N. Korea - Missle on launch pad

[MikeBergy]

Obviously there are ways to cool things in space other than convective heat transfer. Radiative heat can be tranferred in a vacuum. You also run into problems with things becoming too cold in space, so a closed system heat transfer system could be employed to transfer the heat generated by the laser to keep the electronics at nominal temperatures. Cooling and heating is no secret to the world of space travel. Not to mention, a large reservoir could be used to sink the heat from the system. The transfer rate doesn't need to be high as long as the system has the thermal capacity required to contain the heating for the time the weapon is fired. It might take several minutes to cool between shots, as that is the case for most of the lasers being tested, but who said that a space based weapons platform had to have a high rate of fire? As for a missile shooting it down, I highly doubt any of our enemies have access to any missiles capable of taking an orbiting platform out of LEO.

 

[Celerity]

You have a lot to learn about the limited technology we have in the area of energy weapons. Give it a hundred years, then we'll have cut-the-moon-in-half lasers that can be mounted on spacecraft.

Um.. I do ? I've built more than 10 high powered LASERS and 3 MASERs. I've built Ruby Rod and gas types, from .1 watt pointers to 100 megawatt MASERs.

I'm good, thanks.


I would like to see the paper or scientific resource you're reading here for this cooling information. And not your "Official BattleTech game master guide" either.

 

[posol]

all i asked for was a shark with a friggin laser on its head.....

 

[MikeBergy]

all i asked for was a shark with a friggin laser on its head.....

lol.

 

[Sabz5150]

Um.. I do ? I've built more than 10 high powered LASERS and 3 MASERs. I've built Ruby Rod and gas types, from .1 watt pointers to 100 megawatt MASERs.

I'm good, thanks.


I would like to see the paper or scientific resource you're reading here for this cooling information. And not your "Official BattleTech game master guide" either.

Seeing that you couldn't properly answer why a tesla coil illuminates a flourescent tube (https://hondaswap.com/members-lounge/nikola-tesla-69231/), don't be surprised if I question your technical knowledge.

Magical "all frequencies".

You act like you're the only person who has built a laser. And where in the world do microwave devices come into this?

It's not a matter of "resouce guides" (nice try with the BTech insult, would be funnier if they actually adressed that issue in the manuals). It's a simple matter of science. If you've built a laser with sufficient enough power to do any type of damage, you know that they generate a lot of heat rather goddamn fast. With a substancially smaller medium to transfer that heat away from the device, it's going to fry.

I assume (and hope) you know how a thermos works. Same concept, just destructive instead of useful.

Radiative heat systems will move heat in a vacuum but when you are building up a tremendous amount of heat (say from drawing doodles on the Earth) in a very short amount of time, even radiative heat systems have trouble taking care of that.

Worried about things getting too cold? Let it hit the sunlight without benefit from an atmosphere. That'll solve that issue real fast.

 

[phyregod]

You guys make me giggle.

 

[Dustin_m]

hmm, a friend just said that N Korea said today or something that if they get sanctioned, that they are going to consider it a declaration of war...

anyone know anything about that?

 

[phyregod]

I think he watched austin powers and got all motivated.. Kinda like kicking the crap out of your siblings after watching a karate movie..

I wonder if HE has

"lasers"

 

[phunky.buddha]

It might take several minutes to cool between shots, as that is the case for most of the lasers being tested, but who said that a space based weapons platform had to have a high rate of fire? As for a missile shooting it down, I highly doubt any of our enemies have access to any missiles capable of taking an orbiting platform out of LEO.

You don't need a high rate of fire. Nobody- except maybe the US- has enough missiles to even think about shooting high numbers of long range units at one target. They're generally sophisticated enough to be able to knock things out in one shot. If you're shooting at different targets, you're not going to be able to have the range to know them all down with one laser anyway, so rapid fire isn't an issue... yet.

As for taking things out in LEO, we can. I doubt anyone else can with any reasonable amount of accuracy.

 

[Sabz5150]

I think he watched austin powers and got all motivated.. Kinda like kicking the crap out of your siblings after watching a karate movie..

I wonder if HE has

"lasers"

Yes, they are on his "Death Star".

 

[MikeBergy]

You don't need a high rate of fire. Nobody- except maybe the US- has enough missiles to even think about shooting high numbers of long range units at one target. They're generally sophisticated enough to be able to knock things out in one shot. If you're shooting at different targets, you're not going to be able to have the range to know them all down with one laser anyway, so rapid fire isn't an issue... yet.

As for taking things out in LEO, we can. I doubt anyone else can with any reasonable amount of accuracy.

My point exactly. I know that WE have the capability. If we are putting commercial payloads in an exact position in orbit, you can bet we developed the technology for the military first. I know that our guidance systems for our missiles are much more advanced than 99% of the rest of the world's technology.

Sabz, I'm not saying you're wrong in anything you say, I'm just saying that the engineering work has been done, and even if there weren't space based laser platforms, I'm sure we already have the technology and blueprints necessary to have one if we wanted. Chemical lasers are no big deal anymore; we have the technology, now to get the package size down to where we can fly around with them, which is the major issue with flying lasers around in an aircraft, as the power generation and cooling systems are bulky. I'm sure that on a satellite, where weight is not really an issue (except on launch), that there would be no problem with the bulk of those systems. I'm sure the cooling problem has been solved by now.

 

[Sabz5150]

Sabz, I'm not saying you're wrong in anything you say, I'm just saying that the engineering work has been done, and even if there weren't space based laser platforms, I'm sure we already have the technology and blueprints necessary to have one if we wanted. Chemical lasers are no big deal anymore; we have the technology, now to get the package size down to where we can fly around with them, which is the major issue with flying lasers around in an aircraft, as the power generation and cooling systems are bulky. I'm sure that on a satellite, where weight is not really an issue (except on launch), that there would be no problem with the bulk of those systems. I'm sure the cooling problem has been solved by now.

Oh I know we have the technology to rebuild him (TM) Whoops, sorry...

Yes, we do have the ability to create orbital laser weapons for the sole intent of smacking down a missile. Heck, the military wants to stuff these things on fighter jets, possibly replacing the vulcan cannon for the purpose of missile defense. These, of course, can also be used to knock down enemy fighters, but with a cooling/recharge time of a few minutes, they are simply not useful in a combat situation.

What I am arguing against here is this crazy con notion that any of them other un-free countries out there would use these weapons (if they had them) to attack other countries. That's completely absurd! These weapons are not designed for that purpose, nor do they have the capacity to do so. Firing a high powered laser for a matter of seconds to pop a missile, no problem. Firing a continous blast for the purpose of attacking a country... that's when the line between reality and sci-fi is crossed. We don't have the technology to build a weapon of THAT magnitude. That's what I am going on about.

Too much heat way too fast and less than optimal cooling capabilites. Give us fifty to a hundred years and then we'll have lasers that can do that. More than likely they will be used for lunar and asteroid mining.

I think we're the only species in the galaxy stupid enough to point weapons at our own planet.

 

[MikeBergy]

Oh I know we have the technology to rebuild him (TM) Whoops, sorry...

Yes, we do have the ability to create orbital laser weapons for the sole intent of smacking down a missile. Heck, the military wants to stuff these things on fighter jets, possibly replacing the vulcan cannon for the purpose of missile defense. These, of course, can also be used to knock down enemy fighters, but with a cooling/recharge time of a few minutes, they are simply not useful in a combat situation.

What I am arguing against here is this crazy con notion that any of them other un-free countries out there would use these weapons (if they had them) to attack other countries. That's completely absurd! These weapons are not designed for that purpose, nor do they have the capacity to do so. Firing a high powered laser for a matter of seconds to pop a missile, no problem. Firing a continous blast for the purpose of attacking a country... that's when the line between reality and sci-fi is crossed. We don't have the technology to build a weapon of THAT magnitude. That's what I am going on about.

Too much heat way too fast and less than optimal cooling capabilites. Give us fifty to a hundred years and then we'll have lasers that can do that. More than likely they will be used for lunar and asteroid mining.

I think we're the only species in the galaxy stupid enough to point weapons at our own planet.

On that matter, I completely agree with you there. I must have missed the part of the conversation, where the laser talk turned into death ray talk. It is absurd to think lasers could blow up cities and stuff, lol.

The solid state lasers they are looking to place on the JSF have a thermal efficiency of about 10%, better than the chemical lasers by far, and without the nasty chemicals. I think the last time I read up on the system, the one being researched at the AFRL, the big thing they were looking into was in fact the cooling system. The power generation is there, now to move that heat (~90% of the total power dissipated while firing, yikes for the megawatts) away from the system.