Re: Airborne laser technology has hit a brick wall
1. The best technology today falls short of the military requirement for a laser that is "twenty to thirty times more powerful." Where in the world are scientists supposed to find a portable energy source with an energy density that is "twenty to thirty times" greater than currently known?
By analogy, imagine scientists being asked to produce a substance "twenty to thirty times" harder than diamonds. Good luck with that. The laws of nature (or physics) impose constraints. The ABL has hit an energy-density brick wall for portable fuel source.
The solution does not lay entirely in power generation. Increasing the currently low level of energy efficiency of lasers is also part of the solution. And that's where a significant part of the R&D is also about.
2. The ABL requires an unimaginably long two-minutes to shoot down one unprotected ballistic missile under ideal conditions. The gigantic Boeing 747 cannot survive battlefield conditions and loiter over enemy airspace for two minutes. With a massive radar and infrared signature, the Boeing 747 is an easy target for advanced mobile surface-to-air missiles.
That's why its a demonstration project. Not an operational defence system. This is the 1st of its type and there are still a lot of technology that are not mature yet. How it turns out in the future is anybody's guess.
3. As I have said before, the ABL is designed for a superpower battle. The U.S. doesn't need an ABL against small fries. This implies a weather problem. China is over 9,600,000 square kilometers in area. As a continent, China has a variety of weather. It is safe to say that there is always inclement weather over significant parts of China. With cloudy, rainy, or snowy weather, is the ABL effective at all under those poor weather conditions?
That is your view.
As I said earlier, the real benefit of a laser weapon is in space, where there is not weather to worry about.
4. A ballistic missile equipped with countermeasures will take forever to destroy with a laser. Conceptually, this is easily understood by placing space shuttle heat tiles on the outside of a ballistic missile. A heat tile is designed to protect a space shuttle from the extreme heat of atmospheric reentry. It remains to be seen whether an ABL can peel away the heat tile protection before it depletes all of the onboard chemical fuel for the laser.
Which is what this ABL project is about. There remains a lot of experimentation to be done, such as it's ability to burn through heat shielding.
Also, the ability to direct the laser upwards (i.e., towards space) could potentially turn it into an ASAT weapon.
5. Each ABL costs "$1 billion to $1.5 billion per aircraft." Let's assume that a DF-31 ICBM costs $50 million each. For comparison, the MX missile was "approximately $70 million" each (see
). China can build a massive number of DF-31s for the price of one ABL. In other words, the ABL is not a cost-effective platform.
The 1st of type is always the most expensive. Particularly when it is pioneering new technology.
However, this does not mean that future systems will be as expensive, or as big.
Now, regarding the nuclear reactors in satellites, a simple internet search turns up this:
Nuclear Power In Space
by Yury Zaitsev
Moscow, Russia (RIA Novosti) Aug 15, 2007
Solar energy supplies most of power in spacecraft nowadays. Although the efficiency of solar cells has grown substantially recently, they have reached the limit of their development and can supply electricity only in near-Earth orbits and for satellite-borne equipment. Such large-scale projects as the exploration of the Moon or a manned mission to Mars require nuclear power plants.
These plants are practically independent of sunlight. They can provide power not only for life support and equipment, but also drive electric or nuclear rocket engines.
Estimates made by researchers over recent years show that nuclear power, if used in long-distance space voyages, will save considerable funds and shorten interplanetary journeys. In a Mars mission a nuclear-powered engine would cut flight time almost by two thirds, compared with a jet engine using ordinary chemical fuel. The rim of the solar system could be reached within three, rather than 10, years. Nuclear plants can be used not only as sources of electric power, but also as sources of heat to support life and productive activities at bases beyond Earth.
Russia and the United States have laid a good groundwork for progress in this field. But Russia leads in such key factors as maximum hydrogen temperature and specific thrust impulse. In fact, it is the only country in the world that has a hands-on technology for building space-based nuclear reactor plants.
The U.S. only once tested a nuclear reactor like the Soviet Topaz unit. It was in 1965. The reactor lasted 43 days, although the satellite on which it was installed is still in orbit as part of space junk. Russia has launched about 40 spacecraft with nuclear plants aboard. Most of them were used for spying purposes and, once activated, stayed in low near-Earth orbits for several months on end.
The Topaz-II had a capacity of about 10 kW. This compares with 120 watts that can be collected from one square meter of solar cells, which are the main source of power for space vehicles. Moreover, the farther from the sun, the lower the efficiency of the battery.
Russian engineers have designed a series of conceptual nuclear plants with an initial capacity of 25 kW. A spacecraft incorporating such a plant and meant for Earth observations will mark a new stage in providing information for civilian and military users. Nuclear power plants are more compact than solar ones, making it easier to direct and orient spacecraft especially when increased accuracy is required.
A nuclear power plant is noted for its resistance to environmental impacts and its lower weight-to-capacity ratio. Whatever its capacity, a nuclear plant is always smaller than a solar one.
A plant with a nominal rating of 50 kW or a peak rating of 100 kW or more would help to build multi-purpose satellites of a new generation and radar spacecraft to monitor ground and air targets from geostationary and geosynchronous orbits.
In the past, research and development on space-based nuclear plants was halted both in Russia and in America for considerations of radiation safety. Today nuclear energy is more reliable and is having a rebirth. It is facing ambitious and energy-consuming objectives both in near-Earth orbits and in deep space. Given proper funding, the humankind will not only send a manned mission to Mars soon, but also start using space for commercial purposes by establishing a habitable base on the Moon.
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Regarding the ASAT issue, it is certainly an important issue to tackle regarding weaponised satellites. But it seems that ASAT vs satellite is being taken in isolation.
Any weaponised satellite will need to have some form of ASAT defence since there are 2 countries with proven ASAT capabilities. Otherwise, it just becomes a really expensive target. With a laser onboard, it will have some form of defence against ASAT, since the laser is conceivably designed to take out ballistic missiles or other satellites.
There is also the issue of taking out the satellite itself, which constitutes an act of war. Thus, having a weaponised satellite also serves to act as a "trip wire" because it needs to be take out for ballistic missile strikes to get through, thus obliging the attacking country to take it out. This means that ASAT weapons will have to target the weaponised satellites, instead of other satellites (such as GPS, communications, spy, etc).
In essence, it means more targets, which requires more weapons.
