Mad Max Space Robot
December 29th, 2008 by Jon Taplin
Here is the perfect representation of American Space Warfare Development. An insane robot hovering in space firing wildly in every direction. If this little joke hadn’t cost the taxpayers $ billions, I could laugh. Obama has to stop this insanity.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBMU6l6GsdM&eurl]
Is that the ultimate claymore replacement?
Is that the ultimate claymore replacement?
Is that the ultimate claymore replacement?
Damn – really could’ve used one of those in Minneapolis last September.
Damn – really could’ve used one of those in Minneapolis last September.
“American Space Warfare Development”????
With tags of “Missile defense”, “Multiple Kill Vehicle”, “Space Warfare”, and “Star Wars”?
Did you even bother to look up what this thing actually does? First, it has nothing to do with space whatsoever. It is designed to fly for a few seconds only and fire projectiles to destroy ballistic missiles (a credible threat mind you, as ballistic missiles are possessed by many nations (unlike ICBMs) some of whom (Iran, North Korea) frequently threaten allies (Israel, Japan) with their weaponry) . It is not firing in every direction, but rather maneuvers in the air by firing jets (as a satellite might in space) to push itself around. In fact this drone does not shoot its armament even once. This is quite an amazing piece of technology if you think about it, hovering and maneuvering in the air with complete stability without the use of rotors or wings.
So, it has nothing to do with space, and is a practical solution to the problems we have today protecting our soldiers, and allies, from the enemy. Linked to a missile detection device, this drone would deploy and destroy incoming enemy missiles to save lives. That sounds like a damned good idea to me.
This is another one of those interesting and useful pieces of technology which the military pours its money into in the hopes of not only producing a weapon, but of actually solving problems in engineering which may have eventual benefits to society. Future military uses for autonomous drones which might move around at low altitudes with a large amount of agility are certainly obvious (including reconnaissance and attack). Benefits to society are less obvious, but I admit to knowing little enough about this field to be able to say that no good ones are envisioned (although as with many military technologies search and rescue is an obvious candidate).
Every technology must be reassessed in terms of its practical benefit to our soldiers, our military capabilities, and our society. By all means, I hope Obama does so, and I hope he fixes the corrupt process by which we award and supervise contracts. Undoubtedly the defense complex in this country is a huge money waster. But that does not mean there are not good or worthwhile projects in the works.
Criticizing a technology you evidently know nothing about, simply because you do not immediately understand its purpose or method of operation is foolish. Comparing it to Mad Max (perhaps because of the cage’s similarity to the Thunderdome?) and conjecturing that it must have cost billions of dollars without any factual support is poor journalism, and attempts to make your point by misdirection and emotional appeals rather than building an actual case. Your lack of research is quite appalling, considering that a simple google of the name (MKV-L) would have explained its purpose and uses adequately.
I expected better.
“American Space Warfare Development”????
With tags of “Missile defense”, “Multiple Kill Vehicle”, “Space Warfare”, and “Star Wars”?
Did you even bother to look up what this thing actually does? First, it has nothing to do with space whatsoever. It is designed to fly for a few seconds only and fire projectiles to destroy ballistic missiles (a credible threat mind you, as ballistic missiles are possessed by many nations (unlike ICBMs) some of whom (Iran, North Korea) frequently threaten allies (Israel, Japan) with their weaponry) . It is not firing in every direction, but rather maneuvers in the air by firing jets (as a satellite might in space) to push itself around. In fact this drone does not shoot its armament even once. This is quite an amazing piece of technology if you think about it, hovering and maneuvering in the air with complete stability without the use of rotors or wings.
So, it has nothing to do with space, and is a practical solution to the problems we have today protecting our soldiers, and allies, from the enemy. Linked to a missile detection device, this drone would deploy and destroy incoming enemy missiles to save lives. That sounds like a damned good idea to me.
This is another one of those interesting and useful pieces of technology which the military pours its money into in the hopes of not only producing a weapon, but of actually solving problems in engineering which may have eventual benefits to society. Future military uses for autonomous drones which might move around at low altitudes with a large amount of agility are certainly obvious (including reconnaissance and attack). Benefits to society are less obvious, but I admit to knowing little enough about this field to be able to say that no good ones are envisioned (although as with many military technologies search and rescue is an obvious candidate).
Every technology must be reassessed in terms of its practical benefit to our soldiers, our military capabilities, and our society. By all means, I hope Obama does so, and I hope he fixes the corrupt process by which we award and supervise contracts. Undoubtedly the defense complex in this country is a huge money waster. But that does not mean there are not good or worthwhile projects in the works.
Criticizing a technology you evidently know nothing about, simply because you do not immediately understand its purpose or method of operation is foolish. Comparing it to Mad Max (perhaps because of the cage’s similarity to the Thunderdome?) and conjecturing that it must have cost billions of dollars without any factual support is poor journalism, and attempts to make your point by misdirection and emotional appeals rather than building an actual case. Your lack of research is quite appalling, considering that a simple google of the name (MKV-L) would have explained its purpose and uses adequately.
I expected better.
Ned- You may be right, but my guess is that missile defense is costing Billions a year. How do you know this crackpot weapon works? It makes even less sense if it is firing as 20,000 feet.You are just taking the MIC on their word. One more wonderful weapon brought to you by the people who have pawned the V-22 Osprey on us.
Ned- You may be right, but my guess is that missile defense is costing Billions a year. How do you know this crackpot weapon works? It makes even less sense if it is firing as 20,000 feet.You are just taking the MIC on their word. One more wonderful weapon brought to you by the people who have pawned the V-22 Osprey on us.
Ned- You may be right, but my guess is that missile defense is costing Billions a year. How do you know this crackpot weapon works? It makes even less sense if it is firing as 20,000 feet.You are just taking the MIC on their word. One more wonderful weapon brought to you by the people who have pawned the V-22 Osprey on us.
Ned, can you explain to me what the purpose of destroying a plutonium warhead on approach might be? (There’s no certain detection technology that can separate legit launches from illegitimate ones before apogee).
Aside from that, isn’t this a little like building a Maginot line? If the history of the late 20th Century has taught us anything, it’s that the major threats will probably come from non-state actors.
As Jon said, there are more useful things to spend defense dollars on.
Granted, this technology could turn a few million deaths into a couple of thousand long agonising ones after the airborne plutonium comes to rest, but surely the comfort it might give military planners is precisely the reason not to deploy it? If a rogue state chooses a nuclear strike they’re *much* more likely to do it with non-ballistic delivery, since direct retaliation becomes trickier in those cases. If a state like Russia or China chooses ballistic missile delivery, aren’t we back in the 1970s and god help us all?
This is a weapon without a clear scenario for use in mind.
Ned, can you explain to me what the purpose of destroying a plutonium warhead on approach might be? (There’s no certain detection technology that can separate legit launches from illegitimate ones before apogee).
Aside from that, isn’t this a little like building a Maginot line? If the history of the late 20th Century has taught us anything, it’s that the major threats will probably come from non-state actors.
As Jon said, there are more useful things to spend defense dollars on.
Granted, this technology could turn a few million deaths into a couple of thousand long agonising ones after the airborne plutonium comes to rest, but surely the comfort it might give military planners is precisely the reason not to deploy it? If a rogue state chooses a nuclear strike they’re *much* more likely to do it with non-ballistic delivery, since direct retaliation becomes trickier in those cases. If a state like Russia or China chooses ballistic missile delivery, aren’t we back in the 1970s and god help us all?
This is a weapon without a clear scenario for use in mind.
Just to clarify, this Multiple Kill Vehicle is in development as part of Lockheed Martin’s contract with the Missile Defense Agency to develop a method of destroying ICBM (Ned, that’s Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (M.I.R.V.) and relevant countermeasures. It probably is designed to work in both atmosphere and space. In other words, Jon is right, this is basically Star Wars all over again, only well after the conclusion of the Cold War.
Just to clarify, this Multiple Kill Vehicle is in development as part of Lockheed Martin’s contract with the Missile Defense Agency to develop a method of destroying ICBM (Ned, that’s Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (M.I.R.V.) and relevant countermeasures. It probably is designed to work in both atmosphere and space. In other words, Jon is right, this is basically Star Wars all over again, only well after the conclusion of the Cold War.
The entire international arms race is a dressed up reflection of street level thuggery called the protection scam.
“If you don’t pay us we can not guarantee your security.”
It means the protection from themselves as much as others. Like glass merchants’ errand boys breaking glass. At the higher levels it is called “national and international security”.
The national and international security have to be taken to a transparent system. The police and military secrecy stink. Hiding places for the thugs. Just like the nation states.
The entire international arms race is a dressed up reflection of street level thuggery called the protection scam.
“If you don’t pay us we can not guarantee your security.”
It means the protection from themselves as much as others. Like glass merchants’ errand boys breaking glass. At the higher levels it is called “national and international security”.
The national and international security have to be taken to a transparent system. The police and military secrecy stink. Hiding places for the thugs. Just like the nation states.
What a surprise that “programs” in the military procurement process are… ALIVE… and are very hard to kill. Even by potential Multiple Kill Vehicles like the Obama team.
Just think what has to happen when you get a bunch of people investing their expensive taxpayer-underwritten educations into careers inside the military-industrial tent. Congress may blow off letters from ordinary constituents griping about TARP antics and such, but when the constituency for a “program” rolls into action, Katie bar the (Treasury) door.
You have lots of majors and colonels who would be generals circling the rings of the Pentagon looking for a “program” to hitch their would-be stars to. Knowing that successfully running a “program” is a pretty good ticket to a great efficiency rating and a rank raise and of course the golden showers that rain on them once they go out the revolving door and onto the “teams” pushing new “weapon systems.”
Hey, Ned, what do you do for a living? Are you in the business, in uniform or mufti, or are you just a True Believer who subscribes to Aviation Week and Space Technology, gets great satisfaction from mastering the arcane language of acronymy, can recite the specs and “missions” of multiply-targeted internal taxgrabbing vehicles, and likes the pictures of various “attack” devices on the covers of Popular Mechanix and Popular Science, zinging along and spitting fire in all directions? Do you really believe these “programs” buy any security, or is that just the boogieman you favor to keep the rest of us in fear that somebody just like you on the other side of the world is gathering “Communist” dollars to fund “programs” as incompetent, wasteful and destabilizing as the ones you favor? We are supposed to “trust” that the people who dream up these “really neat” gadgets give a rat’s patoot about the civilian economy that buys their toys for them, and that they have a prayer of perceiving actual “threats” to the continuation of civilization or even our own tribal nation-state?
Lockheed-Martin: That’s the outfit that puts out the morphing ads that appear on the Washington Post electronic front page, with pictures of dedicated young people vigilantly using L-M technology to save the rest of us, minute by minute, from all the other humans that they help ensure wish us harm. Under the copyrighted slogan, “We Never Forget Who We Are Working For.” And we are dumb enough to believe that the management of L-M, soaring on laughter-silvered wings of profit, is working for the “soft targets” and “cannon fodder” that gift them with trillions of dollars to play war games with? Yeah, probably, in aggregate, “we” are.
And Why do our elected representatives “listen” to the people who have lied about “threats” and “capabilities” so many times (Akira, where’s the “truth” to give these lies meaning?) that they all have the same long noses and shifty eyes and lipless square-jawed faces from trying to suppress their laughter and sneers as they toss another whopper on the committee room table? Bomber gap, missile gap, window of vulnerability, the vaunted “invulnerability” of Warsaw Pact troops (drunk, demoralized, abused, not even trusted to have maps of the terrain out of fear they would desert), the fraud that was the Sgt. York Division Air Defense System (apparently a sort of predecessor to the Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV) — always have to include the acronym in parentheses, to show we are in the know and part of the team). The Matrix that makes its living converting Real Wealth into “smart weapons” and such a boggling range of gold-plated toilet seats to address who-knows-what “horrible threats” that the rest of us are as cast down as the inhabitants of Jericho when the trumpets started blowing?
Congresspeople like the tax money of all of us to be concentrated in a nice neat pile out of which they can (mis)appropriate as much as their seniority and clout allow. To ship back to the befuddled voters in the district or state, who gloat over “their guy’s or gal’s” ability to “bring home the bacon,” to wit: a larger share of the common pot than their population would per stirpes or pro rata be entitled to, as proof that the elected ones should be returned again and again to the vaults of the Imperial Capitol.
So let’s hear all the justification for maybe 20 years of efforts to create an electronic brain and nervous system for a device that can balance and hover on the thrust of a central rocket, shooting squirts of rocket exhaust out to counteract destabilizing motions, trying to get to a device that can do what any person can do — stand up in one place, move about a little, shoot various weapons. But after spending billions and giving “scientists” the chance to exercise their play genes at our expense, to make a device that is “really neat” but is of course billions more away from actual “deployment.” The divide that once crossed, as the Matrix has managed for the V-22, turns a turkey into “just another program.”
And of course there are other colonels and corporate executives planning strategies right now to defeat the threats to THEIR programs posed by colonels and corporate executives pushing their OWN programs to the battlefront:
“Pentagon acquisition chief [referred to elsewhere on the same page as "acquisition czar"] john Young is irked with the Air Force’s difficulties in providing a coherent Fiscal 2010 budget proposal to the Defense secretary. “There are too many games being played,” he says, citing the Air Force’s proposal that its sister services — the Army and Navy (Maybe sisters like Goneril and Regan) — should help pick up the tab for building USAF satellites. Air Force officers argue that missile warning, communications and navigation services are provided to all of the services and the costs should be equally shared. There is “a cancer on this enterprise that is the service-level competition for resources,” says Young, noting the services, particularly the Air Force, underfund programs intentionally while asking for extra money for pet projects and sometimes overstating requirements.” You can’t grab this text on line without a $103/yr subscription to Aviation Week and Space Technology, where this paragraph appeared in “Washington Outlook,” on page 27 of the november 3, 2008 edition. As a dumb-chit citizen taxpayer, with about a third of my taxes going to the military, I can’t afford the subscription so I had to just type this in.
That one little paragraph, among several others on that page, seems to me to highlight one little piece of what’s wrong with the world and serve as yet another proof that the human species has a death wish.
But of course I could be wrong.
What a surprise that “programs” in the military procurement process are… ALIVE… and are very hard to kill. Even by potential Multiple Kill Vehicles like the Obama team.
Just think what has to happen when you get a bunch of people investing their expensive taxpayer-underwritten educations into careers inside the military-industrial tent. Congress may blow off letters from ordinary constituents griping about TARP antics and such, but when the constituency for a “program” rolls into action, Katie bar the (Treasury) door.
You have lots of majors and colonels who would be generals circling the rings of the Pentagon looking for a “program” to hitch their would-be stars to. Knowing that successfully running a “program” is a pretty good ticket to a great efficiency rating and a rank raise and of course the golden showers that rain on them once they go out the revolving door and onto the “teams” pushing new “weapon systems.”
Hey, Ned, what do you do for a living? Are you in the business, in uniform or mufti, or are you just a True Believer who subscribes to Aviation Week and Space Technology, gets great satisfaction from mastering the arcane language of acronymy, can recite the specs and “missions” of multiply-targeted internal taxgrabbing vehicles, and likes the pictures of various “attack” devices on the covers of Popular Mechanix and Popular Science, zinging along and spitting fire in all directions? Do you really believe these “programs” buy any security, or is that just the boogieman you favor to keep the rest of us in fear that somebody just like you on the other side of the world is gathering “Communist” dollars to fund “programs” as incompetent, wasteful and destabilizing as the ones you favor? We are supposed to “trust” that the people who dream up these “really neat” gadgets give a rat’s patoot about the civilian economy that buys their toys for them, and that they have a prayer of perceiving actual “threats” to the continuation of civilization or even our own tribal nation-state?
Lockheed-Martin: That’s the outfit that puts out the morphing ads that appear on the Washington Post electronic front page, with pictures of dedicated young people vigilantly using L-M technology to save the rest of us, minute by minute, from all the other humans that they help ensure wish us harm. Under the copyrighted slogan, “We Never Forget Who We Are Working For.” And we are dumb enough to believe that the management of L-M, soaring on laughter-silvered wings of profit, is working for the “soft targets” and “cannon fodder” that gift them with trillions of dollars to play war games with? Yeah, probably, in aggregate, “we” are.
And Why do our elected representatives “listen” to the people who have lied about “threats” and “capabilities” so many times (Akira, where’s the “truth” to give these lies meaning?) that they all have the same long noses and shifty eyes and lipless square-jawed faces from trying to suppress their laughter and sneers as they toss another whopper on the committee room table? Bomber gap, missile gap, window of vulnerability, the vaunted “invulnerability” of Warsaw Pact troops (drunk, demoralized, abused, not even trusted to have maps of the terrain out of fear they would desert), the fraud that was the Sgt. York Division Air Defense System (apparently a sort of predecessor to the Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV) — always have to include the acronym in parentheses, to show we are in the know and part of the team). The Matrix that makes its living converting Real Wealth into “smart weapons” and such a boggling range of gold-plated toilet seats to address who-knows-what “horrible threats” that the rest of us are as cast down as the inhabitants of Jericho when the trumpets started blowing?
Congresspeople like the tax money of all of us to be concentrated in a nice neat pile out of which they can (mis)appropriate as much as their seniority and clout allow. To ship back to the befuddled voters in the district or state, who gloat over “their guy’s or gal’s” ability to “bring home the bacon,” to wit: a larger share of the common pot than their population would per stirpes or pro rata be entitled to, as proof that the elected ones should be returned again and again to the vaults of the Imperial Capitol.
So let’s hear all the justification for maybe 20 years of efforts to create an electronic brain and nervous system for a device that can balance and hover on the thrust of a central rocket, shooting squirts of rocket exhaust out to counteract destabilizing motions, trying to get to a device that can do what any person can do — stand up in one place, move about a little, shoot various weapons. But after spending billions and giving “scientists” the chance to exercise their play genes at our expense, to make a device that is “really neat” but is of course billions more away from actual “deployment.” The divide that once crossed, as the Matrix has managed for the V-22, turns a turkey into “just another program.”
And of course there are other colonels and corporate executives planning strategies right now to defeat the threats to THEIR programs posed by colonels and corporate executives pushing their OWN programs to the battlefront:
“Pentagon acquisition chief [referred to elsewhere on the same page as "acquisition czar"] john Young is irked with the Air Force’s difficulties in providing a coherent Fiscal 2010 budget proposal to the Defense secretary. “There are too many games being played,” he says, citing the Air Force’s proposal that its sister services — the Army and Navy (Maybe sisters like Goneril and Regan) — should help pick up the tab for building USAF satellites. Air Force officers argue that missile warning, communications and navigation services are provided to all of the services and the costs should be equally shared. There is “a cancer on this enterprise that is the service-level competition for resources,” says Young, noting the services, particularly the Air Force, underfund programs intentionally while asking for extra money for pet projects and sometimes overstating requirements.” You can’t grab this text on line without a $103/yr subscription to Aviation Week and Space Technology, where this paragraph appeared in “Washington Outlook,” on page 27 of the november 3, 2008 edition. As a dumb-chit citizen taxpayer, with about a third of my taxes going to the military, I can’t afford the subscription so I had to just type this in.
That one little paragraph, among several others on that page, seems to me to highlight one little piece of what’s wrong with the world and serve as yet another proof that the human species has a death wish.
But of course I could be wrong.
And there’s not much new under the sun, I guess — I wonder if the bright guys who have been playing video games with billioins of dollars happened to see the movie “The Last Starfighter,” when they were just little Atari geeks back in 1984. And/or played the video game of the same name. And were just absolutely taken with the scene in which Grig the alien navigator and Alex the video-game-champion-hero-to-save-the-universe gunner attack the Mothership with their GunStar and then, running out of power, have to activate the “Death Blossom,” which looks in action just like the wet gamer’s dream of an MKV featured in the above video clip.
How cool, man!.
And there’s not much new under the sun, I guess — I wonder if the bright guys who have been playing video games with billioins of dollars happened to see the movie “The Last Starfighter,” when they were just little Atari geeks back in 1984. And/or played the video game of the same name. And were just absolutely taken with the scene in which Grig the alien navigator and Alex the video-game-champion-hero-to-save-the-universe gunner attack the Mothership with their GunStar and then, running out of power, have to activate the “Death Blossom,” which looks in action just like the wet gamer’s dream of an MKV featured in the above video clip.
How cool, man!.
One reason to continue to research these ridiculous weapons, and to spend the insane amount of money on the, is so that weapons engineers stay empliyed so they don’t start making weapons for use AGAINST us.
One reason to continue to research these ridiculous weapons, and to spend the insane amount of money on the, is so that weapons engineers stay empliyed so they don’t start making weapons for use AGAINST us.
One reason to continue to research these ridiculous weapons, and to spend the insane amount of money on the, is so that weapons engineers stay empliyed so they don’t start making weapons for use AGAINST us.