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This technology has been in development for quite some time. I remember reading about this more than 15 years ago in Popular Mechanics. This 747 is tasked with shooting down ballistic missiles during their boost phase, where they are most vulnerable.
Airborne Laser Aircraft Slated to Provide Missile Defense – DefenseLink.mil: A typical-looking 747 — distinguishable from other 747s only by its glass, bulb-shaped nose — could one day be the silver bullet that shoots ballistic missiles out of the sky.
The Airborne Laser is being developed as an integral part of the ballistic missile defense system to protect the United States, its allies and its deployed troops against a ballistic missile attack, he explained. An advanced detection-and-tracking system, state-of-the-art optics and a high-energy laser would detect a missile launch and track it during the boost phase.
The world’s largest turret assembly, encased in the glass-enclosed aircraft nose, would track the missile and determine a precise aim point. A laser would measure disturbances in the atmosphere and adjust the on-board optics to account for them. Another laser would fire a beam – technically, a “megawatt-class chemical oxygen iodine laser beam” – to zap the missile until it breaks apart.
What is missing from the article is the important part. The whole system can carry about 4 bullets. Soooo… your strategic military opponent just needs to fire one more missile than you have planes in the air and they win the engagement.
Oh yeah, and Chicago disappears in a flash of light.
That plane seems to be saying – “bow to your new overlord”. (transforms)
Did anyone assess the exact likelihood of a ballistic missile attack? It seems to me that until we get an exact reading on this, including the exact time, nature, and severity of the attack, we should not be spending money to combat Nuclear War™.
Sorry, that was somewhat of a joke. It was obviously the global warming skeptic argument applied outside of global warming to make a point. Now back to our regularly scheduled discussion of “lasers”.
Is Dr. Evil the pilot of this thing?
Hey, SmartAlix- now *that’s* what I call ‘solid state lighting’!
#3 – Nice one, but this is a different problem domain. All weapons systems are good things to develop. You never know when you might need one of them and I didn’t notice our economy being tanked to develop it.
I don’t know who the pilot is but Val Kilmer was one of the developers: http://tinyurl.com/2oly2 (very entertaining).
#1 Oh yeah, and Chicago disappears in a flash of light.
Comment by GregA — 6/22/2007 @ 9:07 am
NOOOOOO!!!! NOT CHICAGO!!! Pick another city… Topeka, Chatenooga, Boise… JUST NOT CHICAGO!!!!
I don’t find this cool at all. This is just the military industrial complex finally going insane with greed. Missile defense doesn’t work (#1 gives a great example). Furthermore, we don’t need missile defense as long as we’re not planning on dominating the world with military power…oh, wait…
#5,
My thought exactly! If you don’t yet have a gun, rush out and get one. You never know when you might be in some cold dark city somewhere… and need some money!
Pork barrel project.
Hope the missile aimed at Chicago happens to be fired on a cloudless day while one of these gems is within line of sight during the minute or less it could be tracked and attacked. Or is this another hunk of pricey technology that can be defeated by a minor bit of intelligent thought? This sort of device wouldn’t encourage placement of strategic missiles in orbit, would it?
#8 Wouldn’t it be better to spend money on defense rather than offense? If everyone built a shit-load of these jets, maybe they’d deter missile launches.
Worth a shot (ha, get it).
Actually will be used by Dick Cheney to clear airspace on his way to the next undisclosed location.
I’m thinking this won’t be too effective against Hasib, who comes in across, say, the Rio Grande, with a nuke in a suitcase.
#12 – Rick,
More likely it’ll be used by Dick Cheney for duck (and friend) hunting.
If you believe that this will be used only to shoot down missiles you need a reality check.
Just think of the destructive possibilities.
Hey, I think I remember this movie from the 80’s.
Real Genius!!!!
Val Kilmer’s first big movie I believe…..
Good to see my hard earned tax dollars following the lead of hollywood.
#9
You never know when you might be in some cold dark city somewhere… and SOMEONE ELSE needs some money!
#1, GregA, The whole system can carry about 4 bullets.
All I could find was the article below describing the COIL which uses chemical fuel to power the laser. Current plans call for sufficient laser fuel for about 20 laser shots before needing to refuel, maybe 40 shots if the missiles aren’t hardened.
More info here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_laser
The cool part is the adaptive optical system which can pinpoint the target at maybe 600km, based on the same adaptive optics in use in major observatories around the world (and of which I’m totally jealous). With some luck I’ll get some solar time this year as a guest!
Some info about new adaptive optics and great Sun pix here:
http://nsosp.nso.edu/ao/
Much more than 15 years ago. Toward the end of the Vietnam war I was the project electrical engineer on a turret that among other suspicious specifications had no provisions for lead compensation. At the time they were in a rush, I had a motor generator removed from a nuclear sub in order to meet the schedule. Many years later Aviation Week had a picture of the plane with our turret and a story about it having shot down a drone.
The laser has been test fired in flight, though it wasn’t being aimed at anything
Anyone disturbed by that statement? Oops, sorry about your Naggravator.
I hope they actually meant ‘was being aimed at nothing’, which has a subtly different meaning.
Sorry, the quote in my prior comment came from the wikipedia page posted by BubbaRay in #19, in case anyone was wondering.
#21 – Naw, it’s codespeak. We’re going to find out that Real Genius was actually a documentary. 😉 (Go watch it if you haven’t seen it.)
#11 –
All this kind of thing does is create arms races. When we were testing the anti-missile missiles (which have never worked in real-world scenarios), China came out and said they’d already built ICBM warheads that could defeat it. Now Russia is saying it will be forced to point it’s missiles at countries right next door that we’re putting those “missile shields” (which don’t work) into. I’m sure it won’t be long before some nation comes out and says something in response to these lasers that just makes the world more dangerous since everyone’s armed to the teeth for no reason.
A better policy would be to live up to our obligations under the non-proliferation treaty and dismantle our nuclear arsenal. Didn’t anybody see War Games from the ’80s? Or The Day After? Nobody wins a nuclear war. Best to simply avoid it. These non-functional missile defenses only piss people off due to their perceived imbalance of power.
So not only is this sort of thing a scam on the tax payers since they don’t actually work in real-world scenarios, it actually increases the number and severity of the threats from other countries. Talk about a loose-loose situation!
I read up on this at least three years ago, it was also in Popular Mechanics back then.
It’s a prototype that if successful, better at bouncing killer lasers off low-orbit satellites, will deploy many such planes.
All I can add is, remember how big cell phones where? Just a matter of time when the scientists find a way to bottle energy in a small compartment.
It’s real big now because it’s a chemical laser. Also it was designed for recharging, the tail lifts off, for another amazing 4 shots.
As usual, the counter to this flying laser will be super cheap.
4.99$ reflective Silver Spray Paint cans painted on the body of the rocket
WOW,
a Slow moving vehicle carrying a devistating weapon, that can hit only 4 missles…
Fire a few anti aircraft missles at it, and I want to see it Stop the ICBM’s, while it dodges Other missles, or even other aircraft Shooting at it.
Who has the Documant on the RANGE of this thing…
The laser may be able to shoot the moon, by I believe is radar controled, WHICH might get you a good 1000 miles.
#27, ECA, please see post #20. And with fighter escort (planned right now) the YAL-1A could be a serious weapon.
#5, #7, #17, #24
Funny movie. 🙂
#16 – If you believe that this will be used only to shoot down missiles you need a reality check.
My thought as well…
#25 – China came out and said they’d already built ICBM warheads that could defeat it.
Didn’t you mean Russia?
“Them birds fer sure are gittin’ sneakier” Said the NRA representative on why these weapons should be available to civilians.
I simultaneously believe that BMD is a crock (lotsa missiles = cheap, lotsa anti-missiles = expensive) and that giant flying lasers are cool.
If I could reconcile these things, I would.
28
still reminds me of the Spy plane the Russians shot down…
SLOW moving craft, and Air-air or Ground to air Missle, WHICH are smaller, could take this thing down…
And 600km?? about 400 miles? And thats the range???
You might as well use a Vulcan cannon to shoot it down. Or redesign a heat tracking Cruise missle.