Science fiction becoming a reality.

[indiapakistanfriendship]

You are referring to S.A.T.I. project right? Hey don't worry at least they are doing something

Err Nitesh its SETI

 

[nitesh]

Err Nitesh its SETI

Hey thanks for pointing the typo. I typed my college name mistakenly.
(Samrat Ashok Technological Institute)

 

[nitesh]

Northrop gets potential $5.1 billion U.S. carrier deal


Wed Sep 10, 2008 6:38pm EDT

Northrop gets potential $5.1 billion U.S. carrier deal | Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Northrop Grumman Corp won a contract worth up to $5.1 billion over seven years to complete the design and build the future Gerald R. Ford, the first in a new class of U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, the Defense Department said on Wednesday.

Work on the nuclear-powered carrier will be performed in Newport News, Virginia, and is expected to be wrapped up by September 2015, the Pentagon said in its daily contract summary.

Advance construction began in 2005 under a separate Northrop contract valued at $2.7 billion, the company said in a statement.

"This contract award is an important and historic milestone for our company, our Navy and our country," said Matt Mulherin, vice president and general manager for Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding's Newport News operations.

The ship represents the Navy's first major investment in aircraft carrier design in more than 30 years and features big improvements on the 1960's Nimitz-class design, the Navy said in a separate statement.

Enhancements being incorporated into the design include flight deck changes, improved weapons handling systems, advanced gear to facilitate landings and others changes to boost aircraft sortie rates.

The ship will also include a new nuclear power plant, increased electrical power generation capacity and reduced workloads for sailors, translating to a smaller crew size and lower operating costs for the Navy.

The keel is scheduled to be laid in the fall of 2009 and the ship is due to be delivered to the Navy in 2015. About one third of the ship's 1,200 structural units are currently under construction, Northrop said.

The Navy plans to build 11 Ford-class aircraft carriers with construction projected to continue through 2058.

The Defense Department said the contract included an option that, if exercised, would bring its total value to $5.1 billion. The contract was not opened to bids, the department said.

 

[Nasha]

Invisibility cloaks!!! does that mean I can run around naked?

 

[su-47]

Invisibility cloaks!!! does that mean I can run around naked?

wouldnt advise it. the cloak is very light. on a windy day, it could be disastrous.

 

[SMIQBAL]

SMIQBAL

WHAT I STUDIED I PRODUCE FOR FURTHER RESEARCH FOR THE FRIENDS OF FORUM. THE FOLLOWING WEAPON SYSTEMS ARE READY AND OPERATIONAL AND MAY BE USED BY US FORCES.

FUTURE WEAPONRY:


1. MINES BOMBS SCATTERED ARROUND TARGET
WITH AIRBORNE DIVISION OF SPECAIL FORCES WHO MAY UNDER TAKE PHYSICAL OPERATION IN A CIRCLE SECURED WITH NO ACCESS TO OPERATIONAL FORCES.

2. HIGH VOLTAGE ELECTRO MAGNETIC FILED WOULD DESTROY THE SWITCH SYSTEM, POWER SUPPLY AND POWER GENERATION SYSTEM. THE POWER OF CONTROL ROOM SHALL BE PUT OFF AND ALL THE COMPUTERS SHALL BE DESTROYED IF ELECTRO MAGNETIC FILED IS USED IN COMBAT OPERATIONS. A STEALTH TYPE JET FITTED WITH
RAYS PLANT CAN CREAT A ELECTRO MAGNETIC SHIELD WHICH WILL PROVIDE HIGH VOLTAGE CURRENT TO THE APPRATUS FOR AUTOMATIC TURN ON AND DUE TO HIGH VOLTAGE THE SYSTEM WOULD BE DESTROYED.

STEALTH TYPE PLANE IS MEANT TO PRODUCE A SHIELD OF ELECTRO MAGNETIC FIELD FOR THE PURPOSE OF CONTROLLING THE WMD LAUNCHING AND DESTRUCTION OF STORAGE SITES.


3. BOEING 747 JUMBO LOADED WITH HEAVEY MACHINES PRODUCING LASER BEAMS MAY BE USED TO DESTROY IRON STRUCTURES MOUNTED ON VEHICLES FOR COMBAT PURPOSES. MAINLY USE FOR DESTRUCTION OF MISSILE LAUNCHERS, MISSILES AND MISSILES PLATFORMS. THE OTHER PARTY SHALL NOT BE IN A POSITION TO LAUNCH OR USE MISSILE TECHNOLOGY IN PRESENCE OF BOEING LASER PLANE.

4. AIRCRAFT TAKE OFF FROM A SUBMARINE. CAPABLE TO CARRY GUIDED MISSILES AND UN MANRD AIRCRAFT CARRYING HELL FIRE ETC MISSILES, ANTI TANK MISSILES, AND ANTI SUBMARINE MISSILES. THE AIRCRAFT WOULD TAKE OFF FROM UNDER WATER IN DEEP SEAS AND WITHOUT TRACING BY THE RADAR SYSTEM SHALL COMPLETE ITS MISSION .

 

[SMIQBAL]

SMIQBAL

WHAT I STUDIED I PRODUCE FOR FURTHER RESEARCH FOR THE FRIENDS OF FORUM. THE FOLLOWING WEAPON SYSTEMS ARE READY AND OPERATIONAL AND MAY BE USED BY US FORCES.

FUTURE WEAPONRY:


1. MINES BOMBS SCATTERED ARROUND TARGET
WITH AIRBORNE DIVISION OF SPECAIL FORCES WHO MAY UNDER TAKE PHYSICAL OPERATION IN A CIRCLE SECURED WITH NO ACCESS TO OPERATIONAL FORCES.

2. HIGH VOLTAGE ELECTRO MAGNETIC FILED WOULD DESTROY THE SWITCH SYSTEM, POWER SUPPLY AND POWER GENERATION SYSTEM. THE POWER OF CONTROL ROOM SHALL BE PUT OFF AND ALL THE COMPUTERS SHALL BE DESTROYED IF ELECTRO MAGNETIC FILED IS USED IN COMBAT OPERATIONS. A STEALTH TYPE JET FITTED WITH
RAYS PLANT CAN CREAT A ELECTRO MAGNETIC SHIELD WHICH WILL PROVIDE HIGH VOLTAGE CURRENT TO THE APPRATUS FOR AUTOMATIC TURN ON AND DUE TO HIGH VOLTAGE THE SYSTEM WOULD BE DESTROYED.

STEALTH TYPE PLANE IS MEANT TO PRODUCE A SHIELD OF ELECTRO MAGNETIC FIELD FOR THE PURPOSE OF CONTROLLING THE WMD LAUNCHING AND DESTRUCTION OF STORAGE SITES.


3. BOEING 747 JUMBO LOADED WITH HEAVEY MACHINES PRODUCING LASER BEAMS MAY BE USED TO DESTROY IRON STRUCTURES MOUNTED ON VEHICLES FOR COMBAT PURPOSES. MAINLY USE FOR DESTRUCTION OF MISSILE LAUNCHERS, MISSILES AND MISSILES PLATFORMS. THE OTHER PARTY SHALL NOT BE IN A POSITION TO LAUNCH OR USE MISSILE TECHNOLOGY IN PRESENCE OF BOEING LASER PLANE.

4. AIRCRAFT TAKE OFF FROM A SUBMARINE. CAPABLE TO CARRY GUIDED MISSILES AND UN MANED AIRCRAFT CARRYING HELL FIRE ETC MISSILES, ANTI TANK MISSILES, AND ANTI SUBMARINE MISSILES. THE AIRCRAFT WOULD TAKE OFF FROM UNDER WATER IN DEEP SEAS AND WITHOUT TRACING BY THE RADAR SYSTEM SHALL COMPLETE ITS MISSION .

THANKS.

 

[nitesh]

Super sub: Virginia class on front line in global war on terrorism

Lt. Cmdr. John Thompson, executive officer of the New Hampshire, stands in the area of the weapons launch console of the submarine. Photo of the sub was taken during its rollout in February.
By Deborah McDermott
dmcdermott@seacoastonline.com

September 21, 2008 6:00 AM
It's not your father's Navy any longer.

If proof of that is needed, it is abundant in the new Virginia-class submarines. Gone are the Cold War days when the Navy planned to fight a Soviet enemy. Here are the days of a global war on terrorism, when stealth and covert sea and land operations take precedence.

Uss new hampshire
For more information on the commissioning on Oct. 25 and other celebrations surrounding it, please visit Welcome to the USS New Hampshire.
Related Stories
Submarine celebration needs cashSub ceremony gets $10K boostTime blamed for spoiled Granite Ghost Ale plansGranite Ghost ale nixed by fedsSubmarine delivered to U.S. NavyNew sub being turned over to Navy Brewery's new ale to honor sub commissioning eventWeb site offers registration for USS New Hampshire submarine commissioningWeb site launched for sub eventsPortsmouth widow of 911 pilot christens submarine The Navy plans to build 30 Virginia-class subs. The fifth to be built was the New Hampshire, which will be commissioned into the fleet at a ceremony at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard on Oct. 25.

The Navy is shifting focus from 20th to 21st century warfare with the Virginia class. The Los Angeles class, the Virginia's predecessor, is considered an "attack" submarine, intended to support surface ships during battle and to attack Soviet submarines, according to Navy information.

The Virginia class is another animal altogether. Since the end of the Cold War, the Navy has expanded its focus from deep-sea warfare to include coastal water domination so as to influence events ashore.

"It's no longer the Soviets versus the United States," said Lt. James Stockman, public affairs officer of Submarine Group Two in Groton, Conn. "In the global war on terrorism, the key words are intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance."

The Virginia class is built to go into shallow water, and from there her abilities are many, based on the needs of the operation. These include land attack, intelligence gathering, mine reconnaissance and support of special forces.

The special forces that will come aboard the submarine will almost always be Navy SEALS, Stockman said. Let's say, for instance, the sub's mission is to travel to the waters off the coast of an enemy country and gather intelligence on a planned amphibious attack. The SEALS would come aboard at the start of the mission, and would likely stay in the torpedo room, which is "reconfigurable," Stockman said.

If the mission is more geared to battle, it can be filled with torpedoes. If the mission is more geared to reconnaissance, half the room can be converted into bunk beds for the SEALS or other special forces. Once the sub is positioned near shore, the SEALS can head to land via a lockout diving chamber on the sub. In most cases, Stockman said, the sub would be close enough to land that they could swim ashore. If not, the chamber can accommodate a mini-sub.

The SEALS would gather their intelligence and come back to the sub, which is so quiet it's been virtually undetectable during the time the SEALS were ashore.

Meanwhile, the submarine will be able to pick up all kinds of signals that even satellites can't detect. It features sonar that enables it to map the ocean floor, ferret out enemy submarines and detect enemy mine fields. An advanced electromagnetic silencing system reduces its vulnerability to magnetic mines while it's in shallow water. There is also a towed array of sonar behind the sub, which up until this class of submarines has been considered vulnerable.

If, however, the mission is not reconnaissance but combat, the Virginia class is also better prepared than its predecessors to respond, Stockman said.

The Virginia class can carry 38 full-sized weapons, including torpedoes, mines and Tomahawk land-attack missiles. This last capability is what sets the Virginia class apart. The Tomahawks are used in the sub's 12 vertical launch tubes. So if the mission is to strike land targets, it's able to get into shallow waters and launch an attack.

The torpedo room that reconfigures to allow room for the SEALS can also be filled floor to ceiling with weapons that can be moved by a system of hydraulics instead of manually as has been the case in the past.

"It's the versatility of the Virginia class that makes it so valuable," Stockman said.

Another major innovation with the Virginia class can be found in the control room — or actually not found. There is no periscope. Instead, images from above water are garnered through use of photonics — similar to but more advanced than fiber optics. A photonics mast can do a 360-degree scan of the surface in five seconds, Stockman said, so the time that the sub is actually in view of an enemy and vulnerable is negligible. Stockman said the photonics mast itself has "great night vision" and infrared capabilities. The images the photonics mast picks up are recorded and sent to a plasma screen to be replayed in the control room — or in the crew's mess or in the officer's mess. Meals are no barrier to getting information during a combat mission.

Meanwhile, there's no separate chart room or sonar room. Both are now on screens in the control room, "so everything the commander needs is all in one space. He's going to have a complete picture of what's going on. He can actually see what the sonar is seeing and see what the photonics picked up."

 

[nitesh]

Stanford computer scientists have developed an artificial intelligence system that enables robotic helicopters to teach themselves to fly difficult stunts by watching other helicopters perform the same maneuvers.

The result is an autonomous helicopter than can perform a complete airshow of complex tricks on its own.

The stunts are "by far the most difficult aerobatic maneuvers flown by any computer controlled helicopter," said Andrew Ng, the professor directing the research of graduate students Pieter Abbeel, Adam Coates, Timothy Hunter and Morgan Quigley.

The dazzling airshow is an important demonstration of "apprenticeship learning," in which robots learn by observing an expert, rather than by having software engineers peck away at their keyboards in an attempt to write instructions from scratch.

Stanford's artificial intelligence system learned how to fly by "watching" the four-foot-long helicopters flown by expert radio control pilot Garett Oku. "Garett can pick up any helicopter, even ones he's never seen, and go fly amazing aerobatics. So the question for us is always, why can't computers do things like this?" Coates said.

Computers can, it turns out. On a recent morning in an empty field at the edge of campus, Abbeel and Coates sent up one of their helicopters to demonstrate autonomous flight. The aircraft, brightly painted Stanford red, is an off-the-shelf radio control helicopter, with instrumentation added by the researchers.

For five minutes, the chopper, on its own, ran through a dizzying series of stunts beyond the capabilities of a full-scale piloted helicopter and other autonomous remote control helicopters. The artificial-intelligence helicopter performed a smorgasbord of difficult maneuvers: traveling flips, rolls, loops with pirouettes, stall-turns with pirouettes, a knife-edge, an Immelmann, a slapper, an inverted tail slide and a hurricane, described as a "fast backward funnel."

The pièce de résistance may have been the "tic toc," in which the helicopter, while pointed straight up, hovers with a side-to-side motion as if it were the pendulum of an upside down clock.

"I think the range of maneuvers they can do is by far the largest" in the autonomous helicopter field, said Eric Feron, a Georgia Tech aeronautics and astronautics professor who worked on autonomous helicopters while at MIT. "But what's more impressive is the technology that underlies this work. In a way, the machine teaches itself how to do this by watching an expert pilot fly. This is amazing."

Writing software for robotic helicopters is a daunting task, in part because the craft itself, unlike an airplane, is inherently unstable. "The helicopter doesn't want to fly. It always wants to just tip over and crash," said Oku, the pilot.

To scientists, a helicopter in flight is an "unstable system" that comes unglued without constant input. Abbeel compares flying a helicopter to balancing a long pole in the palm of your hand: "If you don't provide feedback, it will crash."

Early on in their research, Abbeel and Coates attempted to write computer code that would specify the commands for the desired trajectory of a helicopter flying a specific maneuver. While this hand-coded approach succeeded with novice-level flips and rolls, it flopped with the complex tic-toc."

It might seem that an autonomous helicopter could fly stunts by simply replaying the exact finger movements of an expert pilot using the joy sticks on the helicopter's remote controller. That approach, however, is doomed to failure because of uncontrollable variables such as gusting winds.

When the Stanford researchers decided their autonomous helicopter should be capable of flying airshow stunts, they realized that even defining their goal was difficult. What's the formal specification for "flying well?" The answer, it turned out, was that "flying well" is whatever an expert radio control pilot does at an airshow.

So the researchers had Oku and other pilots fly entire airshow routines while every movement of the helicopter was recorded. As Oku repeated a maneuver several times, the trajectory of the helicopter inevitably varied slightly with each flight. But the learning algorithms created by Ng's team were able to discern the ideal trajectory the pilot was seeking. Thus the autonomous helicopter learned to fly the routine better—and more consistently—than Oku himself.

During a flight, some of the necessary instrumentation is mounted on the helicopter, some on the ground. Together, they continuously monitor the position, direction, orientation, velocity, acceleration and spin of the helicopter in several dimensions. A ground-based computer crunches the data, makes quick calculations and beams new flight directions to the helicopter via radio 20 times per second.

The helicopter carries accelerometers, gyroscopes and magnetometers, the latter of which use the Earth's magnetic field to figure out which way the helicopter is pointed. The exact location of the craft is tracked either by a GPS receiver on the helicopter or by cameras on the ground. (With a larger helicopter, the entire navigation package could be airborne.)

There is interest in using autonomous helicopters to search for land mines in war-torn areas or to map out the hot spots of California wildfires in real time, allowing firefighters to quickly move toward or away from them. Firefighters now must often act on information that is several hours old, Abbeel said.

"In order for us to trust helicopters in these sort of mission-critical applications, it's important that we have very robust, very reliable helicopter controllers that can fly maybe as well as the best human pilots in the world can," Ng said. Stanford's autonomous helicopters have taken a large step in that direction, he said.

Helicopters teach themselves to do aerial maneuvers

 

[nitesh]

Missile Defense System Aimed At Potential Threats : NPR

Missile Defense System Aimed At Potential Threats

Morning Edition, September 22, 2008 · President Bush's administration has spent more than $60 billion since 2002 on the deployment of a defense program that has received little attention — the anti-missile defense system.

Active missile interceptors are in silos in the ground in Alaska and California; U.S. warships are equipped with missile interceptors and have been deployed to potential trouble spots around the globe; and a billion dollar high-tech floating radar station provides crucial early warning and tracking data.

Now, the system is set to go global with the involvement of both European and Asian allies, but critics say much of this system will not work in the event of an actual attack.

A Growing Threat?

Proponents of U.S. missile defense believe the threat to the U.S. from the spread of ballistic missiles around the world is imminent and growing, and a Hollywood-style video on the Web site of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency depicts a variety of missile attack scenarios the U.S. might face now or in the future.

North Korea, Iran and potentially other hostile states are developing their missile capabilities. North Korea already has a nuclear weapon, and many believe Iran could acquire one in the not too distant future.

If those states or others also develop missiles that could reach the U.S., missile defense proponents say the U.S. must be able to destroy those hostile missiles before they reach American soil.

Since 2002, the Bush administration has deployed missile interceptors — four at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and 14 more, so far, at Fort Greely in Alaska that are housed in buried silos on several flat fields against the dramatic backdrop of the snow-covered Alaska Mountain Range.

'A Formidable Technical Task'

Missile defense was a quest that began with a speech by President Ronald Reagan 25 years ago.

"What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest on the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to deter a Soviet attack?" Reagan said. "That we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies. I know this is a formidable technical task, one that may not be accomplished before the end of this century. Yet current technology has attained a level of sophistication where it's reasonable for us to begin this effort."

Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, quickly dubbed "Star Wars," got no further than the research laboratory — he was overly optimistic about the scope, pace and sophistication of the technology, and about the political firestorm his proposal would ignite.

But when President George W. Bush took office, he brought with him advisers that were convinced a scaled down version of missile defense must be deployed to confront the threat — not from Russia's huge arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), but from the isolated rogue states of the world, which were developing missiles and which, the reasoning went, could not be deterred from using them against the U.S.

"There could be groups that are either non-state actors or groups within a government, operating potentially outside the government, that wants to use this to strike a blow for their cause," says Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, the director of the Missile Defense Agency. "They would not be deterrable necessarily — they would not even concern themselves with retaliation, because they don't care. These are the kind of things we're trying to think through as we face the future."

Missile Proliferation

Just this summer, Iran very publicly tested several short- and medium-range missiles. North Korea has constructed a second missile test launch site, and just last week it fired an engine component that analysts believe could be used on a North Korean ICBM designed to reach the U.S.

The Missile Defense Agency lists more than 20 nations with missile capabilities now, arguing that the proliferation of this technology makes defenses more necessary than ever.

That was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's message when she traveled to Prague earlier this year to sign an agreement with the Czech Republic, beginning the expansion of the U.S. missile defense system to Europe.

"Ballistic missile proliferation is not an imaginary threat," Rice said. "As we know, the Iranians continue defiance of international obligations to suspend their enrichment and reprocessing, but they also continue apace in their missile development. So we need to be prepared for that threat."

Exaggerated Threats, Fewer Missiles

But not everyone is convinced this threat justifies the billions of dollars spent so far.

"The Iranians like to brag about their missile program, to exaggerate their threat to puff themselves up," says Joseph Cirincione, an expert on missile proliferation and author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons. "U.S. officials are only too happy to take those exaggerations in order to justify the budgets for their anti-missile program. We're engaged in sort of a hype-hype rhetorical battle going on here."

In fact, the Iranians doctored a photo they released this summer that sought to cover up what might have been a failure of one of their missile test flights.

Cirincione argues that the proliferation of ballistic missiles is not as serious a threat as Rice, Obering and others make out.

"When you actually look at it, when you actually count the missiles, there are far fewer missiles in the world now than there were 20 years ago — fewer missile programs in the world now than 20 years ago, fewer hostile states," Cirincione says.

An Insurance Policy

Then there's the attack scenario itself: Would the leaders of North Korea and Iran be so insane as to launch one or two missiles against the U.S. with the certainty that, in the face of overwhelming American retaliation, they would be committing national suicide?

Richard Garwin, who has been a key adviser to many administrations over the years on issues involving nuclear weapons, doesn't think so. Garwin testified before a congressional panel earlier this year that the threat of attack with nuclear weapons is real, but not delivered by intercontinental ballistic missiles.

"A state wishing to deliver nuclear weapons to injure the United States homeland would far more likely use short range missiles or cruise missiles launched from a ship to attack U.S. coastal cities with nuclear weapons than use an ICBM for that purpose," Garwin says.

The Bush administration has been working hard to develop sea-based missile defenses, and the latest successful anti-missile flight test at sea involved the USS Lake Erie off Hawaii several months ago.

The deployment of U.S. missile defenses continues, as does the debate over its cost and capabilities. Obering views the missile defense system as an insurance policy.

"If we can prevent one attack — whether it be from another country, from a non-state actor, terrorist organization using these types of weapons — one attack on an American city — we would more than pay for this program many, many times over," Obering said. "And of course the prevention of the loss of life.

 

[nitesh]

Critics Question Ability Of Missile Defense System : NPR

Critics Question Ability Of Missile Defense System

Morning Edition, September 23, 2008 · The centerpiece of the American missile defense system deployed by the Bush administration is the ground-based interceptor.

These missiles are now in silos at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and at Fort Greely in Alaska. They have cost billions of dollars and are designed to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads, launched possibly from North Korea or Iran.

But this is a highly controversial weapon system, and there is no certainty for all the money spent that these missiles will actually work.

Fort Greely is about 100 miles south of Fairbanks, Alaska, and not far from the magnificent peaks of the Alaska Range. The base was little more than an airstrip during World War II. During the Cold War, the U.S. military trained here for winter operations against the Soviet Union.

It almost closed in the 1990s, but when President Bush took office eight years ago, Fort Greely was in for a resurrection of sorts. Because of its position on the globe and the geometry of missile flights, Fort Greely was perfectly situated to house the ground-based interceptor — the key component of the U.S. missile defense system.

Growing The Missile Fields

There are several missile fields in Fort Greely that are either completed or under construction.

"Off to the far left, you see missile field three, where we have 20 silos," says Col. George Bond, the lead officer from the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency. "By the time we complete the missile field in 2010, there will be 40 silos."

The missiles are housed below ground in silos, covered over by steel clamshell-shaped hatches. The missile chamber is accessible by ladder.

The silos are temperature- and humidity-controlled to keep the missiles fueled and ready for launch.

"You'll see these yellow cables are the umbilical cords that provide the data from our command launch equipment to give the missile its weapons task plan — basically the information it needs to launch and get on an interception path with the incoming warhead," Bond says.

There are three stages in the trajectory of a missile: the launch and initial ascent, called the boost phase; the mid-course, when the warhead is flying through space; and the terminal phase, when it re-enters the atmosphere and is heading toward the target.

The missiles at Fort Greely are mid-course interceptors, and Bond explains that they use an exoatmospheric kill vehicle, or EKV, to destroy the hostile warhead.

"It's 140 pounds. It contains absolutely no explosives, and it destroys an incoming warhead simply by kinetic energy," Bond says. "It's traveling at speeds [of] approximately 15,000 [miles] an hour, so at 140 pounds at those kind of speeds, it creates tremendous kinetic energy when it strikes the rocket."

'A Theology, Not A Technology'

These interceptors are on alert and ready for battle around-the-clock, every day. Control is in the hands of the 49th Missile Defense Battalion, a unit of the Alaska National Guard. Rotating squads of six soldiers operate the fire center full-time, and every day the squads go through training exercises designed to simulate an actual missile attack.

The Bush administration made the decision to deploy the missile defense system in a highly unorthodox way. Digging got under way on the silos, and the missiles were eventually placed in them before they went through a full set of flight tests to prove their capabilities.

That has given rise to sharp criticism. Earlier this year, Philip Coyle, who used to oversee weapons testing at the Pentagon and is now a specialist with the Center for Defense Information, testified on the current state of the missile defense system before a congressional panel.

"National missile defense has become a theology in the United States, not a technology," Coyle said. "As a result, U.S. missile defenses are being deployed without well-established operational criteria."

At the same hearing, Richard Garwin was even more scathing. Garwin has been a longtime adviser to the government on nuclear weapons, and was a member of the National Commission on Ballistic Missile Proliferation headed by Donald Rumsfeld in 1998.

Garwin told Congress that guarding the U.S. against nuclear attack will be a failure as long as the Pentagon attempts to carry it out using mid-course interceptors.

"Should a state be so misguided as to attempt to deliver nuclear weapons by ICBM, they could be guaranteed against intercept in mid-course by the use of appropriate countermeasures," Garwin said.

Debate Over Missile Systems And Efficacy

The issue of countermeasures is at the heart of the debate over missile defense — any missile that could deploy a nuclear warhead into space could also deploy countermeasures designed to fool an interceptor missile.

These countermeasures could be chaff creating a cloud around the warhead, or miniature jammers that would interfere with signals or balloons that look just like the warhead.

In space, the decoy and the real warhead travel at the same speed. Sensors in space, on the ground and on the kill vehicle itself have great difficulty determining which is the real threat.

But Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, director of the Missile Defense Agency, says the system has been tested using decoys.

"It has undergone six of nine successful intercept tests since 2000, and of course four of those have been against countermeasures," Obering says. "The testing that we've done is realistic from an operational perspective."

But the Missile Defense Agency will not provide more precise data on which countermeasures have actually been used in tests, leading critics like Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, to be highly skeptical about Obering's claims.

"General Obering is misleading the Congress and the American public and the troops as to the capability of our systems," Cirincione says. "If we were to have a realistic test this year, next year, it would fail. It would fail catastrophically. And they know that, which is why they don't test that way."

Countering The Countermeasures

To confront the countermeasures problem, the Pentagon has invested heavily in new sensors and high-tech radar, like the sea-based X-band radar (SBX), a floating oil drilling platform with an enormous white bulb on its deck that houses one of the largest and most advanced radar platforms in the world.

Based in Alaska, it was recently in Hawaii for maintenance and tests. Its job is to track hostile missiles and provide data to the interceptors launched against them, says Jim Tinkham, the Missile Defense Agency specialist assigned to the SBX radar.

"Not only are we providing precision tracking, but we're starting to discriminate," Tinkham says. "We're starting to tell that's a piece of junk, this is a piece of junk, this is the target. This is what you're looking at. This is the bad guy."

The team that operates the SBX won't talk in detail about how well it can discriminate the junk from the real danger, but Ken Dube of Raytheon, the company that helped build the SBX radar, says the system is improving.

"We share the same concern," Dube says. "And to date in each of these sequential tests that we've conducted here with this national resource, we've met all the requirements of every test that we've accomplished to date."

Obering says the critics are wrong, but he does concede that dealing with countermeasures is an ongoing problem.

"There's a misconception that we cannot handle countermeasures," Obering says. "We cannot handle very complex countermeasures. I won't go into what that means, but there are things that an enemy can do to really try to confuse the system. Have we done everything we need to do? No. Have we done what we need to do based on the pace of our fielding and our deployment? The answer is yes."

 

[nitesh]

Submarines: The Heat Is On

Submarine: The Heat Is On

September 25, 2008: The U.S. is getting some valuable practice hunting submarines by searching for the increasingly numerous drug smuggling semi-submersible boats carrying cocaine from South America. U.S. anti-submarine aircraft are honing their skills at spotting very small objects at sea by spotting heat.

Between 2000 and 2007, 23 of these drug boats were spotted. But so far this year, over 60 have been seen or captured. The two most recent captures were the result of intelligence information at the source, not air and naval patrols out there just looking for them. These boats are hard to spot (by aircraft or ships), which is why they are being used more often. It's very difficult to pick the boats up with airborne radar, but heat sensors are another matter. The boats engines, and the crew, give off heat, and there are airborne sensors that can detect that. The U.S. Navy will not reveal the range and sensitivity of the infrared (heat) sensors used on its P-3C maritime patrol aircraft, but apparently it's possible to detect these boats from their heat. the P-3C has a cruise speed of 610 kilometers per hour, endurance of up to 13 hours. Flying a few thousand meters up, and with a heat sensor with a range of 5-10 kilometers or so, a P-3C can cover a lot of ocean. But the drug boats come up from Colombia, often 500 kilometers off the Central American coast. That's a whole lot of ocean.

These are not submarines in the true sense of the word, but "semi-submersibles". They are 30-60 foot fiberglass boats, powered by a diesel engine, with a very low freeboard, and a small "conning tower", providing the crew (of 4-5), and engine, with fresh air, and permitting the crew to navigate the boat. A boat of this type is the only practical kind of submarine for drug smuggling. A real submarine, capable of carrying five tons of cocaine, would cost a lot more, and require a highly trained crew.

The semi-submersibles are built, often using specially made components brought in from foreign countries, in areas along the Colombian coast, or other drug gang controlled territory. Russian naval architects and engineers have been discovered among those designing and building these boats. Based on interrogations of captured gang members, these subs cost over $600,000 to construct, and carry up to ten tons of cocaine.

At one point it was thought that as many as half of them were captured or lost at sea. But this is apparently not the case. That's because most of these subs are built for a one way trip. This keeps down the cost of construction, and the cost of hiring a crew (who fly home). That one voyage will usually be for about a thousand kilometers, with the boat moving at a speed of 15-25 kilometers an hour. So the average trip will take a few days. But going to Mexico takes about a week, with additional fuel and crew supplies reducing the amount of cocaine carried.

These subs are not stealthy enough to avoid detection all the time, and the U.S. is working to tweak search radars, and other types of sensors, to more reliably detect the drug subs. The U.S. Navy is also going to try using Predators, equipped with a maritime search radar. The heat given off by these boats is comparable to what a diesel-electric sub puts out when semi-submerged (with just its schnorkel, on top of the conning tower, above water to provide air for the crew and the diesel engine). There is technology that can decrease that "heat signature" and the drug gangs may be able to get help from their Russian technical advisors on that subject as well. And then the U.S. P-3C crews get a chance to defeat the improvement. In any event, the U.S. is gaining valuable experience searching to small objects at sea.

 

[nitesh]

Israeli officials: US sends radar to Israel - Yahoo! News

Advanced
AP
Israeli officials: US sends radar to Israel

By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer Sun Sep 28, 5:18 AM ET

JERUSALEM - Israeli officials say the U.S. has provided Israel with an advanced radar system that will give early warning in case of an Iranian missile attack.


The officials say the new radar was flown into Israel last week along with some 120 American crewmen and has been set up at the Nevatim air base in the Negev desert.

The system can pick up a ballistic missile shortly after launch. That will cut the response time of Israel's Arrow system, designed to intercept incoming missiles.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the radar's arrival has not been officially made public. It was first reported in Defense News.

The Israeli military said Sunday it has "various forms" of cooperation with the U.S. military but that "as a rule we do not detail the content" of the ties.

 

[nitesh]

NASA - NASA Mars Lander Sees Falling Snow, Soil Data Suggest Liquid Past
NASA Mars Lander Sees Falling Snow, Soil Data Suggest Liquid Past
This sequence of nine images taken by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander shows the sun rising on the morning of the lander's 101st Martian day after landing. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University
Full image and caption
Latest images and 3D images
Animations and videos PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has detected snow falling from Martian clouds. Spacecraft soil experiments also have provided evidence of past interaction between minerals and liquid water, processes that occur on Earth.

A laser instrument designed to gather knowledge of how the atmosphere and surface interact on Mars has detected snow from clouds about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) above the spacecraft's landing site. Data show the snow vaporizing before reaching the ground.

"Nothing like this view has ever been seen on Mars," said Jim Whiteway, of York University, Toronto, lead scientist for the Canadian-supplied Meteorological Station on Phoenix. "We'll be looking for signs that the snow may even reach the ground."

Phoenix experiments also yielded clues pointing to calcium carbonate, the main composition of chalk, and particles that could be clay. Most carbonates and clays on Earth form only in the presence of liquid water.

"We are still collecting data and have lots of analysis ahead, but we are making good progress on the big questions we set out for ourselves," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson.

Since landing on May 25, Phoenix already has confirmed that a hard subsurface layer at its far-northern site contains water-ice. Determining whether that ice ever thaws would help answer whether the environment there has been favorable for life, a key aim of the mission.

The evidence for calcium carbonate in soil samples from trenches dug by the Phoenix robotic arm comes from two laboratory instruments called the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer, or TEGA, and the wet chemistry laboratory of the Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer, or MECA.

"We have found carbonate," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the TEGA. "This points toward episodes of interaction with water in the past."

The TEGA evidence for calcium carbonate came from a high-temperature release of carbon dioxide from soil samples. The temperature of the release matches a temperature known to decompose calcium carbonate and release carbon dioxide gas, which was identified by the instrument's mass spectrometer.

The MECA evidence came from a buffering effect characteristic of calcium carbonate assessed in wet chemistry analysis of the soil. The measured concentration of calcium was exactly what would be expected for a solution buffered by calcium carbonate.

Both TEGA, and the microscopy part of MECA, have turned up hints of a clay-like substance. "We are seeing smooth-surfaced, platy particles with the atomic-force microscope, not inconsistent with the appearance of clay particles," said Michael Hecht, MECA lead scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

The Phoenix mission, originally planned for three months on Mars, now is in its fifth month. However, it faces a decline in solar energy that is expected to curtail and then end the lander's activities before the end of the year. Before power ceases, the Phoenix team will attempt to activate a microphone on the lander to possibly capture sounds on Mars.

"For nearly three months after landing, the sun never went below the horizon at our landing site," said Barry Goldstein, JPL Phoenix project manager. "Now it is gone for more than four hours each night, and the output from our solar panels is dropping each week. Before the end of October, there won't be enough energy to keep using the robotic arm."

The Phoenix mission is led by Smith at the University of Arizona. Project management is the responsibility of JPL with development partnership by Lockheed Martin in Denver. International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

 

[nitesh]

DARPA submersible aircraft is part plane, part submarine - SlashGear

New concepts and science breakthroughs are always interesting to read up on. That’s why when I saw what DARPA was up to yesterday, I just had to write about it for you all. DARPA is working to develop a submersible aircraft. Yup, you read that right.
This project is currently in research stages. It involves combining the qualities of an aircraft with a submersible vehicle. Now, make no mistake: this is not a submarine that can fly. In fact, DARPA is stating this is a flying device first, but once in water, it could work like a submarine.

In theory, when the aircraft is in the air, it could dive into the water and then operate like a standard submersible. However, I don’t think it could take a long jaunt under water, just in brief spurts of time. The biggest challenge thus far is combining the traits of both kinds of vehicles to operate properly. For instance, it would need to be light enough to fly, but heavy enough to be submerged.