http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/x-51.htm
Posted on 12/28/2006 5:35:19 AM PST by IrishMike
I've had sources ask to meet me in some pretty odd places. But there was one meeting last year that had to be just about the strangest request yet. It wasn't just that this very-recently retired Defense Department strategist wanted to meet at the Pentagon City Mall -- that's a pretty common place to grab an off-the-record cup o' joe. It was where in the mall he had in mind: at the Nordstrom's coffee shop, tucked all the way in the far reaches of the store, just past the little kid's clothes section.
So I walk past the rows of toddlers' jumpers, past the blue-haired ladies ordering around their grandkids. I sit down with my source. And he begins to tell me about a Pentagon plan that's even odder that the place where we're meeting.
Here's the goal, as another source -- U.S. Strategic Command's deputy commander, Lt. Gen. C. Robert Kehler -- later told me on-the-record: "strike virtually anywhere on the face of the Earth within 60 minutes." ............................................. Now, of course, the American military has weapons that can destroy just about anything on the planet in a matter of minutes: nuclear missiles. Which might have been the right answer for containing our Soviet adversaries. But as the Cold War receded into memory, U.S. strategists began to worry that our nuclear threat was no longer credible. That we were too muscle-bound for our own good. Were we really prepared to wipe out Tehran in retribution for a single terrorist attack? Kill millions of Chinese for invading Taiwan? Of course not. The weaker our enemies grew, the less ominous our arsenal became. Military theorists called it "self-deterrence." "In today's environment, we've got zeros and ones. You can decide to engage with nuclear weapons, or not," Navy Capt. Terry Benedict
(Excerpt) Read more at military.com ...
New hi-tech weapons? Works for me. Fine. But I hope they will make use of them, otherwise its useless.
His source required a clandestine secretive meeting in Nordstrom's coffee shop???
LOL, It's the front page article for last month's Popular Science...
Pretty looking bird.
Off the record sounds like classified information. Its time these leakers start getting shot.
"Everything will change when bullets travel at the speed of light via lasers."
That would make them line of sight unless you also figure out how to bend a lazer beam around the curvature of the earth without losing its power.
From post #4
His source required a clandestine secretive meeting in Nordstrom's coffee shop???
LOL, It's the front page article for last month's Popular Science...
Yeah... but a couple of kids or a mosque near the target can render it useless.
Excise me? I don't think we're close to getting any physical object to travel at the speed of light--let alone bullets. If we could solve this one, space travel would be a cinch. Other than that inconvenient fact, I don't think the speed of our bullets is currently a problem.
I remember reading in the Weekly Reader when I was in 2nd grade about the X-15.
"LOL, It's the front page article for last month's Popular Science..."
I know, I saw it then. I still get bent outta shape with all these leakers.
"Excise me? I don't think we're close to getting any physical object to travel at the speed of light--let alone bullets."
Ok you're excised. :)
I didn't make the assertion that bullets would be going the speed of light. I was responding to someone else saying that lasers would be used to push bullets to the speed of light. Why use bullets at all is a question that comes to mind. Why not just make the laser powerful enough to do the damage. This also has the side benefit of avoiding a space/time continium issue that the laser-bullets introduce.
Line of sight covers a lot of distance from orbit !
"Line of sight covers a lot of distance from orbit !"
Not enough to give us global coverage without a network of laser satellites. And then there are the issues caused by the atmosphere and weather that would effect this laser system.
Great! we have all these high tech weapons. Now when are we gonna start layin' em on the jihadi's??
Now when are we gonna start layin' em on the jihadi's??
.
.
.
Soon, hopefully.
I was.
At that speed, it won't need a warhead...
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