VIDEO: Ballistic Missile Destroyed by Laser

[tossum]

If a ICBM nuke was shot down with this laser, does the warhead become inactive, or, as is the current situation playing out in my mind- will the thing, on its way to America, fall out of the sky and explode onto my bloody house?

 

[snurp85]

You'd think with all the high tech research they were doing they could afford cameras that have better than 100p resolution. I realize this was in infrared but still.

I would like to know what the range is on this thing. It obviously has to be line of sight which means we would have to either have it on a satellite or on a plane. But then that makes me wonder how much power that thing is using because satellites and planes would only have a limited energy supply.

 

[jabliese]

@Tossum
Most countries that build ICBM's have the sense to not arm the bombs until they are far, far away from the launch site. Hence, ICBM interceptor systems focus on catching the missile while still in boost phase.

 

[razor512]

wouldn't people just give their missiles a a mirror finish to reflect the lasers?

 

[Guest]

Pailin what you are describing is a radiation shield. Radiative heat transfer is governed by T1^1-T2^4 and the surface emissivity.

To others who doubt this works with shiny surfaces, etc. Lasers, free electron lasers, as is not mentioned in the article, but what is actually on one of these planes, can be tuned to various energies and polarizations. To reflect all energy ranges, you'd need multilayer protective coatings. Those coatings would get destroyed in minutes on something flying through the air.

Additionally focusing elements can concentrate the energy to a very high heat flux. It's all an energy balance. You can only reflect or dissipate a finite amount of heat flux, especially since there is no infinite sink on the missile. And at the velocities missiles travel, the convective boundary layer is not likely to provide any cooling, but rather start heating due to friction from the atmosphere's viscosity.

Even refractory metals (Ta, W, etc.) melt or weaken at high enough temperatures. Except for Mo, none of them have very good thermoconductivity either. Not to mention all of these materials are insanely expensive and have densities on the order of Pb.

I've designed enough dual stage cryogenic coolers for use in ultrahigh vacuum to know what I'm talking about when it comes to heat transfer and exotic materials.

 

[tossum]

[citation][nom]jabliese[/nom]@TossumMost countries that build ICBM's have the sense to not arm the bombs until they are far, far away from the launch site. Hence, ICBM interceptor systems focus on catching the missile while still in boost phase.[/citation]

So presumably for this sort of strategy to work you would need a fleet of these adapted Boeings assigned to each country considered to be a threat, just sort of cruising around incase a launch was detected so the missle could be taken out at the booster stage.
Hmm seems like there may be an elephant in this room...

 

[Guest]

watching FOXnews too much destroys brain cells

 

[mayne92]

[citation][nom]dfgfdgh[/nom]watching FOXnews too much destroys brain cells[/citation]

It's apparent that you have already watched way too much of it then...

 

[bounty]

If Iran can reach space, it can basically reach anywhere. NK may not have perfect missiles now, but when in 10 years they have full ICBM's you are not going to START your missile shield project then, it needs to be FINISHED. Between now and then, you are going to want to test your missile shield and have all of your lasers and anti-missile missiles working well.

Mutually assured destruction as a defensive policy only works with rational people. I don't think Kim Jon Il will be that worried about 'losing' if he takes the US with him.

Yes, someone could sneak in a nuke, but that doesn't mean anything. Someone could kick in my door, I'm still going to lock it. You can't stop everything, but you can stop most things.

Yes, putting a nuke on a ICBM is hard, putting misc radioactive material is not. If Iran felt like putting 1000lbs of radioactive material across a few select East coast cities they could probably do that now. Feel free to substitute Iran and East coast with North Korea and West coast.

 

[wiyosaya]

[citation][nom]anamaniac[/nom]How long until we get a totally sick satellite array of gigawatt lasers?[/citation]

Probably not for a while. The main thing in this is making the power source portable enough. There have also been tests of ground, humvee-based, solid-state lasers in recent years that if they were successful in scaling them up, could accomplish the same job as the chemical laser used in this test. Still, small, gigawatt class lasers are probably several years out.

[citation][nom]nottheking[/nom]One of the early proposals in Reagan's "Star Wars" SDI was a network of such; to get the power, they would be equipped with miniature nuclear bombs, that would detonate, with the rest of the equipment harnessing that power to fire the laser. Obviously, such design entailed them being both extremely expensive and good for a single shot only.[/citation]

AFAIK, that concept has been shelved. The nukes were needed to generate the energy for a high-power X-ray laser. At that time, no other means was known for the production of coherent X-rays. Since then, there have been other methods developed to generate coherent X-rays that do not require the use of a nuke as a trigger. The reason for the X-rays was that X-rays allow you to focus significantly more energy than radiation at the wavelengths at which optical lasers typically operate. The power density achievable is a function of the square of the wavelength. Cutting the wavelength by a factor of two gives you a factor of four in terms of achievable energy density. Yet with advances in laser technology, significantly higher power output is available from solid state and other more conventional (i.e., lasers not operating at X-ray wavelengths) lasers today than in those days.

[citation][nom]zipz0p[/nom]The comments here seem quite inane and really to miss the political point of a missile defense system - it puts the US in a huge position of power. With a sufficiently strong system (which I seriously doubt is feasible), the US could launch attacks on any country without fear of retribution. Most countries will see that as unfair, and feel threatened (as many already do by the US, without a working missile defense system). I could see this working to increase hostile feelings toward the US, which is what really increases the danger to the country and its people.As for the laser - this was probably a non-reflectively coated missile, and it was clearly at close range. I realize that even the best mirrors have imperfections, are only reflective in certain frequency ranges, and have finite transmission/absorption, but a mirror coating could reduce energy absorption sufficiently to let the chemical lasers burn themselves out before the missile heats up enough to cause failure. Also, how likely is it that we will have this modified 747 in the air at the right location when it matters? This is an interesting proof of concept, though - I have long been a doubter.As for nuclear power, I am liberal (and not a complete idiot), and am all for it. I think it is safe and clean, and a very good idea. However, it is not sufficient to meet all of our power needs, and research into alternative power sources seems like a great investment in the energy safety of our future, as well as a great economic investment - the US could be the dominant source for future power solutions and technologies, if wise investments are made now.[/citation]

I agree with you about the political implications. It is a stunning development to have something the essentially renders missiles obsolete.

As far as the mirror goes, it might not be all that easy to develop a coating that would sufficiently resist the level of power that this laser produces. To ensure success of the coating, you would have to coat a large portion of the exterior of the missile. That alone would be a technical accomplishment, and might be extraordinarily expensive. A better thing to do might be to make the body of the missile out of something akin to carbon fiber as carbon has one of the highest melting points of all known materials.

In addition, with the recent advances in solid-state lasers that are capable of shooting down shells, it may not be a long time now before an airborne solid-state laser platform is developed that can come close to matching the capabilities of the chemical laser in this test.

As you said, though, having an airborne platform in the right place at the right time might be a stroke of luck. In the cold war days, though, there were constant flights of B-52s in the air all the time. As I see it, all that would be needed for this to be effective would be a flight schedule similar to that of the cold war B-52s.

Still, this is a significant achievement. Laser technology is something that is constantly undergoing refinement, and this is a step towards weapons of the future.

 

[masterasia]

Cool...now I want a laser gun for myself.

 

[pogsnet]

I want this on my kite

 

[sliem]

Ion Cannon, here we go. Go GDI!

 

[bounty]

"Most countries will see that as unfair, and feel threatened (as many already do by the US, without a working missile defense system). I could see this working to increase hostile feelings toward the US, which is what really increases the danger to the country and its people"

How does that make sense? You claim that it would basically make us omnipotent, then claim that it would put us in danger? Which is it? Besides, if we develop the tech, every country with strong enough science to develop nukes (China, Russia etc.) would follow, rendering nukes on missiles useless once and for all. I fail to see that as a bad thing. From then on you fight airplanes against airplanes until one sides shields go down.

 

[shakari]

if anything a missile defense system based on lasers would actually encourage the massive stock piling of nukes that we saw during the cold war.

We don't know the limitations behind the lasers, but its fair to say that if you fire 1000 nukes at one time some of them will get through, even the most advanced and well thought out missile defense systems. This is probably why the video was released, to show that the US has the capabilities, but Its still decades away from being effective enough to implement it wide scale, and even then there are massive international implications, such as the stock piling we have seen in the past, were 2 sides amass insane amounts(in the tens or thousands) or nukes, it just doesn't make sense to implement something were you know that it will cause such stock piling.

 

[Computer_Lots]

All I ask is for some fricken Boeings with some fricken lasers attached to their heads.

Or maybe a moon base with a big laser on it

 

[Guest]

Am I the only one to think the plane was insanely close to it's target? What is the range dissipation like on this thing. At the velocity missiles travel at if you need to be within 50km of the target (and the video looked way less) then it's pretty much random luck that you can actually get a shot off, stick on an ablative covering or a Carbon fibre-reinforced carbon shield and I can see this being nearly useless. The first time I heard of this thing it was suggested as a way of providing fighter cover by shooting down air-to-air missiles and that still seems a valid option.

 

[nottheking]

[citation][nom]JaguarOne[/nom]you do understand that the US is the country with the most (with a trailing second) nuclear weapons right? Building weapons saying that it will deprecate other weapons is not an argument for peace[/citation]
Yes, I'm aware that the USA has a still-massive nuclear arsenal... Though that's not reason for all the USA-hate I see being posted here. While the USA has the second-largest stockpile, (contrary to what you think, Russia still has more nukes than the rest of the world put together) they are certainly the least-likely to be the first to use one in this age.

Currently, the weapons serve a dual-purpose; they still exist as a deterrent against nuclear attack, though increasingly, they've been used as a bargaining chip; the USA uses them in agreements with other countries for mutual dismantling of warheads, a novel and dedicated attempt to pursue a nuclear-free world. An added bonus is that since US companies buy and process bomb material into commercial fuel, (see, Megatons to Megawatts), there's a market push towards disarmament; re-processed fuel is much cheaper than mining and enriching new Uranium, so power companies want this program to continue with every warhead available.

At any rate, a nuclear-weapon-free world is preferable to a "balanced" one; in theory, both prevent the use of nuclear weapons. However, one of them GUARANTEES that nuclear war is impossible, by an utter lack of nuclear weapons, while the other merely relies on the questionable strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction, (M.A.D., so fittingly) which in spite of claims it worked in the Cold War, in fact there were countless situations where it itself failed, as numerous 'false positives' nearly brought nuclear war, averted only by individual action, such as by the famed case of Stanislav Petrov, who correctly deduced that a detection system was failing, rather than the USA had actually launched a nuclear attack. (underscoring the flaws with M.A.D. is the fact that he was reprimanded by some of his superiors for his actions)

Once we add in the existence of stealthy bombers, and submarines that can launch missiles after sneaking up to the shore, It's clear that M.A.D. relies on assuming the world is far more simplistic than it is. Hence, it will never work forever; eventually, if relied upon, it will fail, and it need only fail once.

Lastly, I will agree; you outline the main (in fact, really only) reason other nations pursue nuclear weapons; the USA's conventional military advantage is overwhelming; it spends nearly as much money as the rest of the world put together on military forces, and employs far more advanced technology, and far better mobility; the USA possesses all but a single one of the world's nuclear-powered aircraft carriers; all other carriers are tiny by comparison, and of limited range. However, having the USA be countered, in my opinion, isn't necessarily a GOOD thing; I see no inherent evil to the USA as a superpower.

[citation][nom]dargon_supreme[/nom]Next step: missile with laser reflexive cover.[/citation]
Yes, it's true that if there's devices meant to defend against a weapon, proponents of the weapon will develop improvements to try to defeat that defense; it's the nature of arms races. (most visibly understandable with the early 20th-century Battleship arms race, where new generations would boast ever-bigger guns and ever-thicker armor to make them invincible to the previous generation)

However, in this case, unless someone has this technique, then they're already trailing behind that technological race. And if they're trailing behind, they have no reason to build then; only if they can defeat ALL methods of defense would there be a point. In that case, such 'mirrored missiles' would have to be able to defend all spots on the missile, against all possible wavelengths of radiation; I have the impression that the rear, near the thrusters, would be hard to keep reflective; even there, even superficial damage would send the missile into a tailspin, spiraling off course and impacting with the ground.

 

[Guest]

Re all the comments about Russian and Chinese nukes. You are missing the point - this system shoots down missiles at the point of launch, not re-entry. Unless you are flying one of these things over Russian / Chinese sovereign territory it is not going to stop an ICBM from either of these nations. At re-entry the warhead is doing several thousand Km/H, is protected from attack from below by a carbon-carbon re-entry shield and in the case of Russian missiles is utilising counter-measures that include chaff and decoy warheads. Chance of shooting that down? realistically, none.

 

[kentlowt]

[citation][nom]SpinachEater[/nom]Wow, you know this is going into a satellite next[/citation]
Unfortunately there are treaties prohibiting this. Unless we break them which would be a good thing in my mind.
[citation][nom]jinxyjoo[/nom]Tell me why this is useful? Why are we spending so much money on defense when it isn't necessary and instead focus on things like green/reusable energy, things that will actually become important once the oil crash hits.[/citation]
Spending money on keeping you alive is a much better use of funds than wasting them on scam energy. Hmmm at least I hope it is.