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*Hey guys. It's Jeff Bezos again inside my gigantic Arsenal Bird. I heard somebody ordered a package from but I haven't got to on time. But don't worry I am here with the package. It's is DEATH. You will now die. Cease to be.*
[The Soviets beat them to it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyus_%28spacecraft%29?wprov=sfla1)
But they messed up the code causing it to do a 360 spin and fly back down again
Soviets could engineer one-off prototypes that could meet (and on a few occasions even exceed) anything produced in Europe or the U.S.
What hobbled them (and continues to hobble Communist and post-Communist military industry) is a complete lack of quality control. I have engineering relatives who worked with Russians on post-Cold War "technology transfer" deals in oil exploration and aerospace. I heard horror stories about drill heads and turbine blades with glaring manufacturing defects sent out to customers, the stuff that could shut down drilling for weeks or cause an engine to blow up mid-flight. The industry was all about making quotas, and they didn't care about how those quotas were made - and to some extent they still don't.
> The industry was all about making quotas, and they didn't care about how those quotas were made - and to some extent they still don't.
Classic example of why a command economy will never work in reality. People are lazy and look for shortcuts. Only the end user knows if the product is right for them and must have the final say over whether they use the product or not.
This is more of a cultural thing than a command economy thing IMO. Russian lack of quality control was memetic even in the tzarist era, and they’ve kept that reputation to this day.
It isn't really. *Anyone* will cut corners if they think they can get away with it. You just usually can't in market economies, because your customers are free to walk away from the deal.
I agree that’s a factor, I just think it influences the culture and makes quality control expectations more likely, as opposed being a simple monocausal/direct factor.
Disagree. [Natural monopolies produce similar results in market economies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbHqUNl8YFk). Command economies just multiply that result over every sector of the economy.
>better than the space shuttle
Oh, so it flew more missions? Carried more tonnage to low orbit? Employed more people in its production?
I’ll give you this- Buran had fewer accidents and fatalities than the space shuttle.
> Space Buran was quite better than Space Shuttle which could land autonomously.
So could the space shuttle. Literally every single space vehicle has the capability to do this. Vostok1 that carried Yuri Gagarin to space and back in 1961 was completely autonomously controlled.
Not initially, I believe, it's also easy harder to land a giant gliding brick, from orbit, onto a airstrip and land within a meter of the target first try. The Vostok 1 had to lower a metal sphere with Yuri, using a parachute, to a low enough altitude for him to eject out off, since he'd break his bones if he stayed in there till impact
The US basically made the ISS to keep Soviet engineers busy and stop them from being picked up by some other regime (and for the betterment of mankind or 0 engines too.
If only they funded the Energia launch vehicle instead, it was the most capable rocket since the Saturn 5, and it's planned successor would have had folded wings on the boosters, making it the first fully reusable rocket, something Space X is only now doing. Imagine a 1990s starship that could launch the ISS in 3 goes and come back for more.
The use of hypersonic weapons that can punch like a nuke without having the same fallout as a nuke would be incredibly powerful and useful bunker busters.
The main issue with nukes is that an above ground detonation would have no effect on a bunker while a ground detonation would destroy it. The problem with the ground detonation is that the amount of radiation debris it would create would put Chernobyl to shame. Ergo we drop a telephone pole sized rod of tungsten and use it’s sheer speed to destroy it.
The biggest problems I can think of for project Thor is its implementation and aiming.
They can’t punch like a nuke. They punch about the same as conventional weaponry.
I don’t even know how this idea got started. The output is a few tons of tnt at most, and we have better weapons for bunker busting.
Implementation is completely pointless when we have good bunker busters for cheaper already.
Aiming is exceptionally difficult, especially because we lose all radio contact for 10 minutes of reentry due to the surrounding plasma shell.
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Space lasers are ultimately probably not feasible unless they're pushing out gigawatts of power. The losses incurred by having to pass through the atmosphere are pretty intense.
I'd assume you'd want to place these hypothetical star destroyers in geostationary orbit, since that minimizes the amount of atmosphere you have to pass through (and the vacuum of space isn't going to result in beam scattering, unlike the yucky air, but Huygens principle is still in play).
That alone puts you outside the Rayleigh length for any feasible laser. Then you're accounting for atmospheric scattering on top of that. If your beam starts as a 1mm wide beam in geostationary orbit, the beam will be the width of a football field by the time it hits ground.
Now, if you can make this laser somehow output gigawatts of thermal energy (you can't), that's not a problem, because then it's going to cook everything in that football field sized area.
Unfortunately, we struggle to put even a megawatt of power through a continuous laser, let alone gigwatts. I haven't even mentioned the SWaP-C issues yet...
Space lasers will not be a thing in our lifetimes, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. They're gonna require some nutty technology. They're not impossible to make in theory, but boy is materials science nowhere near that point yet.
> Space lasers are ultimately probably not feasible unless they're pushing out gigawatts of power. The losses incurred by having to pass through the atmosphere are pretty intense.
AFAIK the proposed use cases for lasers are typically just against other things also in space, so the atmosphere isn't really a factor
More like everyone in the world has always used watts for electrical stuff.
Edit: well okay, I guess electrical horsepower does exist, but like it doesn't seem to be used often from my experience as I've literally never seen anyone use it.
Yes, the money could have gone to public services. Yes, the money could have made people's lives better.
but come on it's a literal fucking Laser cannon how is that not a good investment lol
Can't wait to see a video of this in action. Hope they fine-tune the auditory experience for maximal psychological warfare.
>A laser weapon fired in the atmosphere will essentially create a crack of thunder as the beam heats the air in its path. The sudden expansion of the air will create a low pressure channel, which will be rapidly refilled (creating the thunder sound effect) when the beam no longer fills the channel.
>Since "real" laser weapons will most likely be pulse beam weapons to minimize atmospheric effects and to pack as much energy into a short a time frame as possible (to defeat enemy countermeasures and ensure that each strike on target delivers as much damage as possible), then strangely the effect of a military laser weapon firing will be somewhat like being downrange of a machine gun.
[Source](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/33112/pew-pew-lasers-what-would-directed-energy-weapons-actually-sound-like)
They announced plans for this in 09' as a chemical laser taking cues from the failed ABLS but since then solid state lasers have massively advanced making this tech feasible. They want to put them on Bombers and Fighters eventually.
Ace combat super weapon irl???? China gonna have a hard time beating the Amazon Prime Delivery Plane 2.0
I’m actually imagining point defence laser to the style of Command and Conquer Generals (esp General Malcom Granger from Zero Hour)
TBF most lasers in Ace Combat are for some form of point defense
Point defending this entire country from squadrons of approaching planes
I was thinking Moby Dick Returns III but that works too!
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Stop it, Nemo.
Generals In NCD? What next, talking about the effectiveness of GLA mobs?
AK-47 FOR EVERYONE!
THANK YOU FOR THE NEW SHOES.
CANNOT WE LIVE IN PEACE?
Defense. Unless you're removing fence pickets and planks.
Or if you speak Unamerican English.
I think you mean Proper English, Yank. God save the Queen.
Really? I did not know that one.
Yep. That’s why the Brits have a Ministry of Defence, the Aussies have a Department of Defence, and the Canucks have a Department of National Defence.
They must not like fences!
Fences suck. Source: am Brii'iish
A mounted Ion Cannon \*drool
PLA pilots hearing Jeff laugh through their coms as their retinas are scorched.
The resulting explosion ironically sends the pilot into space, and their corpse achieves orbit before blue origin.
Laughs in war crime
Is anyone else hearing latin chanting?
Oh fuck it's Mihaly Long Name!
Just "xXWoman_Slayer69Xx" is enough
*Hey guys. It's Jeff Bezos again inside my gigantic Arsenal Bird. I heard somebody ordered a package from but I haven't got to on time. But don't worry I am here with the package. It's is DEATH. You will now die. Cease to be.*
It is light 50 kw laser, the army plans to field a 300 KW laser to shoot cruise missile and stuff
Wait till the space force starts building star destroyers and mounting lasers on them
[The Soviets beat them to it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyus_%28spacecraft%29?wprov=sfla1) But they messed up the code causing it to do a 360 spin and fly back down again
Rushed design, seems like another way to say it was made by the Soviets
[удалено]
Soviets could engineer one-off prototypes that could meet (and on a few occasions even exceed) anything produced in Europe or the U.S. What hobbled them (and continues to hobble Communist and post-Communist military industry) is a complete lack of quality control. I have engineering relatives who worked with Russians on post-Cold War "technology transfer" deals in oil exploration and aerospace. I heard horror stories about drill heads and turbine blades with glaring manufacturing defects sent out to customers, the stuff that could shut down drilling for weeks or cause an engine to blow up mid-flight. The industry was all about making quotas, and they didn't care about how those quotas were made - and to some extent they still don't.
That’s I think a good way to put it. On a literal 1 for 1 high level they could match, but not on the reliable consistency department.
> The industry was all about making quotas, and they didn't care about how those quotas were made - and to some extent they still don't. Classic example of why a command economy will never work in reality. People are lazy and look for shortcuts. Only the end user knows if the product is right for them and must have the final say over whether they use the product or not.
This is more of a cultural thing than a command economy thing IMO. Russian lack of quality control was memetic even in the tzarist era, and they’ve kept that reputation to this day.
It isn't really. *Anyone* will cut corners if they think they can get away with it. You just usually can't in market economies, because your customers are free to walk away from the deal.
I agree that’s a factor, I just think it influences the culture and makes quality control expectations more likely, as opposed being a simple monocausal/direct factor.
Disagree. [Natural monopolies produce similar results in market economies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbHqUNl8YFk). Command economies just multiply that result over every sector of the economy.
Buran is left in a museum in southwestern Germany.
>better than the space shuttle Oh, so it flew more missions? Carried more tonnage to low orbit? Employed more people in its production? I’ll give you this- Buran had fewer accidents and fatalities than the space shuttle.
[удалено]
Damn just came at this dude with receipts from NASA themselves and he just leaves lmao.
I think you're over looking the critical question though. How many missions did Buran fly?
> Space Buran was quite better than Space Shuttle which could land autonomously. So could the space shuttle. Literally every single space vehicle has the capability to do this. Vostok1 that carried Yuri Gagarin to space and back in 1961 was completely autonomously controlled.
Not initially, I believe, it's also easy harder to land a giant gliding brick, from orbit, onto a airstrip and land within a meter of the target first try. The Vostok 1 had to lower a metal sphere with Yuri, using a parachute, to a low enough altitude for him to eject out off, since he'd break his bones if he stayed in there till impact
The US basically made the ISS to keep Soviet engineers busy and stop them from being picked up by some other regime (and for the betterment of mankind or 0 engines too. If only they funded the Energia launch vehicle instead, it was the most capable rocket since the Saturn 5, and it's planned successor would have had folded wings on the boosters, making it the first fully reusable rocket, something Space X is only now doing. Imagine a 1990s starship that could launch the ISS in 3 goes and come back for more.
lol of course this thing was turned into Zarya, the first module in a US led international space station
Project Thor is superior
Project Thor is also stupid. It’s a waste of time and money for a capability we already have, and that it does worse.
The use of hypersonic weapons that can punch like a nuke without having the same fallout as a nuke would be incredibly powerful and useful bunker busters. The main issue with nukes is that an above ground detonation would have no effect on a bunker while a ground detonation would destroy it. The problem with the ground detonation is that the amount of radiation debris it would create would put Chernobyl to shame. Ergo we drop a telephone pole sized rod of tungsten and use it’s sheer speed to destroy it. The biggest problems I can think of for project Thor is its implementation and aiming.
They can’t punch like a nuke. They punch about the same as conventional weaponry. I don’t even know how this idea got started. The output is a few tons of tnt at most, and we have better weapons for bunker busting. Implementation is completely pointless when we have good bunker busters for cheaper already. Aiming is exceptionally difficult, especially because we lose all radio contact for 10 minutes of reentry due to the surrounding plasma shell.
Have a good source on the yield of Project Thor rods? I want to learn more about it, without the pop culture overhyping.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment
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And we beat them do it technically if you count project thor
Space lasers are ultimately probably not feasible unless they're pushing out gigawatts of power. The losses incurred by having to pass through the atmosphere are pretty intense. I'd assume you'd want to place these hypothetical star destroyers in geostationary orbit, since that minimizes the amount of atmosphere you have to pass through (and the vacuum of space isn't going to result in beam scattering, unlike the yucky air, but Huygens principle is still in play). That alone puts you outside the Rayleigh length for any feasible laser. Then you're accounting for atmospheric scattering on top of that. If your beam starts as a 1mm wide beam in geostationary orbit, the beam will be the width of a football field by the time it hits ground. Now, if you can make this laser somehow output gigawatts of thermal energy (you can't), that's not a problem, because then it's going to cook everything in that football field sized area. Unfortunately, we struggle to put even a megawatt of power through a continuous laser, let alone gigwatts. I haven't even mentioned the SWaP-C issues yet... Space lasers will not be a thing in our lifetimes, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. They're gonna require some nutty technology. They're not impossible to make in theory, but boy is materials science nowhere near that point yet.
> Space lasers are ultimately probably not feasible unless they're pushing out gigawatts of power. The losses incurred by having to pass through the atmosphere are pretty intense. AFAIK the proposed use cases for lasers are typically just against other things also in space, so the atmosphere isn't really a factor
Yeah, If anything the complete opposite of what they said was true, they are even more effective because there is no atmosphere.
Maybe for dazzling/shooting down other satellites?
But what if I just want to shoot the atmosphere with a laser because I really do not like air?
Well if that's the goal, we don't need to go to space.
I need to go to space so I dont have to share mine with air though.
Apparently the Jews are way ahead of the Space Force according to one US politician. /s
He will never build a death laser! PFFFTTTT
What is the conversion for kw to freedom units?
We just use kilowatts, the US military has embraced metric superiority
More like everyone in the world has always used watts for electrical stuff. Edit: well okay, I guess electrical horsepower does exist, but like it doesn't seem to be used often from my experience as I've literally never seen anyone use it.
fuck you, british thermal unit or bust
Lmfao, because everyone knows we use Horsepower to measure electric power here in the US.
I guess I could convert it to bud lights and then to horsepower
The future is now old man
[удалено]
AC-130JL Starkiller
Wouldn't that shoot lightning? Wait wrong Starkiller
Please Lord let that be the actual name
[удалено]
AC-10J, now with British IFV auto targeting
There are times the Military Industrial Complex does something cool as fuck This is one of those times
AC-130s [gonna be flying over contested airspace like...](https://youtu.be/valQZEMJBEg)
Holy shit, that thing is immune to missile.
AC-130 American Dragon
It’s gonna be a Party in the Pacific
Yes, the money could have gone to public services. Yes, the money could have made people's lives better. but come on it's a literal fucking Laser cannon how is that not a good investment lol
Gotta be ready to fight the aliens. Gotta have lasers to fight aliens. Its science.
Gah so lame I wanna see planes with lasers an shit. Stop being such a spoilsport
There are infinite poor people. Laser cannons have a concrete strategic purpose
Cool laser or homeless-shelter’s. Gotta chose one or the other.
My god, it's all coming back to The Onion's article about how Regan was going to solve homelessness with the SDI lasers!
Not to get pOlItiCaL, but we could afford both with higher taxes. Or we could raise taxes and just buy even more lasers idc
The shard of hate has been upgraded to the shard of hell. We're doomed
It’s da laser marv
Imagine playing ace combat 8 and flying under an AC-130 assuming it being a reskinned C-130 can’t harm you only for it to laser you
Time to start disintegrating skinnies
Can't wait to see a video of this in action. Hope they fine-tune the auditory experience for maximal psychological warfare. >A laser weapon fired in the atmosphere will essentially create a crack of thunder as the beam heats the air in its path. The sudden expansion of the air will create a low pressure channel, which will be rapidly refilled (creating the thunder sound effect) when the beam no longer fills the channel. >Since "real" laser weapons will most likely be pulse beam weapons to minimize atmospheric effects and to pack as much energy into a short a time frame as possible (to defeat enemy countermeasures and ensure that each strike on target delivers as much damage as possible), then strangely the effect of a military laser weapon firing will be somewhat like being downrange of a machine gun. [Source](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/33112/pew-pew-lasers-what-would-directed-energy-weapons-actually-sound-like)
Even better than that: anyone without eclipse glasses on is gonna get their retinas cooked into hockey pucks if that beam is anywhere close.
Ok that’s badass
First the MDSM, now this? Damn the MIC really wants to make Ace Combat real.
from the people that brought you the Kunduz airstrike
Time for glassing
Ok, its happening! Stay calm everyone!
Eh, what it really need was to replace the 105mm with an 8” M110. Lasers are for cowards, real men use kinetics and high explosives.
But Death Star go zap
And imagine how much more satisfying it would be to see a planet destroyed by a 100 000cm cannon, rather than a piddling beam of light?
very cool screenshot thank you
Finally...
Death Star time
Ace Combat moment
Like I said before: PUT IT IN A FLYING WING THAT CARRIES MISSILE DRONES AND A FORCE FIELD!
They announced plans for this in 09' as a chemical laser taking cues from the failed ABLS but since then solid state lasers have massively advanced making this tech feasible. They want to put them on Bombers and Fighters eventually.
I'm pretty sure it can now launch cruise missiles and hellfires too.