Russia is building a new ground-based laser facility for interfering with satellites orbiting overhead, according to a recent report in The Space Review. The basic idea would be to dazzle the optical sensors of other nations' spy satellites by flooding them with laser light.
Laser technology has evolved to the point where this type of anti-satellite defense is plausible, though there is limited evidence of any nation successfully testing such a laser.
If the Russian government is able to build the laser, it would be capable of shielding a large part of the country from the view of satellites with optical sensors. The technology also sets the stage for the more ominous possibility of laser weapons that can permanently disable satellites.
[...] The reputed new Russian laser facility is called Kalina. It is intended to dazzle, and therefore temporarily blind, the optical sensors of satellites that are collecting intelligence overhead. As with the U.S. LAIRCM, dazzling involves saturating the sensors with enough light to prevent them from functioning. Achieving this goal requires accurately delivering a sufficient amount of light into the satellite sensor. This is no easy feat given the very large distances involved and the fact that the laser beam must first pass through the Earth's atmosphere.
[...] In addition, space-based lasers could be used to target any satellite by aiming lasers at propellant tanks and power systems, which, if damaged, would completely disable the spacecraft.
As technology advances continue, the use of laser weapons in space becomes more likely. The question then becomes: What are the consequences?
(Score: 2) by SomeRandomGeek on Thursday July 28 2022, @03:28PM (4 children)
development will be abruptly discontinued following an inexplicable HIMARS mishap while field testing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 28 2022, @07:32PM (3 children)
I predict Russia will continue to invest in cheap disinformation and oblique funding of right-wing think tanks. It's working better than their fucking tanks lol.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2022, @04:53AM (2 children)
Our "right wing think tanks" are home grown, babe.. all American
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2022, @01:35PM
As an Australian I think that we, well just Rupert really, have had a bigger impact on turning American against American than any other foreign influence.
Maybe it's not something to be proud of.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by gnuman on Friday July 29 2022, @03:28PM
Sure, but outside support pushes them into the mainstream.
Take for example being LGBTQ+whatever in Uganda. Used to be accepted and people ignored it and whoever spoke against them, was mostly disregarded. Both, the group and the radicals against them lived mostly in obscurity. Then along comes the evangelicals from US and they literally turn Uganda into one of the least tolerant societies.
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2014/0225/Uganda-s-anti-gay-bill-refocuses-attention-on-US-evangelical-influence [csmonitor.com]
The US alt-right extremists are same and they get support from outside to become more radical.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Thursday July 28 2022, @03:41PM (6 children)
From the do-not-look-into-laser-with-remaining-satellite dept.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Spamalope on Thursday July 28 2022, @03:59PM (4 children)
Yep. If you can pull off something like this, you can wreck the camera sensors pointed at you. The trick is maintaining beam focus at distance and through atmospheric distortion. Presumably you'd want to fire from a high altitude cargo plane to help, and use some sort of active mirror beam forming.
I'm assuming though that
A) There are technical problems that make this very difficult
or
B) There are already secret projects to develop or that already developed something like this
(Score: 3, Informative) by MIRV888 on Thursday July 28 2022, @07:15PM
I seem to recall a 747 mounted laser platform. It never went into production, but I have no doubt we learned a lot.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Friday July 29 2022, @02:51AM
I'm also assuming we and pretty much every technically-advanced country is doing the same.
China has a satellite that was observed "picking up" another satellite and moving it to the remote-orbit graveyard. This seems to me to be much more practical than trying to poke 'em in the eye.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2022, @09:06AM (1 child)
i don't think its for the "wrecking" of the sensors, i haven't done the calculations but i don't think that is feasible from ground, to heat them enough to damage the hardware.
It's a supersized laser pointer, to deny surveillance capability for sats within range, i think.
About time someone did something about _that_ set of murican capabilities, what with all the rumours around their ability to do facial recognition from orbit almost anywhere and implanting hardware trojans with that x-whatever spaceplane.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2022, @11:56PM
If you are able to competently do the calculations for power densities needed to damage imaging sensors on orbit, then you can easily do the calculations for the system requirements needed to do facial recognition from orbit, and its likelihood of being possible.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Thexalon on Thursday July 28 2022, @06:08PM
Their future plans probably also include a cranial mount for large salt-water predatory fish.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Improbus on Thursday July 28 2022, @04:33PM
Oh Rods from God, where art thou?
(Score: 3, Funny) by SomeGuy on Thursday July 28 2022, @05:55PM
So THIS is where all of the obnoxious bright burn-out-your-retina blue LEDs have gone off to lately.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mojibake Tengu on Thursday July 28 2022, @06:57PM (3 children)
Consequently, the cyberpunk's not dead.
You know what to do.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 3, Interesting) by pdfernhout on Friday July 29 2022, @02:10PM (2 children)
https://pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html [pdfernhout.net]
"The big problem is that all these new war machines and the surrounding infrastructure are created with the tools of abundance. The irony is that these tools of abundance are being wielded by people still obsessed with fighting over scarcity. So, the scarcity-based political mindset driving the military uses the technologies of abundance to create artificial scarcity. That is a tremendously deep irony that remains so far unappreciated by the mainstream."
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 31 2022, @03:48AM
And it's hard to address that from the bottom up because the economies of scale don't exist to support it. For example, I can find an amazing variety of DIY projects out there. But there's a glaring absence of mass production techniques. You won't find a hobbyist making 50,000 cupcakes with a DIY automated kitchen, because they have no use for 50,000 cupcakes and probably couldn't afford the raw materials to make that many cupcakes even if the automated kitchen were completely cost free.
My take is that there's no irony here. These things remain very scarce and it'll take a lot more than attitude changes to fix that.
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Monday August 01 2022, @03:16AM
Mmmm, robots. And militarism.
I suppose you may appreciate a bit some fresh new Chinese Cyberpunk junk movie, The Red Sparrow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kq6lcNLIrA [youtube.com]
Though do not expect too much, it's simple action in overabundant rendering.
Your blog is refreshing, but overtly idealistic.
Concerning CNC machining and CIA, did you know, in WW1 times, the factories producing sewing machines or bicycles were the same facilities to produce machine guns?
Concerning Soviet math and stuff, I well remember the times when quaternion algebra, now part of every esteemed 3D engine was denied to ordinary math students everywhere because of ICBMs control systems.
As a result, uneducated engineers at NASA ended with a gimbal lock event on an Apollo ship.
But... Ignorance is Strength, isn't it?
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 4, Funny) by RamiK on Thursday July 28 2022, @07:03PM (2 children)
Why not just launch a rocket carrying a paintball warhead?
compiling...
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Monday August 01 2022, @03:35AM (1 child)
https://www.instructables.com/RPG-with-Paintball-Rockets/ [instructables.com]
One of the reasons I was looking for a wasted CLU module from Javelin.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Monday August 01 2022, @11:40AM
Seems pointless? I mean, the point of direct fire rockets is penetration but a paintball will obviously not do that... Now, an airsoft mortar... That's lolz worthy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Adnt_oqsUM [youtube.com]
:)
compiling...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by turgid on Thursday July 28 2022, @09:28PM (8 children)
I'd be more worried about China. They have a long term view and relatively stable governments. Mr Putin won't last forever and neither will Russia's money. While Russia stamps its feet and makes a lot of fuss with grandiose claims, distracting everyone, China quietly amasses wealth and power.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday July 28 2022, @11:21PM (3 children)
All it takes is a long time benighted despot for China to devolve.
Things like zero-Covid, GDP be damned [scmp.com] or fucking up the house market when it makes 20% of GDP [bloomberg.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2, Insightful) by legont on Friday July 29 2022, @01:46AM
China wants her economy to be robust to stresses. If I were federal reserve chairman, I'd roll a dice every year and exterminate the unlucky large bank. That's to make sure there are no hidden weakness in the system.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Friday July 29 2022, @03:34PM (1 child)
China wants to deflate the housing bubble. There is nothing wrong with that. This policy is enacted by the financial technocrats in China with blessing of the leadership. Xi said, "houses are for living in, not speculation". On that he's right.
But the zero-COVID policy is the policy tied with Xi and Xi alone and there are people against it. It may yet cost Xi his leadership. We will have to see. The problem is China has 90% vaccine coverage but only 30% of 80+ year old are vaccinated. They don't "trust" the government. So, if they stop zero-COVID policy, you can expect quite a large number of dead old people in China mostly caused by lack of vaccination in this group. I'm amazed that China is not pushing for mandatory vaccinations for the seniors.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday July 30 2022, @02:31AM
He may not be wrong in what he wants. This doesn't mean he's right in how this needs to be handled or over what duration of time.
I wish that would become true, but I admit this is very likely just wishful thinking ATM.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by MIRV888 on Friday July 29 2022, @02:25AM (3 children)
I agree that China is the bigger threat. They are going to make a play for Taiwan sooner or later. They've been saying it very clearly since the revolution, and have never deviated on this point. They are staging amphibious assault / preemptive strike drills. The question will be what do we do when they buck? The modernization of China's armed forces has been through a very successful intelligence operation. All their modern equipment is almost a direct rip off off our hardware. China is the threat.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday July 30 2022, @03:11AM (2 children)
We should have leaked defective designs, but made them think the defective designs were the real McCoy. You know, made them work to get the designs. Too bad so many IT admins are careless. But it's not just IT, major companies employ Chinese nationals. I remember years ago- I think it was Sandia National Laboratories- a Chinese spy had been working there and was found siphoning off secrets and shipping them home. WTF!
(Score: 2) by MIRV888 on Saturday July 30 2022, @07:01AM (1 child)
I worked with a fella in his late 20 who immigrated young, but had an uncle in china he spoke with all the time. He ran a 'factory' (always vague). I never thought much of it until he up and skated after 3 years. No call no show, which was not the man I had come to know. The equipment was not military, but definitely proprietary. YMMV
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday July 30 2022, @02:36PM
Similar story- in the late '90s I worked at an EEG company, maybe 70 employees. One guy was a Chinese, kept to himself, did software, fully involved in the company's deepest proprietary seizure detection algorithms and other brainwave anomaly detection. One day, in a rare conversation, he let out several things including saying that China will someday rule the world. I had NO doubt he was passing everything back to China, and shortly after I left he disappeared too.
Company owned and run by a very strong brilliant engineer who reminded me of John Wayne (actor). He had worked in TV electronics back in the 40s and 50s, and was the core architect and held patents on how color TV signals were embedded into the B&W signals- some of the most brilliant engineering I've ever seen. Anyway, super good hearted guy, but obviously naive. People just don't understand what they're really dealing with.
Years ago I got onto the idea of these Russian and other Eastern European brides. Never really pursued it. A very wise friend, who has literally lived in many countries, speaks, reads, and writes many languages including Russian, passionately explained to me what their culture is like, what they all have lived through from USSR to today, how competitive they are, and how very dangerous it is to totally trust one of them. That they're not intentionally evil, but they grow up in a culture of having to be ruthlessly self-sufficient, protect themselves, etc. I can think of 1 good friend who did marry a woman from Russia, and she ended up wiping him out in divorce. Lies on lies on lies and he had little to prove otherwise, and the courts don't really care. Besides, the whole thing drained and destroyed him financially and emotionally. Super good-hearted giving guy.
Bottom line- don't be naive (as if it was that simple!)