U.S. Considers Anti-Satellite Laser 511
SpaceAdmiral writes "The U.S. government wants to develop a ground-based weapon to shoot down enemy satellites in orbit. The laser will be much more powerful and sophisticated than a similar endeavor a decade ago. From the article: '... some Congressional Democrats and other experts fault the research as potential fuel for an antisatellite arms race that could ultimately hurt this nation more than others because the United States relies so heavily on military satellites, which aid navigation, reconnaissance and attack warning.'"
Purpose for defense or offense? (Score:3, Insightful)
Far more likely it's to protect America's "intellectual property economy" when it's cheap enough for private individuals to launch their own satellites to disseminate information under any laws they see fit.
Oh - and registration free link courtesy of Coral Cache [nyud.net]
More likely (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, if that happened, I would imagine that there would be an "arms race" to produce stealth satellites, and weaponized satellites that can take down antisatellite weapons.
Because we all know other nations (Score:1, Insightful)
(Where's the sarcasm tag when I need it?)
Wow. (Score:5, Insightful)
The other theory, give countries warnings about removing satellites? Countries love ultimatums too. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I'm against this (or for it, really) but I'm suggesting that perhaps the political and diplomatic repercussions might need to be investigated more thoroughly.
From a sci-fi point of view, its Spies Like Us [imdb.com] all over again! Sounds interesting and technological to say the least.
That way thinking is the problem with the USA (Score:4, Insightful)
As the USA concetrates on the development of these so called lasers, al-Qaida and its affiliates will enter the USA through the porous southern and norther borders and do greater harm.
Folks, do not be suprised to hear in future that this project has corruption and greed behind it. Remember that the USA spent US$5.99 billion on the shuttle which was never value for money!
Seems like we have more to loose (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Purpose for defense or offense? (Score:5, Insightful)
Far more likely it's to protect America's "intellectual property economy" when it's cheap enough for private individuals to launch their own satellites to disseminate information under any laws they see fit.
Wow. There's my first good laugh of the day.
No, this is more of a paranoid-delusional fantasy of the Pentagon and some bureaucrats who don't want competition from China and maybe Russia. The key to U.S. military dominance is our excellent satellite intelligence. While HUMINT helps with the social engineering aspects of war, nothing but a satellite combined with proper munitions can blow up a tank underneath a bridge without hitting the bridge. From 40,000 feet. Our satellites give our military and NIMA a detailed view of pretty much every square meter of the planet, and we use this to blow shit up. No other nation on the globe has this capability to the extent we do. The United States government wants to keep it this way.
So, we're in a hypothetical future conflict with China. They have satellite capabilities similar to ours. Maybe not as good, but similar in ability. We use these lasers to blow up their satellites, removing their capability to deliver precision guided munitions. We retain that capability. We win the fight. Maybe not the war, as Iraq is teaching it takes more than bombs to do that, but at least the U.S. isn't the country blown to bits with an occupying force.
I'm not defending the program, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Purpose for defense or offense? (Score:3, Insightful)
Make no mistake this is an offensive weapon (Score:2, Insightful)
if we're just hearing about this now (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Purpose for defense or offense? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because the primary purpose of this program, like so many others, is to transfer vast amounts of money from the federal treasury to certain politically cooperative industries. Like Star Wars before it, I doubt that there is anyone in the Bush administration that cares one iota whether it has any real military value or even whether it ever "works" or not. The real (political) value is in the spending itself.
Re:Purpose for defense or offense? (Score:3, Insightful)
They Russians were testing anti-Satellite weapons in the 80's as I recall, crude but effective in theory. All you need to do is launch a Satellites into an orbit that matches the one you are taking down, and blow yours up. Car bomb in space, in effect. I guess this is why we are suddenly afraid of this, though I suspect the White House is over-estimating the ease of putting a car bomb in space, then matching the orbit of an object flying at thousands of mph. For what? to take out one or two GPS satellites of the 26? Maybe hit a spy satellite that could be quickly replaced with a better one while unmanned drones cover the gaps and the men in black track the organization that paid millions to one of 5 or 6 launch companies capable of putting that car bomb in space?
You can't shoot down a satellite (Score:5, Insightful)
You can destroy it but all that will happen is that the pieces will
spread out from the point of explosion/impact and eventually become
space junk that could cause problems from friendly satellites.
Hopefully the laser would only disable a satellite and not cause its
fuel tanks to detonate , since if they do then the US will simply
be causing problems for itself , its allies and all space farers in
the future.
Re:Purpose for defense or offense? (Score:5, Insightful)
I do agree with your post to a certain extent, but the US hasn't entered a hot war with an equivilant (or even close) power for over fifty years (and arguably never)
The hot wars of the future will be with countries like iraq, where the US can absolutely dominate in air & space.
This project seems more likely for cold/economic wars of the future. Think about the damage to the US economy if Chinese satellites rebroadcast everything that could be rebroadcast (from entertainment through economic/political/military secrets to proprietary source code/ blueprints/ etc).
The US has always used its military to protect its economy - there is no reason this project should be any different.
Hello? (Score:2, Insightful)
We still don't do radiation scans at all ports (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a waste of money. Spend the cash you'd put into a ground based anti-satellite laser and instead do things that would measurably improve the security of the US against attack from vectors which matter in realistic terms. If we determine we really need to destroy a satellite, we already have specially designed anti-satellite missles.
Re:what amazes me (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Purpose for defense or offense? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, call me an X files conspiracy theory type, but we've already got space defense systems and this is merely meant as an upgrade or additional weapons systems.
Lets examine the facts.
-we currently have more than 20 GPS sattelites in orbit. Besides helping you find the closest Starbucks, these are also used to help our soldiers find their way throug remote mountain passes and help missiles find their targets.
-Military doctrine is to control the media as soon as you can in any conflict. A large part of the media is broadcast via sattelite
-Our military insists on protecting its assets. Quick, name any military asset of regional significance that we don't guard?
-We've already have antisattelite missles [wikipedia.org]. in the mid 80s, an ASAT took out a satellite in a successful test.
-China is interested [spacedaily.com] in anti-satellite technology.
-Squadrons of fully operational stealth fighters [fas.org] were deployed and used for more than half a decade before being made public. Our military clearly is able to keep very large opperations secret for quite some time.
When I add this all up, I come to the conclusion that we already have space-based weapons designed, at a minimum, to disrupt an incoming missile. Others may have similar, which would explain why we'd be interested in lasers. The only question I really have is why they'd bother to make it public.
TW
Re:Because we all know other nations (Score:5, Insightful)
Imperial Japan [fas.org] had nuclear bomb programs too.
Personally, I'm glad America got there first.
The Soviets took the easy route. They had some Useful Idiots steal the technology [wikipedia.org].
The Soviets had ASAT programs too. ASAT weaponry is old news, it's just that now they're using lasers rather than missiles. Heck, even that's not all that new, though making it work would be.
Don't you think the way for the US to really ensure its population's security would be to try to track down the arsenal of the former USSR?
Don't you think Putin ought to take nuclear security more seriously? The Russians built the damn things and they're not so poor that they can't deal with them if they want to, especially with high oil prices pouring hard currency into Russian state coffers.
We win the fight ? (Score:2, Insightful)
And therein lies your problem. If your enemy can't pin-point the military target, then their next best option is to target a large city. Way to go, that was smart. Instead of losing a missile silo, you lose 250,000 citizens.
Re:Purpose for defense or offense? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry if this first post (my first one on slashdot) offended someone around here,
Don't worry about offending people - it's just words (and our ancestors have died to protect our rights to free speech).
If anyone gets offended, they have the right to reply & debate. That way everyone learns something!
Blind enemies lash out (Score:4, Insightful)
This was basicly the logic behind the ABM treaty. It still holds good.
With our current terrorist enemy, I cannot see blinding any satellites would help. With potential enemies, most of them have nukers and likely would get very edgy blinded.
impossible to generate a powerfull enough beam (Score:3, Insightful)
It is a electric field and a magnetic field moving together.
The breakdown voltage of air is about 2000V per millimeter.
With a powerfull laser in a lab, which is about fifty orders of magnitude too weak to do anything to a satellite, you can get sparks in mid air due to the air breaking down because of the high voltage of the electric part of the electromagnetic wave.
You cannot generate a laser beam powerfull enough to destroy a satellite from the ground. IF you tried you would just make a lot of plasma in the air above your laser. Focusing lots of little lasers on a satellite would require far more lasers than could be practically built.
I suspect these storys are planted in the media to worry unfriendly countrys, just like the star wars program that never had a chance of working or the rediculous story I saw in a newspaper a couple of years ago about missiles that can burrow into the ground and destroy a shelter 150feet down.
I also think it's a sad reflection on the state of slashdot that this story is up to 150 comments and I'm the first to point this out. I'm going to go and bash my head on a wall unitl I come to my senses and stop even reading alterslash. [alterslash.org]
Re:Purpose for defense or offense? (Score:4, Insightful)
Our current Secretary of Defense, who so many around here love to hate (myself included), would disagree with your assessment. He's cut programs that he deems unnecessary in the past [brookings.edu]. He didn't make a lot of friends inside or outside the Pentagon by doing it. I'm no Rumsfeld defender after the colossal fuck up that is Iraq, but I will give him some credit where credit is due.
The real culprit, IMHO, is Congress. Where the heck is the oversight? You expect the Pentagon to push forward every weapons program they can dream up. That's what we pay them to do. Congress controls the purse string and has oversight which means ultimately they've got the power to put a stop to these programs if they choose to use it.
What about the mines?? (Score:5, Insightful)
The US is not starting this race, but it'd be nice to keep up regardless.
From your SpaceDaily.com link above: "China will become the third nation after U.S. and Russia to possess an ASAT system." China can make arguments identical to yours about enlightened self-interest. They could make the same argument about WMDs -- and Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il, and the regime in Iran have all done just that. Deterrence, etc.
Re:Purpose for defense or offense? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure the French thought something similar when they built the Maginot line [wikipedia.org] - "Now we're safe from the Germans, all wars will be small colonial ones".
The world can change pretty quickly, as Pearl Harbour or 9/11 show. If you want to survive, you need to prepare for all possible sorts of wars, not just the ones that seem likely at the moment. And a war with China is all two possible. I'm not suggesting that either side want it, but if you look at the regular standoffs over Taiwan, it's always possible that an accident could esacalate into a very dangerous situation. To a lesser extent, it's possible that North Korea could drag the Chinese and the US into a conflict.
And a war between China and the US would be much more evenly balanced in a sortf of Zerg vs Protoss way. It would also be marked by extreme ruthlessness, and it's hard to imagine that shooting down satellites would be regarded as particularly unacceptable.
And there are other possible conflicts where the US would be evenly matched, e.g. against Russia or even Iran. Whilst it's unlikely that Iran would be able to launch satellites, they would be able to buy coverage & GPS like services from European or Russian ones.
Even if none of this happens, shooting down satellites with a ground based laser is a cool trick. AFAIK, the US does have anti satellite weapons already - there was a cold war program to fire missiles from an F15 [wikipedia.org]. Looking at that link, the Russians experimented with a load of anti satellite techniques from kamikaze 'figher satellites' to a ground based laser that fry satellite's image sensors.
Re:Purpose for defense or offense? (Score:4, Insightful)
The tragedy is, they ought to be thinking about something *besides* oil in forty years.
Re:That way thinking is the problem with the USA (Score:3, Insightful)
Right, because there is only one person working in the Pentagon and he can only concentrate on one thing at a time.
Re:Purpose for defense or offense? (Score:2, Insightful)
The fact people related to us died for something does not make it good.
What matters is that speach remains free.
Re:Purpose for defense or offense? (Score:2, Insightful)
Fact:There are several stories about missing/unaccounted reconstruction money that the US govt sent to companies in iraq to rehabilitate the region. This sum numbers in the billions.
Fact:There are several cnn reports that state that there is a lot of oil being somehow looted and there's no way to track it because it isn't metered.
Fact:There are several stories about US contractors being caught bribing officials.
Now let's be intellectually honest. How do you know you're missing oil if it's not metered? How does one loot oil from a pipeline? These pipes are over 9ft in diameter are made of steel and are 5-6 inches thick. and are designed to move oil at a rate of 1000gals/sec. One can't just punch a little hole in it and tap out some oil. It's not a wee little coconut that you can stick a straw in and sip a little juice from.
Fact: oil companies are rolling in profits we're paying higher gas prices at our pumps but only because the oil companies have to pay higher prices to Middle East oil barons and they've had losses in refiner productivity due to katrina. That is supposedly they're only passing on an increase in costs to us the consumer.
Now either we're in some kind of crazy voodoo capitalism that allows american oil companies to increase gas prices to match costs and somehow come out with huge profits OR they're selling black market oil along with the real stuff. On paper there's no justification for prosecuting them but I doubt their accounting for gallons of oil purchased, refined and sold will tally properly.
the world did not change after 9/11 (Score:3, Insightful)
The world DID NOT CHANGE after 9/11 because of 9/11. It changed because of people claiming it changed, and said people "protecting" us from boogeymen. First it was communists- now it is terrorists.
3,000 people died in the WTC attacks; twice as many Americans die from heart attacks in a month, and preventing their deaths doesn't require stripping people's civil liberties.