military contractor, you insensitive clod.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
That the tech is 20 years old is irrelevant when everybody else's is too. Further, there are NO operational interceptor drones, and it will be decades before one is more capable than an F-22. The demands of an interceptor are completely different from the surveillance and light ground attack roles that drones are filling now.
The end result of a cancelled program and a defunded program is the same: no more aircraft will be produced.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Well, I read the full introduction of the paper, and the conclusion, skipping only the detailed plasma physics models & calculations. They do mention the strategy of putting an antenna through the plasma which can last as long as one fuel tank before it ablates, but they instead propose that (more elegantly) a small commercially-available 3 kW high frequency klystron amplifier (a lot less power than the radar) be placed at the surface of the aircraft, where it will disrupt a very small region of the plasma in a manner that will scatter ~.7 - 2% of the original incoming signal (which will resonates in a layer of the plasma) back to the aircraft; that is enough power for a 5 m. antenna and a commercially-available high sensitivity GPS receiver to pick it up. There is an analogous explanation for outgoing signals. They account for quite a few confounding plasma effects, acknowledge that there are some others that can't be modeled so clearly (or maybe they didn't think of), but predict that getting the system to work would be a not-so-difficult engineering challenge.
My first thought was, "Boy, I hope all the space opera authors read this preprint: no more signal attenuation from the plasma engines in the atmosphere!" Now there is one more area in which reality is exceeding a certain segment of--rather soft--science fiction (that I am only familiar with--AHEM--because of Baen's visionary no-DRM any-format ebook policy).
iirc, the F22 project was defunded so that they could move the money to the F35 project, which seems to be progressing nicely...
On the other hand we might prefer that a thermonuclear warhead mounted on a cruise missile heading for China be able to receive the recall signal all the way up to the point where it goes 'boom', you know just in case Joshua is acting up again.
Unless Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington are on board, in which case, it wouldn't matter either way, they'll get into an alpha male fight and someone will have to hold the leash for Gene's Poodle while the brass chews Denzel out.
The A-135 can only really defend Moscow against a single warhead, or just a handful at the most. The radar system itself is susceptible to suppression, seeing as how there's only one pillbox providing support for the interceptors. Only the first wave defense is likely to be effective, and there's only 32 of those missiles, which would hardly put much of a dent into a serious ballistic missile attack, considering the number of decoys and warheads implemented in modern missile systems. The second wave defenses, while more numerous, are non-nuclear now and probably wouldn't intercept much of anything. They were designed for nuclear warheads originally, something which of course would irradiate much of Moscow anyway. There may still be some nuclear warheads in the second wave, but stopping the enemy missiles from striking your city isn't all that great if your own missiles kill you anyway.
This is all, of course, predicated on the idea that the A-135 is still operational. There's some evidence that it's not, really, and only used for "tests" whenever the US starts thinking about upgrading their own ABM systems.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
And, indeed, that much of what we now consider to be civilian technology was developed initially for military applications. The internet, for example, was funded by DARPA. So was GPS -- can't lay my hands on a good list, but I'm sure it's quite extensive.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
iirc, the F22 project was defunded so that they could move the money to the F35 project, which seems to be progressing nicely...
You must work in Marketing. "Progressing Nicely?"
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
You can't have an advanced fighter jet without a pilot in the craft. Remote-control aircraft work fine for fighting stone-age enemies on the ground in backwards countries who have no ability to jam your radio signals, but that won't work when fighting someone with the same level of technology, in aerial combat.
Basically, we're giving up on the ability to fight anyone with similar technology, and concentrating only on fighting insurgents on the ground.
Not marketing, just insufficient information. Thanks for the pointer :)
You don't need to send radio signals to your drone if you have a good enough computer/smart enough software on board.
The standard argument against being able to remotely disarm missiles has been that including such a mechanism opens the door for the enemy potentially figuring out how to do it - it's not about the ability to communicate.
#DeleteChrome
Technology is constantly developed to make killing more precise; which means LESS killing.
And there are a hell of a lot of spin-offs that are used in civilian markets. I don't see why you have created some sort of demarcation between killing tech and non killing tech. there is just tech that is used. The same tech is often used for killing as it used for non killing.
Gatling gun, A-bomb, H-bomb, Napalm, MOAB... precise enough for government work I guess.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
iirc, the F22 project was defunded so that they could move the money to the F35 project, which seems to be progressing nicely...
You must work in Marketing. "Progressing Nicely?"
Probably more like a PR spin-doctor.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Don't worry. Israel has your back.
Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
Huh? Computers aren't artificially intelligent yet.
You're really limit in your thinking.
Technology is constantly developed to make killing more precise; which means LESS killing.
you mean like the hydrogen bomb? the one which can precisely destroy a WHOLE city? technological progress does not automatically mean more precise killing, sometimes it also enables mass killing.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
The geeks with their wide-eyed wild fantasies and delusions of 8GB RAM and Quad Core Processors are so far away from being practical and economical, it's laughable. It will simply NEVER EVER work, EVER.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Invisible expect for the whole fact that you're now so bright in IR that people could spot you from another planet, not even mentioning all the other EM noise emitted.
You may be slightly less visible on radar, but you're screaming "I'M HERE!!!!" in so many other ways it doesn't matter.
Huh? Computers aren't artificially intelligent yet.
Have you played any flight combat simulators? It's not hard to get the computer to whip a human's ass. The hard part is getting enough data into the computer to allow it to make "intelligent" decisions.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If you can save enough money in production by removing life support and in operation by reducing personnel, it's conceivable that I'm fielding 10 drones for each of your pilots. And my pilots gain experience even when their craft is destroyed. In a prolonged, real shooting war these things add up.
Of course, if it ever comes to that we'll see both sides fielding mixed squadrons so they get the best of both, at least for the foreseeable future.
Remote controlled drone vs. live pilot in the seat I concede that for now the pilot will likely win out.
what if it's 3 drones to one live pilot
what if it's 7
what about ten?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Y...Basically, we're giving up on the ability to fight anyone with similar technology, and concentrating only on fighting insurgents on the ground.
Well, actually, that at least sounds consistent. Since MOST of our weapons are produced by private corporations -- and THEY have weapons plants in some of those "Potential Enemy" countries -- just shooting people too poor to jam your radar and PRETENDING to have air craft carriers for some other reason than to spend lots of money on these same corporations seems to be working out great for all the Players involved.
>> If you can find a way to JUST shoot poor people, than that would be a VERY smart bomb. GE would hire you in a second.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
If it ACTUALLY gets into a shooting war between some country like the USA and China -- FIRST, all the hunter-killer satellites that NOBODY has in space will go out and attack other satellites and GPS systems. IF any side starts to win THAT war, one bomb from either country can render Space un-usable for years until a billion fragments stop traveling through it at supersonic speed.
THEN, millions of tiny bug-like robots, that just seek out humans will be sent by hyper-sonic torpedoes -- ones that can travel in their own shockwave underneath the ocean and avoid all radar and anti-missile systems we currently have.
No nukes of course, until Rich people can get those bunkers built -- in ten years, well, the surface of the planet could just turn to glass. No need for fighter jets or drones then.
>> BUT, if the rich people don't have bunkers that they can comfortably live in for 3 generations, this future war will be all electronic.
IF we start winning, China will then send out a RADIO KILL SIGNAL, and all those chips we bought from them will stop working -- including that super cheap Microwave Oven you have at home. So when it gets to this point, you will still be unaware there even was a war, but all the banks will change to something like "People's Bank of America."
Your blender and microwave, however, will mysteriously all need to be sent back to the manufacturer for repair, and you will pay for that in Yuan.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
@MajorTom: We just started our re-entry...