We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Airborne laser ground test I just picked this up form a Jane’s newsletter:
US announces successful tests of Airborne Laser
The US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) successfully fired multiple long-duration blasts of the Northrop Grumman high-energy Airborne Laser (ABL) during ground tests, the company announced on 19 February. The tests for the Boeing 747-400F-based ballistic missile defence system lasted up to three seconds each and were concluded on 12 February
This is good progress, but I am still waiting for the real test: shooting down an ICBM in flight.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
Shooting down an ICBM , God I wish it were true. Sadly the ABL will only be capable of hitting Scud type MRBM/IRBMs
Even so its quite an achievement and will be (If President O goes for a serious Missile Defense) an important part of the system and the only part (for now) that can hit missiles in the boost stage.
Er, actually, it’ll hit pretty much anything it gets pointed at.
Effectiveness? The potential target set is already longer than the single “Scud” (or Frog, or whatever medium range variant has been rebranded by the despot du jour, for that matter).
And who says you can only point it at rockets?
There’s an opportunity coming up between 4 April and 8 April for that Laser.
If you could stick it in a B2, it would be kind of amusing if Kim Jong Il were doing a photo-op and suddenly caught fire.