HAARP Ionospheric Research Program Set To Continue

cylonlover writes "Reports that the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) had been shut down permanently were apparently a bit premature. According to HAARP program manager James Keeney, the facility is only temporarily off the air while operating contractors are changed. So why does anyone care? Despite being associated with various natural disasters over the past two decades by the conspiracy fringe, HAARP is in reality a facility for studying the ionosphere. Gizmag takes a look at the goings on at HAARP – past, present, and future."

Comments

At last an actual paper

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the paper in TFA they're actually doing some pretty neat experiments while they zap the ionosphere. They've got satellites up there that measure electromagnetic radiation from various events like earthquakes and they're using HAARP to essentially provide a control for those.

Re:At last an actual paper

[Pseudonym Authority]

It's not research if you can look it up on Wikipedia. It may fail to produce groundbreaking discoveries, but the data is still being collected, and even negative results will one day find a use, even if to prevent others from chasing the same failed path. Believe it or not, scientist usually want to work on things that are worth while, not chase dead ends. Can you not understand that your free market absolutist crap doesn't apply to everything? Science doesn't (read: basically nothing) agree with your delusional, anti-intellectual position where if it's not immediately productive then the universe has spoken and it will never be. If people like you ran scientific institutions we'd be stuck with a pneumatic tube internet because you'd yank funding at the first sign of a failed experiment.

Re:At last an actual paper

[cheesybagel]

It sounds great to me. MWs of beamed energy. They only need to make a collector site with reasonable efficiency and they will have a neat power transmission system.

Re:At last an actual paper

[khallow]

Scientists when they're faced with limited resources, pick and choose what research they do. One doesn't have to be a free market capitalist to be interested in doing activities that not only yield more benefit (in however you decide benefit is defined) than they cost, but also more benefit than alternate uses for the money.

All this pointless yacking about the strawman of immediate monetary return on investment ignores that funding of scientific research is just another economic problem subject to the same rules and constraints as any other human endeavor. To be so profoundly ignorant of economics IMHO makes you the delusional, anti-intellectual.

Re:At last an actual paper

[auric_dude]

OK, He Didn’t Cause Hurricane Katrina. But He Is Guilty of Fraud. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/05/haarp-fraud/

Mighty conspiracy theories from tiny facts

[cold fjord]

It is amazing that people think this is such a big deal of a conspiracy.

From the article -

How big is the actual power density in HAARP's ionospheric spot? The total irradiance of the Sun's electromagnetic radiation (everything from x-rays to extremely low frequency (ELF) radio signals) is 1,360 W/sq m, measured by satellite outside the bulk of the Earth's atmosphere. HAARP's power density is about 0.001 percent of the Sun's irradiance – a nearly negligible quantity. Further, while local heating of the ionosphere is caused by HAARP (indeed, that is HAARP's purpose), the overall effect is rather like focusing the Sun's light using a magnifying glass – impressive if one is an ant, but not very significant on larger size scales.

Re:Mighty conspiracy theories from tiny facts

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Given that, if there were to be some sort of vast, malevolent, conspiracy; Joe Average would fill a role somewhere between 'ant' and 'human resource, to be harvested at leisure', I suspect that's exactly the sort of thing that conspiracy theorists wouldn't find comforting...

Rather like trying to convince somebody who thinks you are trying to poison them that, really, cyanide is statistically indistinguishable from the millions of tons of carbon/nitrogen mixtures in the food supply.

Re:Those conspiracy wackos

[INowRegretThesePosts]

Some skepticism is healthy.
Conspiracy theories only serve to alienate you from reality and, in particular, to make you indifferent to the actual injustices of the world.

Re:HAARP offline == summer weather good?

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

Coincidence?

There are no coincidences.

Re: Maybe this time they'll get it RIGHT!

[dadelbunts]

Have you seen the documentary Tremors?

Re:The real deal with HAARP

[lennier]

It's really a cover for the US Navy to engage in ELF communications with their submarines by stimulating the Alfven Resonance.

Flippin' elves.This sort of reckless research wouldn't happen if we had a good solid dwarf in the White House.

Tra-la-la-lolly, indeed.

Re:Those conspiracy wackos

[cusco]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but some things really ARE conspiracies. Iran/Contra. Project Mockingbird. Gladio. MK/Ultra. Phoenix. Our governments have done some horrible things, and if they were to happen today we would never know about them.

Long distance planetary cloaking/camouflage system

[Tyr07]

We're actually in contact with alien species and they're assisting us avoid detection from more hostile species that consume resources of habitable words like us.
The changes HAARP initiates in the ionosphere, although not affecting us on the planet or anything overall in the near distance, planetary detection systems that have the ability to detect atmospheres to a limited degree are thrown off, making the assumption that this is not a water world with a perfect (life sustaining) temperature.

Naturally you can still tell by nearby areas like our solar system etc, but once you get a few thousand light years out we don't look so welcoming.

I'd insert comment about a specific alien overlord at this time but I don't want his followers..or...people who are against him or whatever "targeting" me but uh, yea, we're nice and safe from that dude now!