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US Air Force Wants To Plasma Bomb The Sky To Improve Radio Communication (newscientist.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Scientist: [The U.S. Air Force has plans to improve radio communication over long distances by detonating plasma bombs in the upper atmosphere using a fleet of micro satellites. It's not the first time we've tried to improve radio communication by tinkering with the ionosphere. HAARP, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program in Alaska, stimulates the ionosphere with radiation from ground-based antennas to produce radio-reflecting plasma.] Now the USAF wants to do this more efficiently, with tiny satellites -- such as CubeSats -- carrying large volumes of ionized gas directly into the ionosphere. As well as increasing the range of radio signals, the USAF says it wants to smooth out the effects of solar winds, which can knock out GPS, and also investigate the possibility of blocking communication from enemy satellites. [There are at least two major challenges. One is building a plasma generator small enough to fit on a CubeSat -- roughly 10 centimeters cubed. Then there's the problem of controlling exactly how the plasma will disperse once it is released. The USAF has awarded three contracts to teams who are sketching out ways to tackle the approach. The best proposal will be selected for a second phase in which plasma generators will be tested in vacuum chambers and exploratory space flights.]
What is the real reason here? It is not as if we have a problem with communication these days. I post this in Europe, people all over the world can read it after a fraction of a second. Bandwith and latency are solved problems too - go download something or play online games.
Cables and satellites work fine. Why make short-lived modifications to the ionosphere, that need to be constantly replenished? If they can afford a set of satellites, why not simply use those as communication relays? The lag is not so bad when they are in low orbits.
Bearing in mind that public funds are involved here, I'm struggling to understand why improving radio communications using "plasma bomb" satellites is such a great idea when satellites already do such a great job improving radio communications. In other words, we have vast numbers of artificial ionosphere "bouncers" already orbiting our planet, and we can also have high altitude tethered balloons and long duration airborne aircraft (perhaps solar electric) that the likes of Google and Facebook are working on -- and with much less investment than even one copy of the some of the aircraft the U.S. Air Force flies. We already know how to bounce radio signals all around the globe, and it's already cheap, reliable, and secure. So what's the "value add" here that merits substantial public investment? Anybody have any ideas?
What could possibly go wrong?
Maybe they know something we don't. This setup will allow for an alternate comm path should the current satellites and cables become unavailable. Hams and the government would still be able to communicate. Assuming an EMP event, then most of the hams would be out of business and only the govt would still be able to communicate with the equipment that we paid for them to harden... Just sayin'
Dear Microlimp: I give you 2 valid product keys for win7 and you reject both of them. Piss off you wankers!!!
This is excellent news if true. Short wave broadcast radio has been in decline all my life and radio hams have increasingly turned to the more exciting fields of digital communications and microwave. If it livens up the bands again then I am all for it. I assume that the objective is to learn how to thicken it up enough to locally cut off communications from space thereby killing the enemies communications network. The only downside might be disruption of radio astronomy, but we should be doing that from the moon anyway.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Given the size of ionosphere, the ionisation density and recombination rate, and the size of a micro satellite this project looks like trying to deplete Lake Tahoe with a teaspoon...
The last time the USA fucked around with the ionosphere was a bit of a disaster. Please do not do this again; just leave it alone. Wired article. They are also an object group on stuffin.space.
I am sure that radio astronomers would agree with you on that one, as well as oppose this 'plan'
After all, while such plasma will help reflect internal signals, it will also help block external ones,
including signals to most other satellites - seems like a winner (although the effects are very
frequency dependent).
I suspect this is someone in charge of old systems wanting to get more funding for their little
fiefdom without looking at the modernisation of communications, where ionosphere bounce is
rapidly becoming an outdated method.
That and the fact that suggesting military NOT spend big money on any idea they come up with
if bordering on treason these days, right?
Mind you, the HAARP conspiracy crowd will LOVE it, make them even more paranoid ;)
Some Generals need a plasma bomb exploded straight up their arseholes. Damn people always f$&%ing with nature only thing that is truly valuable.
Just put order of magnitude in this plan, and you see this is pure bullshit.
where ionosphere bounce is rapidly becoming an outdated method.
Hate to break it to you, buddy, but it's still the only infrastructure-free method of global communication, which means it's just as effective as when it was first discovered. Your massive satellite/cable network is great for when everyone's playing nice and is OK with a small group of people having control of almost all the information flow, and your ionospheric propagation remains good otherwise.
tl;dr Progress is good, but should not be misidentified nor misinterpreted. 2.
This said, changing propagation characteristics of the ionosphere seems to be a crap idea. Or, rather, it's an obvious idea with consequences that haven't really been thought through.
Assuming an EMP event, then most of the hams would be out of business and only the govt would still be able to communicate with the equipment that we paid for them to harden... Just sayin'
You may have it backwards. Hams are known for collecting what are known among hams as "boat anchors"...vintage equipment using vacuum tube technology. Attend any hamfest and you'll see almost literally tons of such equipment for sale/trade. Some of the more recent tube-type shortwave radios ('60s-'70s) are even capable of SSB (Single Side Band) and other modes of operation besides the traditional CW (Morse) and AM voice.
Tube-based communications equipment by it's nature is usually capable of surviving far higher/more-intense EMP pulses than comparable solid-state equipment, all else being equal. Russia/USSR kept producing and using vacuum tube electronics in military gear into the '80s and Russia is today a major supplier of vacuum tubes used in such things as guitar amplifiers and audiophile equipment.
It could possibly turn out that the US government would need communications assistance from hams, rather than the reverse.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Look at the bright side. For the first time, scientists and nutjobs will stand united in their complaint about something.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And people laugh at chemtrails. Ha! (ha ha)
Itâ(TM)s ... weâ(TM)ve ... CubeSat â" roughly ... thereâ(TM)s
bling bling bling!
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
One of my hobbies is critiquing unpublished authors, and there's a certain group of writers who write post-apocalyptic "gun sci-fi" where it's more important to get the minutiae of gun technology right than it is to get the science right. Their science tends to come straight from other stories. The EMP scenario is sufficiently popular that I decided to spend a weekend afternoon doing the research into EMP that they should have.
EMP is not magic, like in the movies or on TV. It works by physical effects that require energy to be propagated to the affected device, which can be shielded and otherwise radiation hardened. You would need a massive attack that saturates all of near space to take out all satellites from geosynchronous orbits down to LEO. Terrestrial effects are amplified by interaction with the Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field, but even so the kind of blanket destruction of electronics we see in TV sci-fi would require many, many warheads. Many small warheads work better than a few (or usually ONE in the stories I read).
So an attack on communication satellites would tend to be targeted at individual satellites or groups of satellites. Taking out all LEO satellites (assuming they can't be shielded) would require an attack similar to blanketing most of the surface of the Earth.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
This sounds like the type of thinking that would had caused the condition of Spaceballs.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The whole purpose of this is to facilitate non-satellite transmission of signals using ionospheric skywave propagation. This is the most common over-the-horizon communication method for HF frequencies (3-30MHz) and below. The military uses HF for tactical communications using radios like the Harris Falcon series manpacks. HF is also used for the Military Auxiliary Radio Service as well as Civil Air Patrol. None of these uses have dependence on satellites which are, in any event, potentially prone to attack, jamming and failure by natural phenomena, and where end user equipment is expensive and potentially tricky to deploy.
In order for HF communications to work effectively and consistently, the sun needs to ionize the atmosphere. It normally goes in the same eleven year cycles, but this year has seen very bad conditions with insufficient consistency to rely on HF. The shortwave and amateur radio community has similarly been affected adversely by this phenomenon. Ionizing the atmosphere through this proposal is one way to make this happen without relying on satellites.
It sounds simple enough. There's no chance of any problems whatsoever. It's completely 100% safe. Don't worry about it. Everything will be fine. We know what we're doing.
But apparently you *can* bomb it.
Pound! Bang! Bin! Bash! is this a shell script or a Batman comic?
This sounds like a cover story for something else entirely. Anybody know if they are still using OTH Radar?
Eventually China will surpass the US in both economic activity, and probably, military spending. You will one day look back upon US hegemony with nostalgia. As counterproductive and clumsy as US foreign policy is, it rarely includes expansion or annexation.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Interesting. What does an EMP do to a living creature's nervous system, if anything?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
I think I saw this movie: https://youtu.be/kAH9ACUL_iI
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Living here in Vault 81, I'm pretty sure there's no danger from plasma bombs in the atmosphere.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Severe brain damage, to an extent which qualifies them to be a Slashdot editor.
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
Because when the enemy takes out your satellites you can't communicate anymore. And if you can't command and control, you've lost.
Quite right.. Which is why the Iraqi Army lost two back to back conflicts with the USA. The Command And Control networks where degraded to the point of ineffectiveness within an hour of the bombing starting. They where reduced to passing notes and carrier pidgins which left the front line troops with no backup and no way to coordinate the hasty retreat they so desperately needed.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
It's only A Matter of Time, 109 days to be exact (nine months and five days) before they burn up the atmosphere of Penthara IV.
Terrestrial radio uses frequency division AND geographic separation in order to provide communications ability to the users on this planet. To tinker with the ionosphere would increase propagation even for those signals for which propagation beyond line of sight was not a significant concern. Not every user needs over-the-horizon signaling. To a very large degree, we use the horizon effect for useful things- for one, it allows us to have multiple 100KW television transmitters all using the same channel all on the same continent. Ionospheric changes will have negligible effect on the power needed to adequately cover a metropolitan area with signal, and may actually INCREASE the power needed to swamp a distant signal that's intruding spatially into another market.
They think they're looking forward to it, but the proof of the pudding is in the tasting and I can guarantee the Chinese hegemon won't taste so good.
In any case, just having a powerful economy or military isn't a free ticket to global domination, they'd need to work for it and something tells me they wouldn't be unopposed.
i would prefer the government to leave the atmosphere alone, the government tends to cause more harm than good when they go to meddling with things,. i always say the government has a "reverse midas touch" thats where everything they touch turns to shit (instead of gold)
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Rekt
An impact study for something like that would take hundreds of years, perhaps thousands of years, to determine what effect it would have.
There are still people so naive that they believe that we could do no harm so great that it would make the human race's survival difficult and worthless.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Morpheus: We don't know who struck first, us or them. But we do know it was us that scorched the sky.
10 centimeters cubed = (10 cm)^3 = 1 litre ~= 1 Quart ~= 60 cu. in. ~= 1/28 cu. ft. ~= the bottom half of four 16 fl. oz water bottles arranged in a square.
Just trying to make sure people picture things correctly.
He effected a bored affect.
Maybe they know something we don't. This setup will allow for an alternate comm path should the current satellites and cables become unavailable. Hams and the government would still be able to communicate. Assuming an EMP event, then most of the hams would be out of business and only the govt would still be able to communicate with the equipment that we paid for them to harden... Just sayin'
If current satellites are disabled then likely these satellites would be too. An EMP would take them out too. Offering protection to other satellites from solar winds sounds interesting but it still seems like we are missing something from the discussion about what the real objective is.
Current satellites are already targeted by the other major powers. One of the primary purposes of these cube sats is that there are so many, and so small as to make the idea of taking them out nearly impossible.
Just another day in Paradise
So let me get this straight: We all have to worry about Hairspray, Cow Farts, and every other perceived man-made cause of "Climate Change" (f/k/a "Global Warming"); but now we want to intentionally "pollute" the ionosphere?
What could possibly go wrong?
Today, that is true. At around 8-10% per year increases, it won't take long to catch up or eclipse the US - which has flat spending. We're talking 20 years at the outside.
Of course, past results are no guarantee of future blah blah blah.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
They certainly won't be unopposed. But is the US going to go all-in against an equal to defend Taiwan? How about the South China sea? China will take what it wants from that region if the current regime remains in power.
That's a big "if". If China's economy grows to rival or exceed the US, that implies a richer, more educated populace that might not be happy with their lack of freedoms. An economic decline of any size could send the government into crisis.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The military just wants to be able to do it on their schedule and with more intensity.
Yeah, so it'll be JUST like what the Sun does.
Oh, wait...
Real "fate worse than death" shit then, huh?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Russia is today a major supplier of vacuum tubes used in such things as guitar amplifiers and Faux audiophile equipment.
FTFY.
Or, rather, it's an obvious idea with consequences that haven't really been thought through.
Which is true of so many things, although it's usually politicians having those ideas.
Unless you are arguing that China will not do this, I don't understand your point.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Yep, I tried that (good advice)...but still didn't make the LCD image look as good as the Plasma.
The OLED is close...but I still gotta find some guide out there on how to 'tune' the colors and all better.
The LCDs also didn't have the quality blacks that Plasma did...the OLED is very very close.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
That..
Look at the bright side. For the first time, scientists and nutjobs will stand united in their complaint about something.
AGW? If you think they don't have any nutjobs, well... you might be the nutjob.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I won't miss the incessant "We're number one" that Americans love to preach, when it's clear to the world you fail at so much.
Yeah, that has to get old. Too bad humans, in groups large or small, like to do that.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
I was thinking Highlander II ....
Yes Wired sucks balls. That's why I posted the Wikipedia and stuffin.space links as well.
Should we boycott paywall and anti ad-blocking sites (Wired, Forbes, etc...) completely?
All of those things you suggest are either reusable or durable. The military wants something that is neither. They want something they have blow up because that way they get something they can keep buying over and over again, so their procurement guys keep getting their kick backs. Congress persons want something they can blow up because its continuous stream of pork to their district.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
I don't worry one wink about the US and China going to war directly - as you say, a nuclear deterrent is a hell of a thing.
But I do see possible scenarios where China asserts itself over large sections of the Asian Pacific region with only token opposition from the US - simply because the US would no longer have the same relative capacity to respond effectively. Why actively defend Taiwan if it means losing much of your Pacific fleet and air force, leaving Japan vulnerable. Why inject yourself into local drama surrounding the South China sea for the same reasons?
Then again, you do mention BRICS, and the Russia and India part of that are not necessarily going to sit idle as their neighbor rises militarily. Russia is already at more or less their peak militarily, but India could yet grow legs.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Remo Williams plot was more on the mark- it was even about HAARP! And Satelites! And fake vaporware to get tax dollars (the bad guys even blew up the evidence, so that they could claim Remo did it and never have to prove that it didn't work!)
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Nothing.
Electronic components lying around in their plastic tubes likely won't be affected either. It's currents induced in wires and circuit traces that create problems for vulnerable components. Streetlights for example are very robust, but are attached to very large networks of wires that act like antennas.
Nervous systems use chemical signalling; since this involves the movement of charged atoms across neuron membranes that can be disrupted by relatively high electron currents, but it is not very responsive (if at all) to static and magnetic fields.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
come to mind when I hear that they want plasma bomb the atmosphere
As counterproductive and clumsy as US foreign policy is, it rarely includes expansion or annexation.
Well, lately. Might want to discuss the matter with someone knowledgeable about the history of Mexico.
Or Hawaii.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
This won't cause global cooling, will it? ;-)
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
Hate to break it to you, buddy, but it's still the only infrastructure-free method of global communication
So making it infrastructure dependent will be a bad idea, right? Once you start deploying plasma bombs, all device makers will start depending on it. Lower costs, more efficient, etc. If you want to keep the "infrastructure free method of global communication", you need to keep it active and alive.
Or the Philippines. Cuba. Indians, "Manifest Destiny", Monroe Doctrine, etc. We could go on.
But we collectively like to think that the world has left the 19th century ideas of western colonialism behind.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Not even in the 20th century.
It's easy to see the parallels between, say, Iraq and Rwanda and Yugoslavia, if you look at each country as one created by colonial powers without regard to the languages and religions and ethnicities of the people there.
After the colonial powers withdrew, conflicts suppressed by the colonizers or their puppet governments eventually or immediately occurred, and you see the civil wars and/or genocides.
"Nation-building" can be a horrific waste.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
Maybe. I also look at the history of Europe and see even "independent" countries at war continuously for centuries. People are generally just dicks. Some blame it on colonialism or religion or a number of other things, but I think tribalism is inherent and something that we need to actively fight.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Some of the equipment is even capable of ssb, eh? All of the last generation of tube based transceivers from the 70s/80s had the same basic functionality as todays rigs - that certainly includes SSB, AM, CW, digital modes, slow scan TV, and some FM. Even now, most brand new high powered RF amplifiers for hams sold today are still tube based, though solid state amps are getting more popular.
Sorry, was talking to younger people that likely have no clue and think if something uses tubes it's a step above the abacus at best. I've owned walls full of all sorts of old radio gear and used to have a repair shop back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Usually had a table at the hamfests upon which such things as E.F. Johnson transmitters/amplifiers, Yaesu FT-series transceivers, Collins Radio gear, Hallicrafters gear, all the old classics, might be found on any particular occasion, but I almost invariably ended up going home with as much or more gear than I brought, heh!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I have never accused the military of making intelligent decisions, and this idea does nothing but solidify that perception.