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Subject: Space based lasers
BLUIE006    12/18/2006 5:00:14 AM
--- Is the Science out there able to create a space based laser system able to target and destroy...buildings (or people)
 
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Herald1234    Yes..............   12/18/2006 1:28:27 PM
.............if you have three or four hundred billion dollars laying around in loose change. Otherwise you'll have to wait a couple of decades for the technology to slowly grow.

Herald

 
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DarthAmerica    Herald reply...   1/2/2007 1:39:09 PM

.............if you have three or four hundred billion dollars laying around in loose change. Otherwise you'll have to wait a couple of decades for the technology to slowly grow.

Herald


I bookmarked this post because its a topic that really interest me but I wanted a change to study a bit before posting. I believe these technologies are at or near enough to maturity to field a workable system within 5 to 10 years that could cover the entire planet. If we were willing to settle for a smaller scale system, I think within 5 year with correspondingly less coverage. Now with regard to cost. Open source data available on the web suggest a cost of about 50 to 100 billion USD in todays dollars which would buy a totally space based system consisting of 12 satellite laser weapons and 12 relay mirrors.(Don't quote me on specific numbers, I'm relying on memory...;))

Anyway, this space based architecture could in theory protect us and allies from ANY ballistic missile attack short of the very unlikely massive cold war style ICBM bombardment consisting of greater than 1000 ICBMs launched simultaneously. Even then though, it could degrade such an attack substantially. Even the SLBMs of the EU would not be likely to survive this system for lack of numbers. Lesser countries like China, North Korea, Pakistan, India and Iran would simply not be able to challenge this system with their current or projected ballistic missile forces.

But beyond missile defense, such a system would also be able to destroy aircraft and lightly protected ground targets unless they were hidden by cloud cover and/or rain. The only thing that would make such targets undesirable is that the lasers would consume valuable "fuel" engaging such targets. Because the lasers are space based, such use against other targets would have to be balanced against target priority and availability of other assets to strike the target. Otherwise costly manned and unmanned space missions would be required to refuel the lasers in orbit. This would be in addition to normal services and upgrades. This is the problem with space basing. But if for example, we were to know the location of Osama Bin Laden, or if we were at war and absolutely had to hit a critical lightly protected target then it could come in very handy indeed.

For these reasons, we could and should in my opinion develop a hybrid system that also includes CONUS based ground lasers. A ground based laser would not be as inaccessible as a space based system and nor would it be size or power  limited. It would also utilize the relay mirrors to extend range its range. It could also be used as an ASAT weapon. Again these technologies are not new and have even been used in anger against us...

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra-3"

...There would also be opportunities to use this system against mid to high altitude targets with ABL. The ABL could also use the relay mirrors to extent its range.

In short these types of weapons are within our reach today and if put into service would represent a transformation so radical that its hard to imagine how todays threats would be able to stop it. All of this is within the 50 to 200 billion USD cost range and considering how radically this would tip the balance of power in our favor, it would be worth it even if the price was doubled IMHO.

Now just to deal with the issue of actually attacking people or building as was suggested in the opening post. I think that while lasers would certainly work against people, they may be less than ideal at current power levels against hardened buildings. If you wanted to attack a building then the ideal DEW for that task would be a particle beam. Its huge kinetic energy would absolutely devastate a structure. But I'm not too sure about the current state of the art with regard to particle beams. It seems that lasers are a much more developed technology.

One conclusion from my reading I'd like to share is that it seems that the time has come for a separate and dedicated U.S. Space Force. Only this way can we have the right people focused on exploiting the characteristics of space with dedicated funds and personnel. It would give the United Stated a huge edge over our opponents for decades as space is clearly becoming a dominant theater of war. Anyway, I'll save that for later.


DA



P.S. Did anybody pay attention to the DPRK TD-2 test launch? The USA and allies had a pretty good intel picture of the situation and were certainly in a position to stop the TD-2 through a variety of means. Now I don't want to sound conspiratorial but if the USA had a deploy laser system designed to intercept missile in the boost phase. How would the DPRK or anybody else for that matter know if the TD-
 
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Herald1234       1/2/2007 2:03:01 PM



.............if you have three or four hundred billion dollars laying around in loose change. Otherwise you'll have to wait a couple of decades for the technology to slowly grow.

Herald



I bookmarked this post because its a topic that really interest me but I wanted a change to study a bit before posting. I believe these technologies are at or near enough to maturity to field a workable system within 5 to 10 years that could cover the entire planet. If we were willing to settle for a smaller scale system, I think within 5 year with correspondingly less coverage. Now with regard to cost. Open source data available on the web suggest a cost of about 50 to 100 billion USD in todays dollars which would buy a totally space based system consisting of 12 satellite laser weapons and 12 relay mirrors.(Don't quote me on specific numbers, I'm relying on memory...;))

Anyway, this space based architecture could in theory protect us and allies from ANY ballistic missile attack short of the very unlikely massive cold war style ICBM bombardment consisting of greater than 1000 ICBMs launched simultaneously. Even then though, it could degrade such an attack substantially. Even the SLBMs of the EU would not be likely to survive this system for lack of numbers. Lesser countries like China, North Korea, Pakistan, India and Iran would simply not be able to challenge this system with their current or projected ballistic missile forces.

But beyond missile defense, such a system would also be able to destroy aircraft and lightly protected ground targets unless they were hidden by cloud cover and/or rain. The only thing that would make such targets undesirable is that the lasers would consume valuable "fuel" engaging such targets. Because the lasers are space based, such use against other targets would have to be balanced against target priority and availability of other assets to strike the target. Otherwise costly manned and unmanned space missions would be required to refuel the lasers in orbit. This would be in addition to normal services and upgrades. This is the problem with space basing. But if for example, we were to know the location of Osama Bin Laden, or if we were at war and absolutely had to hit a critical lightly protected target then it could come in very handy indeed.

For these reasons, we could and should in my opinion develop a hybrid system that also includes CONUS based ground lasers. A ground based laser would not be as inaccessible as a space based system and nor would it be size or power  limited. It would also utilize the relay mirrors to extend range its range. It could also be used as an ASAT weapon. Again these technologies are not new and have even been used in anger against us...

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra-3"

...There would also be opportunities to use this system against mid to high altitude targets with ABL. The ABL could also use the relay mirrors to extent its range.

In short these types of weapons are within our reach today and if put into service would represent a transformation so radical that its hard to imagine how todays threats would be able to stop it. All of this is within the 50 to 200 billion USD cost range and considering how radically this would tip the balance of power in our favor, it would be worth it even if the price was doubled IMHO.

Now just to deal with the issue of actually attacking people or building as was suggested in the opening post. I think that while lasers would certainly work against people, they may be less than ideal at current power levels against hardened buildings. If you wanted to attack a building then the ideal DEW for that task would be a particle beam. Its huge kinetic energy would absolutely devastate a structure. But I'm not too sure about the current state of the art with regard to particle beams. It seems that lasers are a much more developed technology.

One conclusion from my reading I'd like to share is that it seems that the time has come for a separate and dedicated U.S. Space Force. Only this way can we have the right people focused on exploiting the characteristics of space with dedicated funds and personnel. It would give the United Stated a huge edge over our opponents for decades as space is clearly becoming a dominant theater of war. Anyway, I'll save that for later.


DA



P.S. Did anybody pay attention to the DPRK TD-2 test launch? The USA and allies had a pretty good intel picture of the situation and were certainly in a position to stop the TD-2 through a variety of means. Now I don't want to sound conspiratorial but if the USA had a d
 
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DarthAmerica       1/2/2007 2:28:48 PM







.............if you have three or four hundred billion dollars laying around in loose change. Otherwise you'll have to wait a couple of decades for the technology to slowly grow.

Herald




I bookmarked this post because its a topic that really interest me but I wanted a change to study a bit before posting. I believe these technologies are at or near enough to maturity to field a workable system within 5 to 10 years that could cover the entire planet. If we were willing to settle for a smaller scale system, I think within 5 year with correspondingly less coverage. Now with regard to cost. Open source data available on the web suggest a cost of about 50 to 100 billion USD in todays dollars which would buy a totally space based system consisting of 12 satellite laser weapons and 12 relay mirrors.(Don't quote me on specific numbers, I'm relying on memory...;))

Anyway, this space based architecture could in theory protect us and allies from ANY ballistic missile attack short of the very unlikely massive cold war style ICBM bombardment consisting of greater than 1000 ICBMs launched simultaneously. Even then though, it could degrade such an attack substantially. Even the SLBMs of the EU would not be likely to survive this system for lack of numbers. Lesser countries like China, North Korea, Pakistan, India and Iran would simply not be able to challenge this system with their current or projected ballistic missile forces.

But beyond missile defense, such a system would also be able to destroy aircraft and lightly protected ground targets unless they were hidden by cloud cover and/or rain. The only thing that would make such targets undesirable is that the lasers would consume valuable "fuel" engaging such targets. Because the lasers are space based, such use against other targets would have to be balanced against target priority and availability of other assets to strike the target. Otherwise costly manned and unmanned space missions would be required to refuel the lasers in orbit. This would be in addition to normal services and upgrades. This is the problem with space basing. But if for example, we were to know the location of Osama Bin Laden, or if we were at war and absolutely had to hit a critical lightly protected target then it could come in very handy indeed.

For these reasons, we could and should in my opinion develop a hybrid system that also includes CONUS based ground lasers. A ground based laser would not be as inaccessible as a space based system and nor would it be size or power  limited. It would also utilize the relay mirrors to extend range its range. It could also be used as an ASAT weapon. Again these technologies are not new and have even been used in anger against us...

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra-3"

...There would also be opportunities to use this system against mid to high altitude targets with ABL. The ABL could also use the relay mirrors to extent its range.

In short these types of weapons are within our reach today and if put into service would represent a transformation so radical that its hard to imagine how todays threats would be able to stop it. All of this is within the 50 to 200 billion USD cost range and considering how radically this would tip the balance of power in our favor, it would be worth it even if the price was doubled IMHO.

Now just to deal with the issue of actually attacking people or building as was suggested in the opening post. I think that while lasers would certainly work against people, they may be less than ideal at current power levels against hardened buildings. If you wanted to attack a building then the ideal DEW for that task would be a particle beam. Its huge kinetic energy would absolutely devastate a structure. But I'm not too sure about the current state of the art with regard to particle beams. It seems that lasers are a much more developed technology.

One conclusion from my reading I'd like to share is that it seems that the time has come for a separate and dedicated U.S. Space Force. Only this way can we have the right people focused on exploiting the characteristics of space with dedicated funds and personnel. It would give the United Stated a huge edge over our opponents for decades as space is clearly becoming a dominant theater of war. Anyway, I'll save that for later.


DA



P.S. Did anybody pay attention to the DPRK TD-2 test launch? The USA and allies had a pretty good intel picture of the situation and were certainly in a posit
 
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DarthAmerica       1/2/2007 2:29:54 PM
Sorry about all the typos Herald! I'm still new to being a keyboard warrior...;)


DA

 
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Herald1234    You aren't then only one with keyboard issues, DA   1/2/2007 4:09:31 PM














.............if you have three or four hundred billion dollars laying around in loose change. Otherwise you'll have to wait a couple of decades for the technology to slowly grow.

Herald





I bookmarked this post because its a topic that really interest me but I wanted a change to study a bit before posting. I believe these technologies are at or near enough to maturity to field a workable system within 5 to 10 years that could cover the entire planet. If we were willing to settle for a smaller scale system, I think within 5 year with correspondingly less coverage. Now with regard to cost. Open source data available on the web suggest a cost of about 50 to 100 billion USD in todays dollars which would buy a totally space based system consisting of 12 satellite laser weapons and 12 relay mirrors.(Don't quote me on specific numbers, I'm relying on memory...;))

Anyway, this space based architecture could in theory protect us and allies from ANY ballistic missile attack short of the very unlikely massive cold war style ICBM bombardment consisting of greater than 1000 ICBMs launched simultaneously. Even then though, it could degrade such an attack substantially. Even the SLBMs of the EU would not be likely to survive this system for lack of numbers. Lesser countries like China, North Korea, Pakistan, India and Iran would simply not be able to challenge this system with their current or projected ballistic missile forces.

But beyond missile defense, such a system would also be able to destroy aircraft and lightly protected ground targets unless they were hidden by cloud cover and/or rain. The only thing that would make such targets undesirable is that the lasers would consume valuable "fuel" engaging such targets. Because the lasers are space based, such use against other targets would have to be balanced against target priority and availability of other assets to strike the target. Otherwise costly manned and unmanned space missions would be required to refuel the lasers in orbit. This would be in addition to normal services and upgrades. This is the problem with space basing. But if for example, we were to know the location of Osama Bin Laden, or if we were at war and absolutely had to hit a critical lightly protected target then it could come in very handy indeed.

For these reasons, we could and should in my opinion develop a hybrid system that also includes CONUS based ground lasers. A ground based laser would not be as inaccessible as a space based system and nor would it be size or power  limited. It would also utilize the relay mirrors to extend range its range. It could also be used as an ASAT weapon. Again these technologies are not new and have even been used in anger against us...

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra-3"

...There would also be opportunities to use this system against mid to high altitude targets with ABL. The ABL could also use the relay mirrors to extent its range.

In short these types of weapons are within our reach today and if put into service would represent a transformation so radical that its hard to imagine how todays threats would be able to stop it. All of this is within the 50 to 200 billion USD cost range and considering how radically this would tip the balance of power in our favor, it would be worth it even if the price was doubled IMHO.

Now just to deal with the issue of actually attacking people or building as was suggested in the opening post. I think that while lasers would certainly work against people, they may be less than ideal at current power levels against hardened buildings. If you wanted to attack a building then the ideal DEW for that task would be a particle beam. Its huge kinetic energy would absolutely devastate a structure. But I'm not too sure about the current state of the art with regard to particle beams. It seems that lasers are a much more developed technology.

One conclusion from my reading I'd like to share is that it seems that the time has come for a separate and dedicated U.S. Space Force. Only this way can we have the right people focused on exploiting the characteristics of space with dedicated funds and personnel. It would give the United Stated a huge edge over our opponents for decades as space is clearly becoming a dominant theater of war. Anyway, I'll save that for later.


DA



P.S. Did anybody pay attention t
 
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HIPAR       1/3/2007 12:23:44 AM
I would like to comment on the destruction of the N Korean missile.

I would not have used my 'secret laser' on it for a rather simple reason.  I want to know if it works.

---  CHAS

 
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DarthAmerica       1/3/2007 1:18:08 AM

I would like to comment on the destruction of the N Korean missile.

I would not have used my 'secret laser' on it for a rather simple reason.  I want to know if it works.

---  CHAS


I understand your logic. But it really doesn't matter if it works. N Korea ballistic missiles are terror weapons with little military value. But the psychological value of being able to threaten a nuclear ballistic missile launch could potentially upset the balance of power regionally when nations such as Japan start to feel that they have to take matters in their own hands. Also, if a DoD laser was used. It would not be likely that the N Koreans would have detected it.

DA
 
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Herald1234       1/3/2007 7:11:07 AM



I would like to comment on the destruction of the N Korean missile.

I would not have used my 'secret laser' on it for a rather simple reason.  I want to know if it works.

---  CHAS



I understand your logic. But it really doesn't matter if it works. N Korea ballistic missiles are terror weapons with little military value. But the psychological value of being able to threaten a nuclear ballistic missile launch could potentially upset the balance of power regionally when nations such as Japan start to feel that they have to take matters in their own hands. Also, if a DoD laser was used. It would not be likely that the N Koreans would have detected it.

DA

Japan, the PRC, RoK, and Russia would. They can read and interpret radar data.
Herald
 
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DarthAmerica    Herald reply...   1/3/2007 11:16:13 AM






I would like to comment on the destruction of the N Korean missile.

I would not have used my 'secret laser' on it for a rather simple reason.  I want to know if it works.

---  CHAS




I understand your logic. But it really doesn't matter if it works. N Korea ballistic missiles are terror weapons with little military value. But the psychological value of being able to threaten a nuclear ballistic missile launch could potentially upset the balance of power regionally when nations such as Japan start to feel that they have to take matters in their own hands. Also, if a DoD laser was used. It would not be likely that the N Koreans would have detected it.

DA


Japan, the PRC, RoK, and Russia would. They can read and interpret radar data.

Herald


Yes but how are they going to know the difference between a failed cheap a$$ NorK missile and a working TD-2 that has a critical structural failure, sudden exploding fuel tank or other such laser related nastiness? Not being sarcastic, I honestly don't know how to discern that from radar data?

DA
 
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