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A MODIFIED Boeing 747 designed to be part of an emerging US antimissile shield has successfully completed an important flight test, the Pentagon's Missile Defence Agency and Boeing said today.



Way to go dude!!!

Seems like they're almost ready to blow stuff up!

Yay!

Indeed!!
Also THANK YOU!!!!

I always feel safer knowing you guys, Asha, Jester, etc. are working on our side.

hehe, star wipe

Yeah. It was pretty cool. Though I was actually in Seattle when it happened. My wife and I drove up for my family reunion.

We've been working on getting everything working just right for this milestone. We've had lots of problems with the plane that carries the target.. and it's a regular military plane. Hydraulic problems, smoke in the cockpit, bad sensors, and so on. But that's typical of any test program.


We've got to do a couple more very important items, then we start integration. I've been heavily involved with the high energy laser, and I've joked that we could prove to the world that it works by writing our names on the moon, or smilie faces up there. (Hehehe.... "USA was here!" Or something like that.)

I've also been doing work on stray light... there's a LOT of data out there on how high energy lasers interact with matter. But there are assumptions made that some of us don't think apply because of safety reasons. We gotta test the thing, but blinding whole cities or accidentally shooting down aircraft or satellites is not collateral damage we can handle.

I'll be the guy that builds the tools that analyze engagement scenarios, and these tools will be used for future programs. So I'm somewhat excited. Been writing some software for a 64 processor parallel computer, and been working on some smart algorithms. These algorithms search through hundreds of gigabytes of data for irregularities that wouldn't be spotted by people... a sort of smart data analysis algorithm. I've also got one that I'm working on that figures out the important aspects of some of our data (shapes of curves, how fast things change, how long or short valves open and close, and so on), that's so that we can get a picture of what is the important stuff that's going on. I've got a system of partial differential equations that has 53 uknowns, and another that has more than 60 uknowns, and both systems model the fluid behaviors of the laser based on the data that we collect. There's no way anyone can quickly work through all of that, so I'm working on a way to have software do it for us.


Long story short, I am really enjoying that part of my job now. I've been stressed lately though because I'm involved with setting up a beam containment and sighting scheme to allow us to fire a class IV laser into the open air; on the ground, and with people in the area. It's the first time anyone has needed to do this kind of thing, and we're under a lot of pressure to get it right. That's why I've been absent from the boards lately... that and I'm writing a couple of proposals in my spare time.



Oh and AHAM: if you didn't know, I'm going to be a dad in January!
The wife of almost four months is 15 weeks pregnant.

Oh and I forgot to mention...

These targeting lasers work like this:

one acts like a flashlight in a dark room: it allows you to see stuff

the other is like a spotlight: it allows you to focus on one object in that dark room.

There's some other stuff that goes on as well, like atmospheric compensation and ranging, but that's more involved.

Oh and FYI: can't talk about capabilities or limitations. So things like range, power, spot size and so on I won't ever answer.


I will tell you this: we are concerned with accidentally hitting satellites if we somehow miss our target with any of the lasers. And the problem gets worse when we finally install the high energy laser (COIL). That laser isn't eyesafe at all until you are very much way beyond the orbit of the moon (250,000 miles away). Digest those things and then consider the problem of where reflected energy goes, what happens to scattered laser light, how accurate you have to be to pick out a target out of the background and hit it, and so on. When you play with these big guns, you need to have a whole other level of respect above other weapons.

Ya, the backscatter would be a killer, wouldn't it...

Couple of questions...
I thought these weapons were primarily going to weaken the shell of a ballistic missile during the boost phase, just enough to warp them and screw up their aerodynamics and end up with a crash/self-destruct. Are we still talking about those or is this something different?

Obviously you're not going to go shooting these off in a dust storm. Any problems there from a possible defensive standpoint? Hostiles using weather conditions for cover, or using chaff, smoke, etc. to screw up the laser or the targeting system?

I presume the targeting laser you mentioned is monitored for any deviation from expected test parameters and anything unusual instantly shuts down the main?

How far is this open-air test from the nearest population center?

Any possible way to get unfriendly spy-eyes to watch the test and, er, accidentally blind 'em?

The main HEL is designed to burn through missile skins and hit sensitive parts of the engine (fuel tank, oxidizer tank, combustion chamber, etc.)

We're making the pressurized stuff inside get outside. Physics takes care of the rest.

There are things that can attenuate the beams. But that stuff is mostly low-altitude compared to where the lasers are fired (not towards the ground). It's better to get above most of the problems, and go through the cleaner and thinner parts of the atmosphere.

Hardware-based abort systems are built in to the system. And they cause problems for test because they have to be set so precisely they end up being picky (which is good). But we have multiple monitoring methods which turn everything off if there are problems.

As for nearest population, we operate in several ranges. One is off the west coast, one is over New Mexico, and one is over California. We have a system that only lets us fire the laser in certain directions due to spacecraft, aircraft, missile flight, etc. Right now we're absolutely certain we won't accidentally hit people on the ground.

As for nme spy sats, I know it's crossed people's minds, because it's crossed mine. Two things with that: the US would have to apologize for a blatant attack (nme and media would construe it that way), and people might lose faith in the ability of the program to not cause problems. It's a very big deal that we don't start something, and I'm pretty sure that with some countries "Ooops!" won't stop them from whining.

That's not to say that I'm not all for the idea in a real-lfe situation.

How about mirror-finished missiles? Problem?

Nope.

How good would it be at cooking meals for the troops at any range? What foods wouldn't taste good when cooked by this method?

ROFL I can see it now. Squad places MREs on a rock and carefully get precise GPS coordinates. Then...

"HQ, this is Sergeant Smith on patrol on map grid Tango-12. Requesting a minimm-intensity burn on remote target location x,y,z. Squad is clear, fire when ready."

ZZAPPPP!

"HQ, Smith sends compliments. Time for grub!"

Well... the first time the HEL was fired was around Thanksgiving. Someone did a calculation to see what would happen to a frozen turkey if you put it in the beam path and fired the laser. The turkey is vaporized on the front before the back ever notices anything is hitting the turkey.

Atmosphere tends to attenuate the beam, so heating MREs is not a good idea. Now, melting glaciers might be interesting...

Righto, staggering amounts of heat applied in a precise manner at long ranges.

Makes me wonder if there's a way to make optically ablative armor that'll react fast enough to disperse the beam...and that'll outlast whatever power-supply is feeding the laser.