Boeing Successfully Tests Anti-Missile Laser 868
dankinit writes "MSNBC is reporting that a 'Boeing Co.-led team has successfully fired for the first time a powerful laser meant to fly aboard a modified 747 as part of a U.S. ballistic missile defense shield.' The test called 'First Light' has a budget of $474.3 million in the fiscal year 2005 and is part of a larger $10 billion dollar missile defense system."
The codename for the 747s (Score:5, Funny)
Are they still.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Are they still.. (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, except this time, America shoots first.
From the Article: (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds Great - can it fix Oakland's School system (Score:5, Insightful)
Oakland can use, oh, say $20million of that. That's all. Geez.
Oh yeah, and can it stop dirty bombs in suitcases, or monitor Oakland's ports for suitcase nukes? Nope.
Ballistics, while scary, are not our biggest problem.
Re:Sounds Great - can it fix Oakland's School syst (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sounds Great - can it fix Oakland's School syst (Score:5, Insightful)
Again, great point, except that you give no justification whatsoever for your free-market-in-the-public-school-sector attitude. If your point is that we should get rid of public schools altogether you'd have a leg to stand on...but to merely say the federal government shouldn't support local schools requires some sort of handwavy proof.
If your argument is that it isn't the federal government's domain to support education, then we'd also expect the federal government to get out of university level funding. We'd also expect the federal government to stop regulating anything other than interstate and international transactions. If its just a matter of stopping bailouts maybe you'd mention the federal deficit, or the PG&E bailout, or what about Long Term Capital? But you mention none of these...you just don't want to help out urban kids.
No, what you are saying is that it's not worth 20M to prevent the over 200,000 kids that will go through OPS in the next 20 years from getting a crappy education. Holding kids responsible for financial mismanagement by a group of adults that took place in many cases before they were moved to Oakland, entered the USA, or were BORN is a ludicrous stand to take. A rational thinker would estimate the cost of trying in a court of law, incarcerating, paying welfare for even a few of these kids will quickly surpass 20M....but a self-made know-it-all who has taken Econ 1A will just chant the familiar free-market laissez faire refrains.
Re:Sounds Great - can it fix Oakland's School syst (Score:3, Interesting)
Fat chance.
Personally, I agree totally. The schools should be supported locally. Unfortunately the taxes that used to be spent on the schools have been hijacked by both the Feds and the state (different tax sources) on the grounds that they could "redistribute it more fairly". (I forget who I'm quoting...sorry. Rumsfield perhaps?) HAH! They took the money, and returned only a fract
Re:Sounds Great - can it fix Oakland's School syst (Score:3, Insightful)
$20million divided by 70 schools is over $285k per year. If that's what they're paying janitors, no wonder they've got problems!
Now, where'd I put that mop? Time to brush up my cleanin' skills and look for houses in Oakland.
Public employee unions are OK; strikes are not. (Score:3, Insightful)
--ccm
The Official Site... (Score:5, Informative)
This is just budgetary gamesmanship (Score:5, Insightful)
""It showed they work," Kenneth Englade, an agency spokesman, said of the laser's six identical, pickup-truck-sized, modules linked to fire as a single unit. "The rest is fine-tuning."
For "fine-tuning" read: "everything the system is supposed to ultimately do." It's like writing the first 10 lines of code in a large project and saying "the rest is fine-tuning."
"Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's chief weapons tester under former President Clinton and a critic of early missile defense deployment plans, described the test on Wednesday as very important to people working on the program.
"They deserve a lot of credit for having gotten this far," he said in a telephone interview. "But they've still got a long way to go" to demonstrate shoot-down capability."
That's all this is, something important to the people working on the program. They want more funding. But as far as actually shooting anything down, well that's an entirely different matter:
"Among other technical challenges, Coyle said, engineers must figure out ways to fire the laser for the longer time needed to zap a missile without damaging the optics through which the beam passes -- a kind of technical Catch-22."
Details, details. But give us money and we'll happily explore the Catch-22 for a lot longer!
Re:This is just budgetary gamesmanship (Score:2)
Re:This is just budgetary gamesmanship (Score:3, Funny)
I have no idea what a "theater weapon" is, but I'd like to have one in order to remove those annoying heads from the 6 feet people in front of me.
See sciam.com (Score:4, Interesting)
Even if they do get this laser working the way it's supposed to, it will still be insanely expensive to have 747's aloft circling the "trouble areas" of the world 24/7. Due to range limitations, it might be impossible to take out a missile launched from the center of Iran or China without leaving international airspace. Also, these 747's better have some pretty good countermeasures onboard to prevent the
enemy from just shooting them down before an attack.
Anyways, even if the entire system works as advertised, a "rogue state" could still get the nuke to the U.S. using a ship, submarine, or simply stashed away in one of the million cargo containers that arrive here each day. If highly-enriched uranium is used to make the bomb (that's the route Iran is taking), a simple lead shield would make the bomb undetectable without entirely dissasembling the cargo.
For a very detailed analysis of the technical hurdles blocking the completion of a missile defense shield, check out this article [sciam.com].
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Any problems? (Score:5, Funny)
Welcome to big stick foreign policy.
Fools..... (Score:4, Funny)
That's great, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That's great, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Solving one problem at a time is no good. Neither is having a bunch of different solutions for the different problems: I criticize each solution for the problems it doesn't solve, ignoring the ones it does.
Re:That's great, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That's great, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
So cities is primarily what they would kill. Not people.
Suitcase bomb vs suitcase nuke. (Score:3, Informative)
A "dirty bomb" is a bunch of conventional explosives and some form of radioactive material. The bomb goes off and spreads radiation in a small area.
A suitcase nuke is a small nuke. It can level a city.
A "dirty bomb" only spreads radioactive material in the immediate blast area. Then it relies upon wind to blow it further. The further it goes, the less risk there is from it. Eventually, it is only slightly higher than regular background radiation.
Also, the radioactive materia
shit (Score:2, Funny)
Money (Score:2, Interesting)
But now america can threaten other nations with Nukes as much as they want! They have total defensive superiority!
I imagine the other countries could unite and have a ring of anti missile defense set up around U.S. Soil pretty quick but who wants another arms race? The American's that's who?
I guess that's why they never honour any treaties, what's the point if they can just NUKE everyone with NO HO
Re:Money (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Money (Score:3, Insightful)
Read up on the CIAs work in various central and south-american countries, africa as well.
You seem to like the phrase. (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you understand what an anecdote is? It is usually used as a short account of some personal experience.
Presenting a list of US military operations in various countries does not seem to fit the definition of "anecdote".
Data is not information. You are presenting the data of military spending as if it were information ab
I'll just save everyone the time (Score:2)
$10 billion towards other things (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:$10 billion towards other things (Score:3, Insightful)
The local school systems around here get more and more money all the time. Test scores are about the same or down a little.
Re:$10 billion towards other things (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:$10 billion towards other things (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:$10 billion towards other things (Score:3, Funny)
Re:$10 billion towards other things (Score:3, Interesting)
If you want better teachers
Re:$10 billion towards other things (Score:4, Interesting)
What happened during the dot-com boom of the 90's when there was so much cash sitting around the tech industry it wasn't funny? Morons, dimwits, and people that couldn't code themselves out of a wet cardboard box came running as fast as they could. Many, many students enrolled in CS classes for a quick dollar despite the fact they were incapable of learning a single programming language. They'd lie and cheat their way to graduation, barely pulling C's, and then promptly sucker somebody into hiring them. They're probably clueless managers now sucking in a salary they'll never deserve.
While I think that perhaps a little more than starting out at about $20k is a worthwhile idea, jacking the salaries isn't going to draw only good teachers. I'm not sure the net effect of seeding morons into the people who get degrees in teaching is, just in order to try to get people in industry with no teaching experience, but I doubt it's as rosy as you're painting it to be. I've been fortunate enough to have some teachers who really love teaching, despite the pay. I think the best teachers will teach as long as they're making enough between them and their spouse to get by.
Anyway, the way interviews seem to go it's likely the effect of grossly inflated salaries would be something along the lines of, "Well, you have 15 years relevent chemistry experience at MegaChemCorp, but you've never taught before. We're going to award the job to this other guy with a teaching degree that's never seen the real world." Gotta preserve the old status quo of who got you into the easy position, right?
Re:$10 billion towards other things (Score:3, Interesting)
Untrue. Most teachers at my school put in the minimum 8 that they're at school. They did not have work to do outside of class because they either had us grade our homework and quizzes in class or had the aides (seniors just needing extra credits) grade the work. The only exception was (some of) the honors teachers.
They spend their summers putting together lesson plans,
They spend one summer putting together a lesson plan, and for the re
Related to the pilot that got lasered? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Related to the pilot that got lasered? (Score:5, Funny)
money money money ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Jeezes, if you would invest that kind of money in international / intercontinental relations and human aid, the world would be a much better place!
This starwars project sure cost a lot of money to combat a non-existing threat.
Re:money money money ... (Score:3, Informative)
As for the US not doing "nearly enough" that site you pointed me to showed me it's a gigantic waste of tax money and the US should be getting out of it entirely. My wife sponsors a child in Ecuador and the standard yearly contribution is about ten times what the US supposedly spends per capita. Thanks, but no thanks. I'd rather reduce the tax burden and make more fu
Hi Energy BS (Score:4, Insightful)
Right - after you get the laser to turn on, getting it to shoot down a nuclear ICBM from a 747 (at combined speeds of over Mach 24 [fas.org]) is just "fine-tuning". That is, if you're targeting only hundreds of billions of Pentagon tax dollars, and you've already bullshitted enough of Congress and the media (including, apparently, Slashdot headline writers) to have the contracts signed.
I hereby declare (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I hereby declare (Score:3, Insightful)
When airliners start blasting each other out of the sky, I think we can say it's more than just seemingly unsafe!
Oh, you were referring to the threats posed by other people! The only countries in which passengers pose any kind of threat to the aircraft are America and Greece. In the last two or three decades, I honestly can't think
Re:I hereby declare (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of it this way... the US government is contracting a company or companies to figure out how to transfer large amounts of energy vast distances with pin-point accuracy.
The fact that the primary excuse for developing said tech is to shoot down missiles shouldn't hinder you from seeing the potential applications in other areas.
As I've mentioned in prev stories (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if the final system can't track a Mach 6 object, I'm sure it can be manually aimed at a stationary target making a speech 300km away.
Better if you can fire the laser in a nonvisible light wavelength, AND fire it so it passes close to a big thundercloud - ionizing the air and inducing a big visible lightning zap from the cloud to the target. Go look up laser induced lightning.
Then it'll look like an "Act of God" - the target apparently being killed by lightning.
We're from Boeing (Score:3, Funny)
Re:i hate to be blunt... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh wait... it happened twice
Re:i hate to be blunt... (Score:5, Insightful)
Before 9/11, we have never been attacked by ICBM or hijacked plane. Post 9/11, we have been attacked by hijacked plane. So the response is to invest in an Anti-ICBM system?
I understand your point - just because something hasn't happened, doesn't mean that it never will. But your analysis is WAY too simple. Should we invest billions in a system to prevent invasion by mutant frogs equipped with lasers, developed by radical french anti-globalization forces? Obviously not.
We need to look at every issue, and decide what the best way to protect ourselves is. ICBMs can only be developed by countries with decent technological infrastructure, and they would never be used against us because we have the military power to destroy the government of any country that attacked us.
Of course, the scientist/engineer in me loves research like this, and I am glad the we are developing defensive weapons, instead of offenive weapons.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:i hate to be blunt... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, your just trained by the US media to not think of it has "christian" violence.
People in general are uncomfortable with outsiders, religion preys on this weakness and exploits it. Thats how most religion (Including chistianity) operates. Fear Fear Fear. (they just skip the U&D.)
Terrorists are an extreme branch of a religion and are no different than the assholes who shoot abortion doctors. Do not assume that most (or even a significant) portion of muslim's hate us because we are free or christian. They hate us because we have been trying to control them and bombing them, and other fucked up shit for the better part of a century. It is really that simple. If we would have left the middle east alone and not tried to force them to recognize israel and wouldnt have supported israel then we wouldnt have been in this mess to begin with. Add to that the fact that we have supported dictators like the taliban and hussien and you can see why they have legit problems with us. Of course it is easier for people to unburdon themselves and just place the blame on bullshit like "they hate us for our freedom".
Yes, it really is *THAT* simple. Leave them alone. (How to achieve it is quite a bit more complicated, especially with an oil pimp in office)
Re:i hate to be blunt... (Score:3)
a) pissed off the Jewish community
b) woken people up in the US and Europe that the area is also the "home" area of Christianity, and that letting people "own" the area with no thought of sharing it with others is probably a bad thing, from a cultural perspective.
As bad as the propaganda and bullshit storm that the US press is in the US, it pales in comparison to the operations of the disinformation ministers in Islamic countries that
Re:i hate to be blunt... (Score:4, Insightful)
Osama is an asshole, I would beat the fucker with his dialisys machine and shove it up his ass and out the other end like a spit if I ever saw him. But if you think terrorism begins or ends with him you are smoking some serious shit. WE (you read that right) created this problem through our actions. Ever see a nutjob preaching on the corner in a city ? Everybody ignores him because his speech doesnt have any emotion or subject that effects the passer-bys, Osama has that emotion and that subject, Because we gave it to him. We put the taliban in power and then left afgahnistan, which we left again to fight a needless war against another asshole we put in power, yet we expect these people to love us ? We bomb them and expect a welcoming parade ? We force them out of there homes in favor of a more "american" acceptable culture (israel) and we expect smiles ? ARE YOU ON DRUGS ??? Imagine if somebody had been doing this shit to your culture, friends and family for centuries (this goes back to the crusades). Would you trust them ? We "liberated" both of these countries before, recently, neither time did it turn out beneficial to the citizens of those countries. What makes you think this is going to end any differently ?
"You seem to think that they have a problem with the recognition of Israel. That isn't so. Their problem is with its existence. Many Muslims and Arabs do not accept its existence. Killing all of the Jews to undo Israel isn't really an acceptable solution to make those Muslims and Arabs happy, is it?"
Well I could go on about us trying to kill all the arabs to solve the problem
"You are also mistaken if you believe that if the US wasn't involved in the area that there would be no conflict. Wahabism and extremism is spreading. It has a presence in America. It was only a question of time before we had to face the problem of Muslim extremists. It is better that we do it on our own terms to the greatest extent that we can."
We gave the problem roots through our actions. Terrorism will never stop, its a human rection to want to harm someone you perceived has harming you. You think this is going to end ? It's not. It's going to keep going and going and going. Hell it will even outlast america in all likelyhood.
I'll leave you with this - Bin laden by himself is no more dangerous than any other nutjob, people like Bush give him a cause. They are the ones that recruit for Bin laden. Kill one innocent person and their family, friends and neighbors are now potential enemies/terrorists. Bush doesnt understand this war, to date I have not seen a single person from ANY political party that has a grasp on this situation. This goes farther than a countries borders, farther than any army can reach. Everyone wants to be free, having a forgein government apoint your leaders is not freedom. Being bombed is not freedom. Holding fixed elections is not freedom.
I bet you we leave Iraq in worse shape than it was in when we got there.
Not to be overly nitpicky but (Score:5, Insightful)
I kind of hope that, now that the world has seen the effects of holy wars that the education and toning down can happen without the slaughter of millions.
Re:i hate to be blunt... (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, huh. That would be why the Quran refers to Jews, Christians and Muslims as all "children of the book."
For instance, in the terrorst handbook thing the British found on a raid, there were discussions on why it is ok to torture. The basic idea was that Muslums are allowed to torture others because they are Gods children, while others are not allowed to.
Let me clue you into something - the muslim extremists are about as Islamic as the KKK are Christian. Taking what they say as representative of the religion is a great way to delude yourself, and justify all kinds of terrible things.
But, let's take the response one step further, you say that modern "Christian" societies have progressed beyond such barbaric reasoning? That would explain this memo from the current administration [washingtonpost.com] rationalizing torture in the "war on terror."
So, just who now are we suppossed to be rooting for?
Troll much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it that we can't have mature discussion of military technology? Some ass always has to post wishing a previous poster and/or his country a quick death, herpies, or civil war.
Please grow up....for the children.
Re:Troll much? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because the need for military is a result of immaturity ?
Or... (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps the thought that you can do without one is a clearer sign of said condition.
Re:Troll much? (Score:3, Interesting)
What sparked the american revolution if 1770? The british went from door to door, collecting taxes, and shot 5 tax protestors when they refused to pay at point blank ran
Re:i hate to be blunt... (Score:3, Insightful)
boy, it must be nice in canada not having to pay for medicine or a military, since it is all subsidized by the U.S. consumer and taxpayer.
the same is true for western europe: the only reason that their socialized health system works at all is because the major % of the cost, medicine, is price fixed by their government. which means tha
Re:i hate to be blunt... (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that many of my fellow Americans will make a statement like this without realizing the flip-side of the coin: America is increasingly dependent economically on our allies. Its "co-dependency", not one-sided dependency.
If we continue to ignore the rest of the world, despite the fact that we are increasingly needing them almost as much as they need us,
Re:i hate to be blunt... (Score:3)
Bin Laden can make whatever claims he wants, he has plenty of reasons to lie about it though, so I think we, the public, deserve more.
Re:i hate to be blunt... (Score:2, Insightful)
Insurance. It's all about insurance...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:i hate to be blunt... (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmm Insurance... Maybe defense spending should be allocated in a probablistic risk mitigation sort of way.
What is the probability of different kinds of nuclear attacks (obviously unknown)? What are estimated casualties? What is the cost and success rates of potential preventative measures?
Compare that to similar estimations for things like the cost to benefit return on mandating airbags, improving smoke alarms, or sponsoring aids research. Even if you don't know the value of something like the probability of a nuclear attack, you can try to calculate what it might need to be in order for specific nuclear defense research to be more valuable then an alternative protective investment.
Re:i hate to be blunt... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:i hate to be blunt... (Score:5, Insightful)
Er, given that the device is mounted in an airplane there is no requirement that it shoot down missiles over America.
It would have been quite handy, for instance, when Iraq was launching Scuds in the first Gulf War. Those were nervous times.
It might still be handy in the airspace over Iran...
This money seems like a complete waste, that could have been spent on a much more useful project - like, say, an asteriod defence system.
Directed energy weapons are going to be a big part of future military technology. This program is as much R&D as anything else. We are already spending a lot of money on phase 1 of an "asteroid defence[sic] system". They're called "telescopes".
Re:i hate to be blunt... (Score:3, Insightful)
While I agree in part with your larger analysis, including this comment is difficult to understand. There are quite a few truly brilliant individuals in Iran and North Korea. In fact I'd imagine that levels of intelligence are distributed in similar proportions as in your own country.
Next time leave that crap out and you'll have a much stronger argument.
Re:i hate to be blunt... (Score:3, Insightful)
More brains than you think. The best way to avoid war with the U.S. (or just about anyone else) is to have nukes. Being in the process of developing nukes (or bluffing like Saddam) may be risky, but if you pull it off, like Pakistan, there's a payoff call
Re:i hate to be blunt... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:i hate to be blunt... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Missile Defense (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Missile Defense (Score:3, Informative)
And there are several others in theather systems as well that partially fill the same role as Patriot like upgraded HAWK combined/itegrated (or intdependand) with SL-AMRAAM/NASAMS, SM-2 and SM-3 AEGIS. Most of those projects are in the multi-billion dollar class.
That's it? No, there is more.
Like the Tactical hi
Re:Missile Defense (Score:5, Insightful)
Kim does not strike me as a particularly mentally stable. If, say, an invasion of South Korea failed, I could easily see him launching missiles on the rest of the world. After WW1 and WW2, we stopped a lot of programs and left our selves to some extent, vulnerable. Just because there may not be a clearly defined threat today doesn't mean there couldn't be one tomorrow. Who's to say there couldn't be a coup in Russia, or that Putin couldn't start to go back to the old Soviet days. Who's to say that China will never invade Taiwan. Who's to say that India or Pakistan won't try to start a nuclear war. Missile defense systems shouldn't defend just the US, they should defend our allies around the world who could be targets, and to say there's no use for them and that the world will live happily ever after is extremely short sighted and naive.
Re:Missile Defense (Score:5, Insightful)
You act as though it's a sane world, and nobody ever acts irrationally... The US was behind the ball at the start of both world wars. We don't want to be in that position again. Remember what happened to the technically challenged French in WWII? I believe they call that "steam rolled..."
Re:Missile Defense (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Missile Defense (Score:3, Interesting)
No, I don't believe they did work, certainly the Maginot failed to do what its creators thought it would. By 1943/44 the amount of firepower being used on the battlefield was such that *any* static defensive line could, and was, breached by a determined enemy. The only time such a static defensive line could work was when the terrain was on your side, or the location was such that the e
Re:Missile Defense (Score:3, Insightful)
And they continue today, firing missiles 400+ miles away at targets that can't hear or see them coming.
Fixed emplacements are doomed in a modern war. Witness Gulf War I and II.
Why France Collapsed in 1940 (Score:3, Insightful)
But where the Germans shined was in tactics. They concentrated their firepower at weak spots and sought to
Re:Missile Defense (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually the word is "flanked" [bartleby.com]. The guns on the Maginot line couldn't turn around. The French didn't see any need to be able to aim the guns back at their own country. Why would they ever need to aim their guns back at their own territory? Well, they weren't being creative enough in their planning.
The Germans flanked the Maginot line, they got behind those big ass guns and forced the soldiers in
Re:Missile Defense (Score:5, Informative)
Thats not really an accurate assessment. Or rather, it is mostly accurate, but applies to all of Germany's early victims. Poland, France, Britian, the Low Countries, Norway, and Russia all had the same problem: no one knew how to fight the kind of new "maneuver warfare" that Germany was fighting (we all refer to it as "blitzkrieg" now, though ironically the German Army never called it that).
Britian survived because she was an island, Russia (barely) survived because of her size and willingness to throw away Soviet lives by the thousands just to slow Germany down a little bit. Now France's military did have its own problems, the fatal reliance on a static defense is the primary one, because this form of defense is what "maneuver warfare" forever made obsolete. This flaw was not confined to just the French however.
Now before the France bashers get to far gone on this thread, a few points (and I'm not French):
First, France had more tanks than Germany did, and French tanks were actually *better* than their German counterparts. The German superiority in armor didn't start until 1943, after a rude and shocking insult in the form of the Soviet T-34 tank. France's problem, like everyone else, was they didn't concentrate their armor, they, and everyone else, still considered armor an infantry support vehicle and therefore spread it out among the troops on the front. In the face of Germany's concentrated armor, that was a fatal mistake.
Second, France, although outnumbered in the air, did put up a ferocious fight. Most of the fight however was never seen as France relied on high altitude fighters for their defense, so most of the air-to-air war during the campaign was occuring too high for anyone else on the ground to know about it. Even French fighter pilots were frustrated afterward that so many of their own Frenchmen thought the Air Force had been destroyed or had stopped fighting so early in the battle. The truth was the French continued to fight in the air, but so high up, no one else knew they were there.
Re:Missile Defense (Score:3, Insightful)
Which country in Europe fought (and won against) Germany, Italy, *and* Japan during world war II? A full two-front war? I think we deserve a bit more respect for our efforts - not to mention the lives lost. Instead we're poster boys for schaudenfreude to the world, and our successes are ignored or brushed off.
Sorry, more rant than I originally intended...
Re:Missile Defense (Score:3, Informative)
The Taepodong-1 was launched over Japan in 1998. The Taepodong-2 is nearly functional, engine testing has already been performed. The TP2's range covers Alaska, Hawaii and parts of the west coast.
Re:Missile Defense (Score:4, Interesting)
I know for a fact that i'd prefer one of these to take out any RPG shots that might be fired towards me if I were in Iraq.
This is how the US is going to win the 'war on terror': simply make their weapons totally useless. At the moment, RPGs are probably the biggest danger to a soldier moving around. With this, it's not a problem anymore. I'm sure they could work on a system that could eventually shoot down bullets in mid air, and then finally make it small enough so that soldiers can carry it. Virtually invincible soldiers.
Terrorists are probably not going to be able to kit out their soldiers with this. Sure, they can use suicide bombs, but it's certainly not as easy as setting an RPG a half-mile away, firing at a passing patrol and killing 5 soldiers.
Re:Missile Defense (Score:5, Insightful)
More than slightly. It says there are six, identical "pickup-sized" chemical laser modules. The number of shots is limited by the amount of chemicals used to fuel the reactions generating the laser light. While it might be good for taking out aircraft, smaller missiles, or ground targets, no way in hell this thing would be practical for intercepting RPGs, bullets, that kind of thing.
The questions we really need to be asking are: Should we have gone into Iraq? Did we plan the occupation correctly? Did we make a mistake in disbanding the Iraqi military? Did we screw up by not securing caches and stockpiles of high explosives, RPGs, and portable SAMs? Does our government have a sufficient grasp of reality and the strengths and weaknesses of military and diplomatic approaches to put a stable government in place? Do our tactics, goals, and foreign policy make people less likely to take up arms against our soldiers, and civilians, or more likely?
These are the major issues. None of these are technology issues. Unfortunately, Americans have a bad habit of thinking every problem is a technology problem, and furthermore that if technology hasn't solved it in the past, we just haven't used technology which is sophisticated and expensive enough.
I thought terrorists . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Kind of scary that I almost read through the parent post without giving it a second thought . .
Re:Missile Defense (Score:5, Informative)
*sigh* Wrong missiles.
I haven't RTFL, but I do know off the top of my head that the ABL is intended for theater missiles, SRBMs instead of ICBMs (SCUDs, not Minutemen). And even then it's intended to hit the missile in the boost phase (while it's still launching, shows up like a flare in IR and is still loaded with lots of explosive fuel), which means the 747 would pretty much have to be flying over Pyongyang in order to stop a DPRK missile of any range.
It's not National Missile Defense, it's air superiority with perks. It can't even catch an artillery shell, let alone a MIRV, nor is it intended to.
A waste of money (Score:4, Insightful)
Having read TFA, they suggest that this laser is to be used as part of a boost phase missle defense system. Not too long ago, the APS did a review [inesap.org] of such a system, including hypothetical airplane based laser systems. The conclusions suggested the system would most likely be only partially effective (depending on the country launching, the target in question, and the type of rocket). Even when effective, such a system, "could cause live nuclear, chemical, or biological munitions to fall on populated areas short of the target, in the United States or other countries.".On the topic of airborne lasers, the executive summary says, "The Airborne Laser now under development could have some capability against liquid-propellant missiles, but it would be ineffective against solid-propellant ICBMs, which are more heat-resistant." The analysis took into account technical factors but did not even consider factors like cost.
It seems these programs are pretty foolish. Not bad for employing us physicists and engineers, but probably a waste of money. The "success" mentioned in the article seems to be that the laser fired. Apparently all that's left now is to make it fire long enough to disable a missle, design a targeting system, mount it and a suitable power source on an actual aircraft, and get it all to work together in an actual situation on an aircraft. In other words, it's no where close to working, and even when it does work odds are it probably won't be that useful (according to the APS).
Working on this sort of system might make sense if we had unlimited resources, but given that resources are quite limited this doesn't seem like a good way to spend them. As far as terrorism, missles just don't seem to be a vary likely attack methodology relative to other things, so it would make sense to spend most of this money on defenses that are likely to work against real imminant threats. That would include things like much more rigorous screening at ports and other homeland security items. Let's not forget that the guys who got the whole terrorism scare started used nothing but plane tickets and box cutters. It makes sense to defend against the other easy attack methods first. In terms of defense against other nations, the MAD doctrine seems to have been pretty effective and should continue to be as long as we have an imposing military. The money should be spent on maintaining a feasibile military threat to our likely agressors (even in the face of our obligations in Iraq) and on things that will definitely reduce threats like disarmerment and nuclear non-proliferation.
Re:Missile Defense (Score:3, Insightful)
But that's not exactly the point here, for this one main reason:
The fact that North Korea may be able to hit the United States with a nuclear missile gives it enormous leverage in affairs vis-a-vis the United States, for it gaurantees that the United States will no longer dare to invade it. (This deterrance ability still holds even if, as you point out, we aren't sure if they actually have such a capability). Thus, behind the missile
Re:Missile Defense (Score:3, Funny)
Wait, so you're saying that the name 'Tom Clancy' doesn't guarantee 100% realism in matters military and political?
Re:Missile Defense (Score:4, Insightful)
Are there any "defense industry" programs that you wouldn't consider to be corporate welfare?
I'll grant you that the 767 tanker lease program that Boeing nearly had could be argued as such, but you'll notice that it wasn't awarded to them (largely after people like McCain called foul), and it's now gone off to be a competitive bid.
But do all of these programs instantly equate to a handout to the industry?
If you're against the US gov't paying for this stuff in general, why not just say so, citing things like the X-year lead the US allegedly has over the rest of the world in military tech, or whatever reason suits your viewpoint.
Personally, I'm for programs that counter existing tech, at least up to the point that the governments of the world decide it's time to move on to the next thing (space-based weapons?) because too much of the existing tech was countered.
-transiit
Re:North Korea not crazy enough?!?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Lets compare with some facts with the recent history of the United States.
"Check out how they blew up Korean Airlines 858"
Google for: USS Vincennes. On the 4th 1988 over 290 passengers of an Iranian passenger flight were killed by the US Navy.
"Or how they kidnapped Japanese civlians." Compare with the indefinate holding without trial of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay
"Or how they starve their own population" Compare with the 1999 Unicef report stating an estimated 1/2 million Iraqi children were killed by sanctions implemented after the first gulf war. (I love how the rights new moral justification for the war in Iraq is on humanatarian grounds. I must have missed the moral outrage when this report came out in 99)
"Or even how they test biochemical weapons on whole families - children and all: "The parents were vomiting and dying, but till the very last moment they tried to save kids by doing mouth to mouth breathing." Lets compare with the United States's pardoning and relocation of War criminals from Japan (who tested Chemical weapons on Ethnic Chinese and prisoners of war) after the second world war to futher develop their own Chemical weapons program.
"Of all the evil regimes to be apologetic for, North Korea is about as bad as it gets. Anyone who defends them is objectively defending evil."
This is pretty much the comment that made me reply. There is alot of evil in the world, alot of it directly created by the United States, (Look at Nicaragua as a very good example of this, and the subsequent world court ruling against the U.S.) and alot of it created by places like North Korea.
Do I think what the North Koreans do is moraly wrong and evil? Yes. Do I think it is more inherintly evil than the U.S.? Yes. Which one is more dangerous to world peace? Without a doubt it is currently the United States. The United States is the worlds only remaining superpower, and has shown a willingness to try and shape the world in its own image.
When the United States follows its own ideals, it can become the policeman of the world. Until then, I believe getting a mandate first from the rest of the world http://www.un.org/ [un.org] may be a wise course of action. It is not a matter of letting the U.N. "protect" the United States.(By all means go and build a aircraft laser platform)
It is the allowance, that before you go and invade another country, the majority of the world sees some justification for it first.
Re:honest question (Score:3, Informative)
Re:honest question (Score:5, Informative)
In a battle between armor and firepower, always bet on firepower.
Re:That 747 would be shot down first (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Berkely (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What is the real threat? (Score:4, Insightful)
To stop such things the US would probably have to declare martial law and enforce curfews, border checks and all that...
And that means the enemies kinda win - the economy, freedom etc would be badly affected.
The US should have spent billions on spreading peace instead of war. Now with so much fresh blood on their hands it's going to be much harder.