Wow.... old news....thanks Gizmo....

CountryDevil

@Kanti: I find your lack of faith disturbing!

Razta

Don't get me started on the Osprey.

Settles with power... Juuuuust a little.

DustyButt

What, a military contractor that falsely inflates reliability data and usage expectations? I can't possibly... *caugh* *Patriot missile* *Osprey* *caugh* ...believe that.

Vagabum

So this is what happened to Reagan's Star Wars programme. Ahh.

h

This silly thing has been in development for at least 10 years. I love the result, but seriously, what now?

whiteknight

@schrosa: I vote for individual vaporization!

Combine this with the microwave emitter that gives people a burning sensation on their skin... With a knob that goes to 11!

I SMELL BACON!

DustyButt

Wow, could it be true? A missile defense system that actually works? I'll believe it when I see it or rather when the bad guys see it, even with the recent success of other missile defense alternatives. That being said, there is a reason people should be skeptical. Missile defense has been around since the 80's, and if it worked so damn great they surely wouldn't be coming up with new ways to blow up missiles.

Take the Patriot Defense system for example, which cost millions of dollars and yet a spotty record.

bbfreak

Wait, the other guys are the evil doers? I'm confused, isn't it the US invading other countries, stealing resources, propping up dictators, and putting laser death rays on the nose of their jets?

I know it's lasers and all, and laser are, to put it in the nerd vernacular, 'shweet', but it's just hard to look at this thing with out hearing the Imperial March, and some menacing breathing.

Kanti

That plane is just a test platform to prove that it works and that was done a long time ago.
You can probably guess were the finished weapon is now. Especially since they even took the time to explain how they overcame the distorting effects of the atmospere on lasers.

nospamsam

another project funded by our taxes, that will not protect America from grassroots and guerrilla war. Im sure if you shoot that thing to a corn silo you will get popcorn, just add butter and salt, tons of salt.

dysthymia

@blommer:
HaHaHa "Vaporware."

ANoel

oh, and how long to nuke a hot pocket?

wtd966

yes, but will it blend?

wtd966

@tek_nic:
The bulkhead is just for air pressurization. The parts in the back of the plane aren't pressurized, because no humans would need go back there during flight (or maybe for technical reasons with chemicals or something).

ejdmoo

We just have to hope that the enemy missiles have source programmable guidance so that when the beam misses, Dan Akroyd can save the day and shag Vanessa Angel.

yokozuna

Near as I can tell, this whole idea was just dreamed up so that Boeing could get a chunk of that savory Star Wars pork. The whole idea is ridiculous.

weatherman

Not sure why this "news" is making the rounds right now.... this technology is ancient... seriously this stuff's been around for years. This plane in particular has been flying since 2002 and an earlier concept plane that successfully shot down several missiles came out in the 80s.

-Scott

Netscott

If there is a surprise attack, I hope we have one of these in the AIR.

or, we can just use it to vaporize individual people.

@blommer: Ha! vaporware. I get it now.

schrosa

Looking at the cut-away view of the plane, I am a bit curious. The seperation bulkhead looks scary.

So if shit hits the fan, the plane seperates? And then the fore section just lawn darts its way home?

tek_nic

Obviously it's all true, and not just bullshit!

cbdsteve

Wow! 8 to 12 seconds! I'm impressed if that actually works the way he says. I wouldn't mind seeing that in action.
Question: What happens when someone shoots a missile at close range at the plane? Nuclear type explosion? Or does it not matter at that altitude?

bjmorch

I wonder how much time they spent watching Real Genius and frying houses of popcorn before getting it right.

bageler

But will it work when our sattelite system has been destroyed?

virtualmatt

Vaporware.

blommer

"It can hunt down and kill lasers from amazing distances"

A laser that can hunt down and kill other lasers is definately amazing! =)

Snarkiness asside. How fast can it rip and decrypt BD+?

Mako

@warf0x0r:
An exploding missile will not detonate a nuclear warhead.
A nuclear warhead is made of two parts: a shaped charge that will colapse to start the fusion and/or be the primer fuse to start the fusion/fision reaction of the core.

An exploding missile (propellant fuel mostly) will never be able to trigger the initial reaction.
Starting the fusion/fision reaction is quite complicated. (See SCIAM this months issue - new nukes).

This system on the 747 works, but the only drawback is that it's a chemical laser system loading part A +B of 55 Gal drums of lethal chemicals. An it can only carry about 5 ~ 10 shots per plane and needs to land and reload.

It is not a Star Trek phaser with unlimited firing as long as you have dilithum crystals....

aec007

@theotherstevejobs: ....and they will mirror the lasers back to vaporize those who still use the term "asshat".

johnnyabnormal

Ok, so it's CLOSE to being cancelled...

[blog.wired.com]

bandit

I thought this project got cancelled?

bandit

The USA will spend 100 million dollars on this and then other countries will spend 100 dollars on implementing a mirror covered missiles.

johnnyabnormal

@qB: holy shit... why didn't THEY think of that? Zillions of dollars pissed away because we didn't think they they might wrap their missle heads in aluminum!?!?
Would you like a job in the laser department here? You've obviously got the brains we've been missing...
asshat.

theotherstevejobs

some of us do not work for Boeing and can tell you that it works...
well, actually, we can't, because we'd have to put out a request for proposal for contractors to kill you, which would have to go through at least 3 different bidders, and then we'd have to do a selection team startup, build a place to put the selection team and all the selection team information, the team would then provide direction to the Program manager on which contractor to select then the contract would be awarded to have someone kill you.

Your head would be the deliverable from the contractor, and there would be an audit to make sure it was the right head.
...
and really, who wants to go thru all that paperwork? Not me.

But ABL does work. And its not meant to take care of the Soviet Union.. its meant to netuer guys with onesies and twosies... like, say... oh.. i'll make up some names... Korea North? RanI? Kaptisan? Indiana? Guys who are highly unsatable and likely to explode...just like you, Kent.

theotherstevejobs

Question: Is that explostion guaranteed to take out the (most likely nuclear) warhead so that just the warhead doesn't plummet to earth and explode/detonate? Also what about radio-active particles spewing out of the debris, is that a problem?

warf0x0r

@superbad: Please realize, once this gets commercialized, it will be on more than one (if not MANY) airplanes. Foreign militaries will not waste their time sending out planes to shoot down all of the ABL airplanes.

Even if planes were sent out to destroy, they would be detected in our airspace and we would take countermeasures. How often has the "decoy" method been used now? Your proposal is a bit too simple; I am sure the military has already taken any decoy tactics into account.

izrofel

Counter-measure: reflective (i.e. mirror-like) missles.

qB

No izro no batteries, a giant gas system that powers the super lazor.
And as almoste veryone has written, why is this new now? Because they have mounted a miniversion on a humvee, cmon gizmodo, dont you google or check out something before you post it?

"shiny NEW toys"?

Stalhandske

Firstly, the ABL is not being developed by Boeing -- all they do is supply the aircraft. The nose turret and fire control system is being developed by Lockheed Martin.

Secondly, you would not need to shoot down 300-500 warheads. The ABL would target and destroy the ICBM before its warheads break off from the re-entry vehicle.

Thirdly, grassroots and guerrilla warfare is far from being massively destructive, so those are insignificant concerns in contrast with the ramifications of ICBM's. Guerrilla, in fact, means "small war". Please get your facts straight before you make wholely unintelligent comments.

Lastly, yes this program has been out for quite some time now. I figure there are many difficulties in getting it commercialized and mainstream, mainly due to the enormous amount of power needed for the laser. I imagine that a large section of the plane would need to be used for battery space, thus greatly increasing payload weight.

izrofel

1. Send up dummy missile loaded with telemetry system.
2. Detect laser, send position and direction data back home.
3. Send up planes to shoot down laser-toting 747 (or fire SAMs at satellites if they're in orbit instead).
4. Launch the real nuclear missiles.
5. ?
6. Profit.

If there's anything I learned from Matthew Broderick, it's that you can't win a nuclear war.

superbad

I thought it was just waiting to get the Chemical laser on board - all the others systems are A O K.

The fact that this works is the point. Who knows what it will get to destroy - if it is ever asked to - it definitely tips the balance of power away from folks with no nuke destroying laser. Some of the other higher power weapons go through serious material densities - such as 6 ft concrete (by pulsing).
Maybe it is also designed to point at the ground sometimes - I wouldn't want to be on its receiving end whatever?

flyboy

Hey countrydevil: you're going to have to think of better things to say than "old news" and "will it blend?" The banhammer watches your next comment.

Charlie White

This is a ridiculous solution. I may work against 5 to 10 warheads, but what about 300? I believe modern ICBM's can hold up to like 10'ish MIRVS. An attacking country would only have to launch 30 missiles to get that kink of MIRV count. What happens if the country launches 50, or 100 ICBM's. That's 500 to 1000 MIRVS. That better be one heck of a laser, and an amazing "god-like" fire control system directing it.

...and reflective paint will make each MIRV more resilient.

newgalactic

Now where are my friggin' sharks with friggin' lasers on their heads?

Kaiser-Machead

This has been in development for a LONG time. I remember seeing shows on it probably about a decade ago. From what I've heard lately, it's pretty close to being complete. Regardless of how "stupid" a lot of these commenters seem to think the idea is, it works VERY well and it's anything but a "failure" of "vaporware."

Hickeroar

Evidently it can burn BlueRay at 6x! Sony is committed to adding one to the Playstation 4, despite an additional 18 year production delay and $50,000 per unit cost increase.

Jozer99

Worst game of laser-tag EVER...

ideaman2020

@izrofel:

And why can't "every fuckign 747 in the country" (with ABL) not stop Osama if he gets a hold of a warhead?

Um, because it won't be on the end of a missile? Or are they going to target shipping containers and box vans with this thing?

To expect missile launches only from "countries with onesies and twosies" is quite unintelligent and narrowminded.

Those are exactly the countries you can reliably count on not to launch, which is what I was saying. Small countries develop nuclear weapons so people like us won't invade them, not so that they can wipe out downtown Los Angeles in a blaze of suicidal glory.

superbad

Did anyone else mention the whole prof's house full of popcorn thing yet?

strider_mt2k

And when the unexploded nuclear warhead(s) fall to earth and some guy in Afganastan finds it, what then? They're only blowing the fuel tank not the warhead.

scotth0

Time to buy Boeing stock, because if this really works, the government should buy a couple hundred 747's and put these on constant patrol around the hot spots - middle east, China, Russia, etc.

scotth0

@yokozuna: LOL, nice reference!

@Kaiser-Machead: You beat me to it!

@izrofel: You make some good points.

The question I have is at what point do they decide NOT to shoot it down with this. Yeah, it can shoot down a missle from great distances, but what about short distances and reaction time? I'm sure they have thought about it, I'm just curious. I guess there might be other countermeasure systems in place to deal with those types of scenarios.

Enginerd22

Can a Spartan 117 use it?

alukard

@phantam:

My thoughts exactly.

izrofel

@superbad:

The objective of the ABL is to protect from any/all ICBM's, regardless of which country they come from. To expect missile launches only from "countries with onesies and twosies" is quite unintelligent and narrowminded.

And why can't "every fuckign 747 in the country" (with ABL) not stop Osama if he gets a hold of a warhead? Your argument makes no sense. If you are referring to 9/11, that had very little to do with the military's capacity for countermeasure. It had a lot to do with airport security, communications between air/ground, and the endangering of the passenger's lives on the aircraft.

izrofel

LOL wow you guys are idiots...

reflective missles, they havent even made reflective coating for tanks or planes which can both be effectively locked on to and destroyed by god knows how many weapons in the us artillery.

Then theirs the biggie your talking retrofitting many icbm's for this new magical coatings that's never been done before? Nothing is invisible, even if they made a meta-material coating to make the laser invisible to certain frequencies, who says that's the frequency of the laser? Who says what frequency they are using for targetting? Who says the lasers aren't on an adjustable wavelength?

phantam

I didn't know that little Japanese girls knew so much about missile systems and physics. Damn, our American education system stinks!

johnnyabnormal

The problem with reflective missiles is that you aren't the smartest person in the world to have been the first to conceive the idea of a reflective missile.

A reflective missile would need to have a very precise high amount of ideal reflectivity to successfully reflect all of the laser's energy. If not, the residual laser that has not been perfectly reflected will form heat within the mirror and burn through it. Basically, the laser will bounce around the imperfections in the reflective coating on the missile until the heat builds and burns.

This is where a reflective missile isn't so cheap as you had thought. Making a missile with near-perfect reflectivity will prove extremely costly, if not impossible because the launch and flight of the missile will most likely create micro-imperfections in the reflective coating in itself.

izrofel

@izrofel:

I am sure the military has already taken any decoy tactics into account.

Oh, given the military procurement system's past record of success, I wouldn't be so sure of that.

Like someone else said, the only country this could possibly be successful against is one with only a couple of crude missiles and no air force. In other words, exactly the kind of country that would never launch against us, because they know it would mean their utter annihilation.

What we really need to worry about is Osama getting hold of a warhead- you could mount a laser onto every fucking 747 in the country and not stop that. But expensive military systems help keep the money flowing to defense lobbyists and their pimps in congress, which is why we keep developing cool new shit we have no real use for.

superbad

@blommer: Don't you mean vapourizeware?

kc2idf

What is up with this it's only good for 5-10 missles? It can destroy many tens of ICBMS which is many hundreds of warheads.

As for would this be dangerous to us with all that material falling to earth? The serious answer is they are designed to shoot them before they reach our airspace. The not so serious answer is yes - but not as dangerous as a nuclear warhead detonating over... say Detroit. Not that anybody would miss Detroit - I'm just sayin.

rushevents

How much for one that can be mounted on private jets?

GizFanAlpha

WHO(?) thought the star wars missile defense was dead? It wasn't buried with Reagan, thank God.

FThorn

OK, so we've figured out how to defend ourselves from ballistic missiles a mere 18 years after the collapse of only other country that will ever have both the will and the ability to shoot one at us. I guess now we can start working on our anti-IED devices so that they'll be ready for Iraq by 2040 or so.

Why can't the bad guys just coat the missile with a mirror finish?

Pender

hmmm, interesting concept, I just wonder how it handles condition where the laser will get diffused and line of sight.

Robert Isbell

edit 1a.)

"MIRVs would have to separate warheads at the coast line to strike without getting vaporized by the laser, so yay for Kansas"

*kick*

Caidence

@bjmorch:
Fun fact: a nuclear explosion has to be specially triggered. Nuclear material isn't volatile, like gasoline. So if you disintegrate the controls on board, the worst that happens in very minimal fallout (a couple of city blocks, I think?). I don't know what happens if the plutonium dissolves in the atmosphere though :(

@weatherman:
Many disagree with you. It's the best idea we've got for missle defense, because ICBMs really book it towards their target. Material weapons are extremely hard to get right.

@newgalactic:
You, sir, however have a decent argument. Some uplifting counter-arguments:

1a.) MIRVs would have to explode at the coast line to strike without getting vaporized, so yay for Kansas

1b.) The actual warheads would have to be propelled to make it to their target without getting busted by the plane. Without it, they free fall to earth.

Rebuttal to 1b.) No fuel tank, no combustion, no explodie. Damn. Maybe still can destroy the controls?

2.) If we can fit these on 747s, then we don't need any special avionics for this system. Just more laser units. More planes in the sky.

3.) Right now, the only country that can overwhelm us like that is Russia. They're easily handled, so don't freak.

Seems like everyone else is closer to me on this, so I should go away

*Kicks the dead horse one last time*

Caidence

@superbad: How do you get quotes on this boxes like that? I'm kind of new to commenting here.

Anyway...how would Osama get a nuclear warhead into the US? Shipping containers? I see...

My point was that any country has a potential, high or low, to launch a missile at the US. Thus, ruling out one country over another makes no difference. The ABL was designed without bias for country. ICBM's exist, and the ABL is a response.

izrofel

@newgalactic: ICBMs don't MIRV until they're close to their targets; this system is designed to attack and destroy inbound ICBMs when they are still on ascent over the horizon.

evilneuro

@theotherstevejobs: Sorry, I already used up all the tin foil for my tin foil hat.

johnnyabnormal

@Pender: Okay, dude - were you alive during the FIRST gulf war when they shot ballistic missiles (crude as rocks, though they were) at Israel? if not - wiki on over to scud. And the mirror thing... asshat.

@johnnyabnormal: i was *there* man, when Kevin and Bean started using that word - its a great word and it will *always* be great. if you don't like it, wrap it in aluminum foil so you can't see it and the (finger quotes) lasers will bounce off of it.

theotherstevejobs

@superbad: Unless a true-believer religious fundamentalist of any variety gets their hands on one. Then all bets are off. You can't count on mutually (or even unilaterally) assured destruction to deter someone who is trying to bring about the end of the world so they can be rewarded by their sky fairy.

Empire

8-12 seconds? Shit, all that means is they need to fire 200-300 rockets and that defense system is bypassed. Easy.

rainfever

Unfortunately even this sophisticated technology still takes 20 minutes to warm a frozen burrito.

mechwerks

This will work as well as the X-Box 360...

pupaboy2