Today, no accepted definition of a space weapon exists. Case in point: Recently, Space.com quoted a senior Pentagon official as saying, "There are no space weapons programs being funded by the U.S. Air Force." This statement was immediately criticized by many within the space arms control community as hypocritical and false. They cited the ongoing development of ground-based missile defense assets as evidence, along with dual-use space programs such as XSS-11 and MiTex and doctrinal statements of the importance of "space dominance."
Some experts consider a space weapon to be an object or device in orbit that is used to strike targets on the ground. Others consider a space weapon to be an object or device that can strike other targets in space. Still others consider a space weapon to be anything that can attack, degrade, or destroy satellites--whether from space, the ground, or air. These diverse definitions have frozen the international arms control debate over space weapons for decades.
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Friday, April 24, 2009
Sounding the Nuclear Alarm
The U.S. will not have a credible arsenal unless Washington acts soon to replace aging warheads.
Gen. Chilton pulls out a prop to illustrate his point: a glass bulb about two inches high. "This is a component of a V-61" nuclear warhead, he says. It was in "one of our gravity weapons" -- a weapon from the 1950s and '60s that is still in the U.S. arsenal. He pauses to look around the Journal's conference table. "I remember what these things were for. I bet you don't. It's a vacuum tube. My father used to take these out of the television set in the 1950s and '60s down to the local supermarket to test them and replace them."
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Gen. Chilton pulls out a prop to illustrate his point: a glass bulb about two inches high. "This is a component of a V-61" nuclear warhead, he says. It was in "one of our gravity weapons" -- a weapon from the 1950s and '60s that is still in the U.S. arsenal. He pauses to look around the Journal's conference table. "I remember what these things were for. I bet you don't. It's a vacuum tube. My father used to take these out of the television set in the 1950s and '60s down to the local supermarket to test them and replace them."
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Lockheed Martin Provides U.S. Strategic Command With Enhanced Mission Planning Capability
Collaborative Mission Planning Tool Delivered
Omaha, Neb., April 23rd, 2009 -- Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] has enhanced the U.S. Strategic Command’s ability to plan operations that support their critical mission areas, which include strategic deterrence, space and cyberspace. The delivery of the portal-based Integrated Strategic Planning and Analysis Network (ISPAN) Collaborative Information Environment (CIE), gives commanders a faster moving decision environment and an accelerated operations tempo, providing parallel - not sequential - planning and decision making capabilities.
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Omaha, Neb., April 23rd, 2009 -- Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] has enhanced the U.S. Strategic Command’s ability to plan operations that support their critical mission areas, which include strategic deterrence, space and cyberspace. The delivery of the portal-based Integrated Strategic Planning and Analysis Network (ISPAN) Collaborative Information Environment (CIE), gives commanders a faster moving decision environment and an accelerated operations tempo, providing parallel - not sequential - planning and decision making capabilities.
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Boeing Airborne Laser Team Begins Weapon System Flight Tests
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif., April 24, 2009 -- The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA], industry teammates and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency have begun Airborne Laser (ABL) flight tests with the entire weapon system integrated aboard the ABL aircraft.
ABL, a heavily modified Boeing 747-400F aircraft, completed its functional check flight April 21 from Edwards Air Force Base with the beam control/fire control system and the high-energy laser onboard, confirming the aircraft is airworthy, ready for more airborne tests, and on track for its missile-intercept demonstration this year.
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ABL, a heavily modified Boeing 747-400F aircraft, completed its functional check flight April 21 from Edwards Air Force Base with the beam control/fire control system and the high-energy laser onboard, confirming the aircraft is airworthy, ready for more airborne tests, and on track for its missile-intercept demonstration this year.
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Fly like a Fly
The common housefly executes exquisitely precise and complex aerobatics with less computational might than an electric toaster.
The common housefly is an extremely maneuverable flyer, the best of any species, insect or otherwise. What's more, its flight control commands originate from only a few hundred neurons in its brain, far less computational might than you'd find in your toaster.
yet the fly can outmaneuver any human-built craft at low speeds. Buzzing annoyingly across a room, a housefly reaches speeds of up to 10 kilometers per hour at twice the acceleration of gravity. When turning, it is even more impressive: the fly can execute six full turns per second, reaching its top angular speed in just two-hundredths of a second. It can fly straight up, down, or backward, and somersault to land upside down on a ceiling. If it hits a window or a wall sideways, which it often does, the fly will lose lift and begin to fall. But its wings keep beating, and within a few microseconds, the fly recovers its lift and can move off in the opposite direction.
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The common housefly is an extremely maneuverable flyer, the best of any species, insect or otherwise. What's more, its flight control commands originate from only a few hundred neurons in its brain, far less computational might than you'd find in your toaster.
yet the fly can outmaneuver any human-built craft at low speeds. Buzzing annoyingly across a room, a housefly reaches speeds of up to 10 kilometers per hour at twice the acceleration of gravity. When turning, it is even more impressive: the fly can execute six full turns per second, reaching its top angular speed in just two-hundredths of a second. It can fly straight up, down, or backward, and somersault to land upside down on a ceiling. If it hits a window or a wall sideways, which it often does, the fly will lose lift and begin to fall. But its wings keep beating, and within a few microseconds, the fly recovers its lift and can move off in the opposite direction.
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A Match Made in Packets - Coming soon: cellular handsets that can use a Wi-Fi network
Wi-Fi married to a cellphone would surely be a union made in heaven—a wedding of cellular's ubiquity to the high data rates of local-area networking. It would minimize expensive cellular minutes, replacing them with free or cheap Wi-Fi time. Often, too, it would yield a higher-quality call, because cellular coverage is usually weakest where Wi-Fi excels—inside homes, stores, and offices. Walking inside while in the middle of a cellphone conversation, you wouldn't even notice as your handset switched seamlessly to Wi-Fi; and when you went back out, it would revert to the mobile network just as unobtrusively.
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Quirks of RFID Memory Make for Cheap Security Scheme
18 March 2009—Radio frequency identification (RFID) chips are everywhere today: in credit cards, driver’s licenses, and passports, and stuck to pallets of inventory for big retailers like Wal-Mart. Yet some RFID tags—especially the smallest and cheapest—still have no means to prevent them from yielding up their data to any passerby with an RFID reader.
However, a soon-to-be-published report from a team of American computer scientists proposes a new RFID security measure that works by using the memory circuits already in many RFID chips.
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However, a soon-to-be-published report from a team of American computer scientists proposes a new RFID security measure that works by using the memory circuits already in many RFID chips.
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Blades Have The Edge - Superslim machines are fomenting a quiet revolution in the server room
Blades, for most information technology departments, offer huge improvements over conventional, rack-mounted units. This compact, slim computer (hence the name "blade") is typically based on the same Intel or AMD processors and Windows or Linux operating systems as most other servers, but it consumes a lot less power and takes up a lot less room.
Blades fit into enclosures that hold several units, usually vertically and side by side, like books on a shelf. To replace a bad blade, a technician need only pop it out of its enclosure and put in a new one. And blades are equipped with management programs that let staff easily set them up for specific applications or arrange them in special configurations.
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Blades fit into enclosures that hold several units, usually vertically and side by side, like books on a shelf. To replace a bad blade, a technician need only pop it out of its enclosure and put in a new one. And blades are equipped with management programs that let staff easily set them up for specific applications or arrange them in special configurations.
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Bright idea for nanosensors
The transmission of light can be affected by the suspension of metal particles in a clear medium, an effect that has been used for centuries in making red stained glass using gold dust. Researchers are now exploiting this property to construct nanosensors that could be used to detect explosives or toxins, or identify infections.
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Chiral palladium
A research team led by Gadi Rothenberg, professor of heterogeneous catalysis and sustainable chemistry at the University of Amsterdam, has made the first ever chiral palladium metal.
Metals are not chiral because they have neither. However, Prof Rothenberg and Dr Laura Duran Pachon managed to imprint palladium metal crystals with a chiral organic template. The entire template was then removed, leaving a chiral cavity in the palladium metal.
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Metals are not chiral because they have neither. However, Prof Rothenberg and Dr Laura Duran Pachon managed to imprint palladium metal crystals with a chiral organic template. The entire template was then removed, leaving a chiral cavity in the palladium metal.
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USAF chief says "light strike" fighter could be needed
The US Air Force's top officer said today that a "light strike" platform optimized for the irregular warfare mission could be added to the service's inventory of manned fighters.
Such an aircraft could serve both as a basic trainer for the USAF and "partner" air forces, and as an attack platform in operations against terrorists and insurgents, said Gen Norton Schwartz, USAF chief of staff.
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Such an aircraft could serve both as a basic trainer for the USAF and "partner" air forces, and as an attack platform in operations against terrorists and insurgents, said Gen Norton Schwartz, USAF chief of staff.
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A Laser Phalanx?
According to Peppe, a Laser Phalanx solution would offer an effective range about 3 times that of the existing M61A1 20mm gun, along with lower life-cycle costs.
A laser-based Phalanx system certainly sounds interesting. Nevertheless, there are a number of hurdles to cross and tests to pass before it can be considered a true advance over the current set of slug-throwing “last chance” systems out there.
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A laser-based Phalanx system certainly sounds interesting. Nevertheless, there are a number of hurdles to cross and tests to pass before it can be considered a true advance over the current set of slug-throwing “last chance” systems out there.
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