Congress Wants To Resurrect Laser-Wielding 747 302
Harperdog writes "Noah Schactman has a great piece on the Airborne Laser, the ray gun-equipped 747 that became a symbol of wasteful Pentagon weaponeering. Despite sixteen years and billions of dollars in development, the jet could never reliably blast a missile in trials. Now the House Armed Services Committee's Strategic Forces wants the Airborne Laser to be used to defend us against the threat of North Korea's failed missiles."
Old Joke (Score:4, Insightful)
There was a joke (I guess) that circulated pretty much up until the end of the Cold War:
"If the USA wanted to cause the Soviet Union to collapse, it should drop millions of Sears catalogs in major Russian cities."
I wonder if something like this would work with the DPRK.
Although, come to think of it, anyone seen touching the things would be shot for subversive activity.
Republicans LOVE Wasteful Spending (Score:0, Insightful)
Republicans like Mitt Romney and the Tard Party love wasting money on military boondoggles.
This, along with an almost zen-like alternate reality marked by bigotry and lies drive the modern republican, and his domesticated woman.
It's a rich tradition of corruption and stupidity that we can all be proud of. Well... absolute fucking retards like George W Bush can be proud of it.
Need to stick with ships for now (Score:5, Insightful)
If I remember correctly, one of the biggest problems with airborne lasers was that of fuel source. It took up a large amount of space, and the chemicals in chemical lasers were very volatile. Not to mention weaponized lasers still aren't very practicable. It makes much more sense to stick with the Navy development of lasers, as they can tap onboard nuclear reactors for power. Maybe once we actually working, reliable, and accurate systems in development we can look at adding them to an airborne platform. But right now this smells more like the chance for some defense-related pork than anything else.
What has me more concerned from the article (I know, we aren't supposed to read the articles here, but Noah's been doing good work ever since his defensetech days) is that the same committee pushing this is pushing for an East Coast missile defense system. Which, living on the East Coast, makes no sense. The only states with operational SSBNs are the US, UK, France, Russia, and China. No land-based ballistic missiles will come over the East Coast, and China's not going to risk a voyage to the East Coast to attack, the West Coast would make much more sense. I don;t think we have to worry about the UK or France, and Russia still has to deal with what's left of SOSUS as well as the French, Scandinavian, and UK navies, and the Atlantic is still pretty much our backyard. I honestly cannot see any remotely legitimate threat or need for an East Coast defense line.
Re:what better... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about letting all our state-based smaller-power enemies know that we can make their homeland a glass parking lot many times over, I do not know, send them a telegram, or some such? ;-)
Nope, our current policy (which I like) is to say "nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons - we treat these all the same, and we won't be the first to use them (but the whole glass parking lot thing if you start)". More important IMO to use our nukes as a nuke deterrent than a general deterrent.
How about acknowledging that some small al Qaeda group does not really have technical sophistication to even maintain, much less to build a working ICBM?
It's not Al Qaeda, it's the next Suddam, Iran, or NoKo to come along. The tech only gets easier and cheaper over time, and will be in reach for smaller state actors before much longer IMO.
Even better, how about trying not to make enemies with all those people, and, maybe, just maybe, try to trade with them and slowly become friends?
"Try to trade with them and slowly become friends" is the stated reason for some of the international dislike for us right now (to whatever extent stated reasons are ever true). Some people really seem to dislike us for trying to "forfully export our culture". (Also, some people are really just assholes, and will attack you just because they can, no matter how nice you are. Dictatorships seem to select for assholes, so it's a real problem).
Re:Republicans LOVE Wasteful Spending (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:what better... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think conventional ABMs work during boost phase (it's really hard to catch a raocket once it gets going), but that's when a rocket is very easy to target - unlike when a cluster of warheads and decoys and chaff are in free-fall. (Also, it makes the point very strongly that you picked the wrong fight if your missiles are all shot down before they get anywhere).
But drones are getting better and better, and if there's an appropriate weapon (for a boost-phase kill) that would fit on one, it's a much better plan IMO.
Re:Need to stick with ships for now (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:what better... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not Al Qaeda, it's the next Suddam, Iran, or NoKo to come along. The tech only gets easier and cheaper over time, and will be in reach for smaller state actors before much longer IMO.
Really - who?
Even basic ballistic missile tech is hard. Saddam could barely launch SCUDs which they bought from Russia. India is just getting off boosters that qualify as ICBMs (barely). And that's a huge, technologically advanced country. Iran has some theatre capable missiles and again, the barest ICBM level capability. Another fairly advanced nation. Then there is the problem of the warhead. Tossing rocks across continents may look impressive, but strategically it's nonsensical.
So our fascination with the idjits in Pyongyang notwithstanding, there isn't much of a strategic need for ICBM level defense at this time. Unless you think we can create enough of functional shield to significantly degrade a Chinese or Russian strike.
Given the limited amount of defense funding available, it's better to work on some more realistic weapons and perhaps some basic research into alternative resources like oil (which is the basic reason for much of the dick waving these days).
Re:what better... (Score:5, Insightful)
Space lasers would be best, actually.
Here's the problem.
Nobody wants us to do that.
China is FUCKING CRAZY. China's demonstrated that they'll destroy any orbiting thing they don't like -- they "tested" their anti-satellite capabilities once, and I think were it to come down to it.. they'd do it again. Or proxy and have N. Korea launch a real satellite, er, a "real" satellite, that "accidentally" would collide with our space lasers.
Kaboom. Space is gone. They'd shatter the skies and leave so much debris orbiting our planet that we'd be stuck close to this rock for longer than you or I will live.
it's a great idea, throw lasers in space... but it's potentially disastrous.
What would be nice is if they could downsize this airborn laser and fit it into.. hmm, maybe an older, super-high-speed airframe, maybe something that's pretty hard for most nations to detect, maybe something like the SR-71 -- there's still gotta be a few of those somewhere, drag them out of mothball and replace their surveillance payload with a giant laser? It'd solve one problem, being that the time between launch detection and the end of boost phase is so short that a 747 would have to be in the area before the ICBM was launched to be useful.
Maybe just stick them in subs. Not many nations really have much of a sub fleet anymore. There's China again, sure, but... while I don't suggest underestimating China's capabilities, their shit is still made in China, yanno?
Re:what better... (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason nobody wants to do that is the fact that you'd go against the principles agreed to in the 5 space treaties that were agreed to by the UN's Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. If you were caught militarizing low earth orbit then you'd pretty much shit canned international cooperation that was painstakingly negotiated over since Sputnik I for a possibly unreliable not to mention hard to accurately implement at LEO speeds missile defense system.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Airborne laser range (Score:5, Insightful)
Boeing YAL-1 [wikipedia.org]:the ABL achieves its design goals, it could destroy liquid-fueled ICBMs up to 600 km away. Tougher solid-fueled ICBM destruction range would likely be limited to 300 km, too short to be useful in many scenarios, according to a 2003 report by the American Physical Society on National Missile Defense.
Looking at a couple maps of North Korea, there are no regions 300 km away from water or foreign territory. 600 km would allow intercept for most of the country from South Korea. Looking at the launch site northwest of Pyongyang, it looks to be about 300km from Seoul.
Plus, any launch vectors that would have a hope of hitting the USA(or other countries not within range of SRBM) will rapidly leave NK territory and be within range of an appropriately positioned plane.
Re:Airborne laser range (Score:4, Insightful)
Looking at a couple maps of North Korea, there are no regions 300 km away from water or foreign territory.
The North Korean SAM network includes S-200 [wikipedia.org] which have an operational range of 300km. Plus, the U.S. Airforce can't fly over China, so that border is safe from this defense. Put the ICBM launch sites there, and to get within 300km you would have to fly a 747 less than 100km off the North Korean coast, where it would be extremely vulnerable. Also remember that the accuracy of the weapon decreases with distance: even if it can hit a target at 300km, the question is, what proportion of launches could it hit from a far distance in a real world war scenario? How are you going to launch them and get them in to position in time to hit a missile launch? Are you going to fly these 747s 24/7 around the North Korean coastline?
600 km would allow intercept for most of the country from South Korea.
The Wikipedia article says the 600km range is for liquid fueled missiles, the recent NK missiles appear to be solid fueled.
Re:Airborne laser range (Score:4, Insightful)
> 600 km would allow intercept for most of the country from South Korea
And South Korea is only 0 km from North Korean artillery, which they would use en-masse if this were to occur.
> Plus, any launch vectors that would have a hope of hitting the USA
Which are, specifically, none at all.
A real threat to the US is Type II Diabetes. North Korean missile attacks are science fiction. So why are they spending money on the wrong one?