Jefferson Lab’s
Free-Electron Laser is the world’s highest-power tunable infrared laser and was developed using the lab’s expertise in superconducting radiofrequency (SRF) accelerators. The FEL also provides ultraviolet laser light, including vacuum ultraviolet light, and is also a source of Terahertz light.
The FEL uses electrons to produce laser light. The electrons are energized using the lab’s superconducting accelerator technology and then steered into a wiggler.
The wiggler is a device that uses magnetic fields to shake the electrons, forcing them to release some of their energy as photons (light). As in a conventional laser, the photons are bounced between two mirrors and emitted as a coherent beam of light. The light can be tuned to precise colors or wavelengths because the electrons are freed of atoms, thus the name free-electron laser.
Jefferson Lab’s FEL has significant advantages compared to conventional lasers, making it possible, for instance, to produce intensely powerful light in brief bursts with extreme precision. The lack of a conventional lasing medium also allows the Free-Electron Laser to operate at very high power levels without overheating.
The uniqueness of Jefferson Lab’s Free-Electron Laser also stems from what it does with the electrons. It generates the electrons’ energy and then recovers it using a superconducting energy-recovering linac, or ERL. Jefferson Lab’s FEL is the first of a new generation of accelerator-based light sources in which each electron circulates only once rather than being stored as it would be in a typical synchrotron light source.
Currently, Jefferson Lab is using the term Low Energy Recirculator Facility, or LERF, to refer to this facility, as future missions with potentially broader scope are under development. Therefore, a LERF webpage has been set up. Those seeking current information should see the
LERF webpage. The Free-Electron Laser webpages are not being updated, but they are being maintained for archival and reference purposes.
BioDesign Synthetic Organisms
Syfy
Evolution Done Gone Wrong
This will turn out well
It's been a long time since a Pentagon project from the DARPA labs truly evoked a "WTF DARPA?!" response, but our collective jaw dropped when we saw the details on a project known as BioDesign. DARPA hopes to dispense with evolutionary randomness and assemble biological creatures, genetically programmed to live indefinitely and presumably do whatever their human masters want. And, Wired's Danger Room reports, when there's the inevitable problem of said creatures going haywire or realizing that they're intelligent and have feelings, there's a planned self-destruct genetic code that could be triggered.
Unsurprisingly, molecular biologists have weighed in with huge caveats and raised fingers of objection. First, they say that DARPA has the wrong idea about hoping to overcome evolution's supposed randomness, and that evolution really represents a super-efficient design algorithm. Then there's the problem of guaranteeing immortal life for any biological creature in the first place -- just look here and here at some really smart people who have yet to find that fountain of youth.
DARPA has committed just a piddling $6 million out of next year's budget toward BioDesign. But it will also put $20 million toward a new synthetic biology program and give $7.5 million for speeding up the analysis and editing of cellular genomes. We're pretty sure that means the Pentagon agency hasn't considered a future where police "blade runners" help violently "retire" escaped lab replicants of humans.
"It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?" said Edward Olmos to Harrison Ford in Blade Runner, long before the actor morphed into the gruff but lovable admiral of Battlestar Galactica. Never mind even the experts, let's trust Olmos. He's helped hunt down replicants and save humanity from genocidal Cylon robots of our own making. Are you listening, DARPA?
Chinese Kill Weapon - DF21
The Dong-Feng 21 (DF-21; NATO reporting name CSS-5 - Dong-Feng (Chinese: 东风; literally: "East Wind")) is a two-stage,solid-fuel rocket, single-warhead medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) in the Dong Feng series developed by China Changfeng Mechanics and Electronics Technology Academy. Development started in the late 1960s and was completed around 1985-86, but it was not deployed until 1991. It was developed from the submarine-launched JL-1 missile, and is China's first solid-fuel land-based missile. The U.S. Department of Defense in 2008 estimated that China had 60-80 missiles and 60 launchers.
Originally developed as a strategic weapon, the DF-21's later variants were designed for both nuclear and conventional missions. As well as a nuclear warhead of around 300 kt, it is thought that high explosive and submunition warheads are available. The latest DF-21D was said to be the world's first anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM). The DF-21 has also been developed into a space-capable anti-satellite weapon/anti-missile weapon carrier.
Though the launcher itself is road mobile, an actual launch requires support vehicles and a specially prepared launch platform to prevent backblast damage due to the hard launch.
DF-21/CSS-5 Mod 1
DF-21 and transporter erector launcher vehicle at the Beijing Military Museum.
Type MRBM/IRBM
Place of origin China
Service history
In service 1991
Used by People's Liberation Army Rocket Force,
Saudi Arabia
Specifications
Weight 14,700 kilograms (32,400 lb)
Length 10.7 metres (35 ft)
Diameter 1.4 metres (4.6 ft)
Warhead 1, or 5-6 (improved variant)[1] 200-300-500 kt[2]
Engine Solid fueled
Operational
range
1,770 km (1,100 mi) (DF-21/DF-21A)[3]
1,700 km (1,100 mi) (DF-21C)
1,500 km (930 mi; 810 nmi) (DF-21DASBM)[4]
Speed Mach 10[5]
Guidance
system
Inertial + terminal active radarguidance[6]
Launch
platform
Mobile launcher
DREAD Silent Weapon System
Imagine a gun with no recoil, no sound, no heat, no gunpowder, no visible firing signature (muzzle flash), and no stoppages or jams of any kind. Now imagine that this gun could fire .308 caliber and .50 caliber metal projectiles accurately at up to 8,000 fps (feet-per-second), featured an infinitely variable/programmable cyclic rate-of-fire (as high as 120,000 rounds-per-minute), and were capable of laying down a 360-degree field of fire. What if you could mount this weapon on any military Humvee (HMMWV), any helicopter/gunship, any armored personnel carrier (APC), and any other vehicle for which the technology were applicable?
That would really be something, wouldn't it? Some of you might be wondering, "how big would it be," or "how much would it weigh"? Others might want to know what it's ammunition capacity would be. These are all good questions, assuming of course that a weapon like this were actually possible.
According to its inventor, not only is it possible, it's already happened. An updated version of the weapon will be available soon. It will arrive in the form of a tactically-configured pre-production anti-personnel weapon firing .308 caliber projectiles (accurately) at 2,500-3000 fps, at a variable/programmable cyclic rate of 5,000-120,000 rpm (rounds-per-minute). The weapon's designer/inventor has informed DefRev that future versions of the weapon will be capable of achieving projectile velocities in the 5,000-8,000 fps range with no difficulty. The technology already exists.
The weapon itself is called the DREAD, or Multiple Projectile Delivery System (MPDS), and it may just be the most revolutionary infantry weapon system concept that DefenseReview has EVER come across.
DREAD: The Skinny
Name:
DREAD Weapon System
Type of Equipment:
Multiple Projectile Delivery System
Killer Features:
Fires .308 caliber and .50 caliber metal projectiles accurately at up to 8,000 fps (feet-per-second)
Features an infinitely variable/programmable cyclic rate-of-fire (as high as 120,000 rounds-per-minute)
Electrically powered and virtually silent
Capable of laying down a 360-degree field of fire
Mountable on any military vehicles, includes humvees and helicopters
Weighs only 28 pounds
Magazine capacities of at least 50,000 rounds of .308 Cal., or 10,000 rounds of .50 Cal. ammo
The Railgun
Imagine a Naval gun so powerful it can shoot a 5-inch projectile up to 220 miles, yet requires no explosives to fire.
That's the Navy's futuristic electromagnetic railgun, a project that could be deployed on the service's ships by 2025, and which is now a little bit closer to reality with the signing of a deal with Raytheon for the development of what's known as the pulse-forming network.
Rather than using explosives to fire projectiles as do conventional naval weapons, the railgundepends on an electromagnetic system that uses the ship's onboard electrical power grid to fire the gun. The pulse-forming network is a system that stores up electrical power and then converts it to a pulse that is directed into the gun's barrel, explained John Cochran, the railgun program manager in Raytheon's Advanced Technology Group.
Essentially, Cochran continued, the process is akin to that of a car's starter, and how turning the ignition sends a jolt of electricity into the solonoid, which then creates a magnetic field in the solonoid/starter system. With the railgun, he said, current is sent into the barrel, forming a magnetic field, and that, in combination with the current, exerts force on a projectile, firing it out of the barrel. At Mach 0.75.
While Raytheon has scored the $10 million project to develop the pulse-forming network, it isn't the only contractor working on such a system. According to Roger Ellis, the program manager for the Railgun program at the Office of Naval Research, the Navy has awarded similar contracts to BAE Systems and General Atomics in a risk-reduction strategy that counts on having multiple contractors attacking a problem in order to arrive at the best possible technology.
Safety
One of the main reasons behind the Navy's railgun program is that being able to power the gun electromagnetically is seen as much safer than having to use conventional explosives.
This is an image of the record-breaking 33 megajoule test of the railgun by the U.S. Navy.Office of Naval Research
At the same time, because the power for the railgun will come from ships' standard battery banks, the Navy shouldn't have to maintain large amounts of space on board for storage of the explosives traditionally used to fire big guns. Still, that's an issue that hasn't entirely been solved yet, Cochran said. "The main challenge is to get large amounts of energy being stored into smaller and smaller packages," Cochran said, "such that they can be used in a modular and versatile way for multiple platforms."
At the same time, Raytheon and its competitors have to convince the Navy that they've solved all the potential safety problems that can come from having high voltage and high current in close proximity.
Multimission capability
The Navy began pursuing the railgun in 2005, and for now, there are only lab prototypes of the weapon. But already the Navy has set a world record (see video below) for muzzle energy used in a weapon--33 megajoules. According to Defense Market, a shot of that magnitude could potentially reach "extended ranges with Mach 5 velocity."
However, Ellis said, the Navy has awarded contracts to BAE and General Atomics to build prototypes that "are more tactical in nature."
And when the railgun is finally deployed, it is likely to be used--or at least be ready for action--in several different kinds of missions. First, Ellis explained, it could be used from a ship to fire inland in support of marines as they come ashore.
At the same time, because the weapon's range is so long, it could allow a Naval ship that features the railgun to defend itself from sea-borne threats long before it can itself be attacked, or from missiles fired from land or sea.
Now it's on to the next phase of the project. According to Ellis, that phase includes demonstrating that it's possible to fire a railgun at a rate of 10 rounds per minute, as well as doing new kinds of thermal and cooling tests. Ellis also said that while the Office of Naval Research has said that the railgun could be ready by 2025, that timing is when the work on the science and technology side of things could be done. Actual deployment could take longer owing to financial and political considerations.
Source:
orbitalatk.com
Business Insider
Jlab
Wikipedia
popsci
rense.com
Free electron
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