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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.]
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.
OMG! This is one of the worst ideas I have seen in a long time. Shortwave radio broadcast has been in decline simply because with the advent of practically universal worldwide handheld communication devices amateur radio has had difficulty capturing the minds of individual people. The Internet has given access to communications in the form of text, speech, vision, etc around the world and in modalities beyond measure. What the Air Force is talking about here is in reality polluting the ionosphere on a massive scale. It is the equivalent of contaminating or poisoning the ocean. Making the ionosphere opaque to electromagnetic radiation of any form would be fraught with difficulties beyond measure. Developing and using such an ability and using it as a weapon is (at least in my view) insane! "Keep your hands off my ionosphere!" would be my slogan!!!
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.
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?