Crave

When I first saw this video, I thought to myself "Cute, but jeez. Somebody must have a lot of time on their hands!" and I laughed it off. Then I ran into this USB Missile Launcher today, and I realized that I need to take these fun USB gizmos a bit less seriously. I mean, it's hard to be serious and have fun at the same time!

Intimidating or not, the USB Missile Launcher is fun!

(Credit: Dong Ngo)

Boy, did I have fun with this little toy of war. You can steer it 360 degrees around and also up and down about 45 degrees. The bundled software that allows for controlling the missile launcher via a simulated launch pad makes a lot of noise each time you want to fire it. When you do fire the missiles, the software simulates the sound of a large explosion and depending on the volume of your speakers, it can be LOUD! However, what I've found I most like to do is turn off the sound and fire its three included foam missiles at my unsuspecting co-workers.

If you don't have the luxury of oblivious co-workers, don't worry. The gizmo comes with a large-size target poster for you to practice. It works with any computer running Windows 2000/XP or Vista that has an available USB port.

Peace out!

One shot was all it took for the Pentagon to decommission with extreme prejudice a spy satellite that first failed to operate and then started on a steady descent toward Mother Earth.

A Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) streaked skyward from the USS Lake Erie late Wednesday and whacked the satellite while it was still 130 or so miles up in space--and whizzing along at 17,000 miles per hour.

Defense Department officials quickly pronounced the mission a success, not just in hitting the satellite at all, but also in apparently rupturing its fuel tank. The rationale for the target shoot was the possibility that the satellite's 1,000 pounds of hydrazine, a hazardous substance, might be dispersed by a crash-landing in a populated area.

In a briefing Thursday morning, Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cited three pieces of evidence: a fireball, a vapor cloud, and results from spectral analysis.

"We're very confident that we hit the satellite. We also have a high degree of confidence that we got the tank," Cartwright said.

The Pentagon has made several videos available so far, including the silent short "Missile Intercept." Another short (1 minute) version includes voice-over by Cartwright, and a much longer one (28 minutes) carries his full press conference.

(Credit: Northrop Grumman )

The chances of your flight being hit by a shoulder-fired, laser-guided missile are good enough that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has spent more than $100 million looking into ways to prevent it.

Defense contractor Northrop Grumman just completed 6,000 hours of in-flight testing on its Guardian directed infrared countermeasures (DIRCM) system, all part of the DHS initiative to adapt existing military technology to protect commercial aircraft from attack by surface-to-air-missiles (SAM) similar to the U.S.-made Stinger.

The DIRCM system works by first detecting the attack, then directing an invisible, eye-safe laser to the homing/seeker device of the incoming missile, disrupting its guidance signals, which ultimately protects the aircraft, according to Northrop Grumman (video here).

Much of the testing has been conducted on FedEx MD-10 and MD-11 cargo jets, using a ground-based electronic missile surrogate to simulate the launch of a SAM at an aircraft during takeoff or landing. The Guardian performed as advertised by automatically detecting the simulated launch and mock missile, according to the company.

More than 40 commercial aircraft have been attacked by Man Portable Air Defense Systems (Manpads) since the 1970s, resulting in the loss of about 400 lives, according to the U.S. State Department.

In a report to Congress, DHS estimated the per-flight cost to be $65 more than it wants to spend, which is $300. That comes to about 70 cents per passenger on cross country flights.The unit itself cost around $1 million, but that's wholesale--orders of 1,000 or more please.

The industry has yet to get on board however. As one airline executive put it in an interview with Aviation Week, "Is this a prudent use of resources?" A plane could just as well be shot down by an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) or a .50-caliber machine gun. "Shouldn't we be doing more to go after the archer rather than trying to catch the arrows?" Then again, this is an industry allegedly too cheap to give its passengers fresh air.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)

News.com reporter Daniel Terdiman visited the Titan Missile Museum in Sahuarita, Ariz., as part of his Road Trip 2007 around the Southwest.

Located about 20 miles south of Tucson, the museum is located on a former Titan missile launching site. There, crews of four worked 24-hour shifts during which two people always had to be together to ensure safety and security. In this image, the tip of the missile--with warhead removed--is viewed from above through a glass window that allows museum visitors to peer down into the silo.

See more of his photos from the exhibition here.

Modern-day Missile Command.

(Credit: Atari)

In case you missed it--or don't own an Xbox 360--Missile Command is now available for download as an Xbox Live Arcade game (the full version is $5). The game includes both the old-school and the modern, "completely restylized version featuring evolved graphics and the newly introduced Throttle Monkey mode." If that Monkey Mode isn't enough for you, there's always a little wide-screen HD and Dolby Digital surround sound to amp up the action.

The old-school version is also included.

(Credit: Atari)

Click for more on the Airborne Laser

(Credit: Air Force photo by Bobby Jones)

The bulbous nose on this modified 747 is an early sign of progress in a weapons system that one day may fulfill the goals of the Pentagon's Airborne Laser program. The aircraft recently made its first cross-country flight, landing at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland--just as Congress is debating funding for the program as part of the overall defense budget for fiscal 2008.

Find out what a "megawatt-class chemical oxygen iodine laser beam" is when you click here for more on the Air Force and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency's plans for applying the laser weapon against ballistic missiles.

Remember the scene in Independence Day where the alien invaders blow up the White House with some sort of interstellar death ray? We Earthlings are still a long, long way from that sort of weaponry--just how far will depend, as so many things do, on budget battles in Washington.

The Airborne Laser aircraft at Andrews Air Force base on June 20, 2007.

(Credit: Air Force photo by Bobby Jones)

The Pentagon's premier "directed energy" weapons system is a missile-zapping laser that could someday soon be tooling around in a modified 747, if all goes right for a program valued at $3.8 billion. This week, the Airborne Laser aircraft paid a visit to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland--well known, of course, as a commuter airport of sorts for the president--as the destination of what the Pentagon says was the plane's first-ever cross-country flight.

Washington area residents need not worry about a misfire. The plane isn't yet equipped with the "megawatt-class chemical oxygen iodine laser beam" weapons system; that work is slated for sometime later this year. The Pentagon says the chemical laser has had 70 successful firings (on the ground, that is) over the past three years, and it is preparing for what it hopes will be the first takedown of a ballistic missile target in mid-2009. Eventually, the battle-ready chemical load would be sufficient to destroy an unspecified "many" missiles.

"We are going to put that big laser in the back...and then we're ready to shoot a missile down," Air Force Col. John Daniels, program director, said in a statement. "The biggest challenge we have right now is integration. The optics system is working. The battle management system works well. We even tracked an (intercontinental ballistic missile) with the sensors on the airplane."

Daniels continued: "When you put those big pieces together, and you get the software talking to each other and the systems, that's not trivial. It's really an integration challenge."

The political challenge, meanwhile, is to keep the funding alive. Reuters reported Thursday that preliminary votes in Congress have slashed between $200 million and $250 million from the program's $549 million portion of the proposed defense budget for fiscal 2008. Cuts on that level, Reuters said, would set the program back three years.

Daniels told reporters that the current level of budget cuts would delay the shootdown attempt by at least two years, according to Reuters.

Whatever happens in Congress, it's a long road ahead for the Airborne Laser as a truly battle-ready system. From this one plane so far, the Air Force aims to build a "production representative" model. The eventual goal is for the Air Force to have seven laser-equipped aircraft, all based in the U.S., that would cost about $1.5 billion apiece.

From Andrews Air Force Base, the Airborne Laser prototype plane was set to fly back to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., where flight tests are set to wrap up this summer. The program is based at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico and is managed by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.

I just came across this link to what must one of the more extreme forms of Star Wars fandom to extrude itself onto the Internet in recent memory: A hot air balloon in the shape of Darth Vader's helmet. (Via SciFi Tech and Boing Boing.)

(Credit: StarWars.com)

It was created by a mad Belgian inventor named Benoit Lambert, who, according to StarWars.com, received permission from Lucasfilm to build the balloon as long as it was used for non-commercial activities. It can carry two passengers and a pilot. There's no indication of when Lambert will build a lighter-than-air Death Star.

That's all fine, but as a pilot of fixed-wing planes myself, it would be more than a little worrisome to see Darth Vader's head looming up unexpectedly in the windscreen. According to federal aviation rules (see FAR 91.113), balloons supposedly have the right-of-way over all other aircraft. But the FARs say nothing about when it's Darth Vader's head -- which is why it's high time for us pilots to outfit our Cessnas with some badly-needed offensive weaponry.

Warning: If you have a phobia that involves spiders or robots, cease reading immediately. Tech Digest reports the sighting of a robot arachnid that can fire missiles (see YouTube video below). We predict that kids everywhere will be having nightmares this holiday season. Not to mention their parents.

(Photo: Mattel)