Star Trek = Reality
 

It seems that scientists have invented a cloaking device capable of rendering a copper cylinder test object invisible.

So if thats not oddly frightening nothing is. Technology is advancing at such a rapid rate that Star Trek's interpretation of the 23rd century might more closely mirror the 21st.

The really scary part is when they start talking about military applications. Do we really want jets and missiles on the earth that are invisible to the human eye and undetectable by radar? I sure as hell don't.

That's massively interesting.

I have to wonder, though, whether they'll go anywhere with this, or just say "Hey, we can make a copper thingy disappear!" and leave it at that. I doubt it, but I wouldn't put it past them.

I think the phrase

pretty much means they or somebody will pursue it MT.

Says it can screw with radar. I'm thinking a metamaterial skin for my car :)

Well they've already managed to teleport small amounts of atoms so invisibility wasn't going to be far off. Can't say I'm surprised really. Only thing that worries me though is who is going to end up with this technology when it becomes more advanced...

What happens if an invisible spy jet or bomber gets shot down over some hostile country?

Sigh, ahh well, next on the agenda : A portable, working, Rail cannon!

EDIT: I LOVE this idea!!! Bye bye speed cameras!!

There is such paint already - they use it to cover B-2 bombers;)
There were cheaper version of that paint during the development, but they are impractical for airplanes due to layer needed - to screw military-grade radar (more efficient that police toys) it needed a several centimeter layer - too heavy for an airplane since those centimeters become hundreds of kilograms if all over the plane and, therefore, less bombload. But for the car - perfect. I am surprized we do not have commercial anti-radar paint yet...


Back to the topic: the second quote is exactly why journalists should NOT be allowed to talk about science unless they have some education on subject. In this case, physics.

"deflecting the microwaves". MICROWAVES?! Human eyes cannot possibly see microwaves! Visible (to humans) spectrum is 800-400 nanometers (750-350 nm according to other sources). Microvaves are 30 cm (frequency = 1 GHz) to 1 mm (300 GHz) {according to wikipedia}. The longest wave human eye can see is 1250 times shorter than the shortest microvave. There is a whole infrared spectrum between visible and microwave!

Microwaves is what our microwave ovens use. Look at the window on your oven and you will see that there is a grate with small holes. This is done so that you can still see through those holes but microwave radiation cannot pass through (since the holes are so small). Visible radiation can and does pass through since it is 800-400 nm.

I don't see the point of making those. With modern missiles (and by modern I mean modern US and Russian developments not the WWII-early cold war crap Hesbollah is using) if you see it, it is already a missile it is too late since it is traveling at supersonic speed and will impact sooner than one can take measures from the moment he saw it. And what measures can one take? Intercepting a missile at its full speed in near impossible. If a missile maneuvers (like modern Russian ballistic missiles do) it is totaly impossible to have any reasonable certainty of interception (Mister president! we can intercept up to 20% of Russia's nuclear arsenal! Unfortunately, other 80% will annihilate us 16 times). Missile is ultimately an offensive weapon. It is offensive to the point where your opponent will not dare to attack because it is so brutally offensive and neither will you since his missileas are as brutal. It does not need cloaking or armor - it just needs to ba lanched at such great speed and at such great velocity that it overwhelms anti-missile defences which are lagging behind in generations.

Airplanes.... I never understood the point behond stealth technology. Those are SO expensive that even if they are used 24/7 and are never intercepted (though as we have seen a Yugoslav WWII missile battery shot one!), they will still deliver less payload throughout their service time (after which they have to be replaced due to wear from flying the missions) that you would deliver with an equal number of missilies. And you do not care if a missile is shot down (way harder to do since they are WAY faster than airplanes) since missiles are so damn cheap compared to airplanes. And modern missiles (not SCUD or WWII Katjusha crap) are very accurate. USA can send a ballistic missile from Nebraska and hit a certain house in Moscow! Such ultimately offensive weapon as missile does not need extremely expensive technology such as cloaking or stealth. As soon as targets are on the ground a missile can reach them. A Romulun Battlecruiser would cloak and we half a light year away. A White House can cloak but it is still there. And explosives in the misile are not fooled by optical illusions. That is why missiles are so brutally efficient. If fired, they are coming and one prays they are not coming at him...

Nevertheless, I believe that gazillions of tx dollars WILL be invested in that. The only thing I can add is a modified quote from episode 23:

:fighter: I sure would like to spend my chare of tax dollars on airplanes that will be vastly inferior to what I could get with missiles. 'Cause they're shiny.
I have to agree here. It should also be noted that if someone from 1900 came here, he would think it is 23'rd century;)

To echo a thought which was already stated, essentially;

The phrase 'nessecity is the mother of invention' should really be modified to 'nessecity is the mother of mass-production'. Unless there is a demand on some level for devices that can do such things effectivly, we (the public) won't see much progress in them, cool as they are.

Actually, with the advent of directed energy weapons, some kind of cloak on a missile is not such an impractical affair.

Though, cloaked to the human visual spectrum and cloaked to the wide spectrum sensors on something like MTHEL are two completely different things.

As for missile accuracy - slighty overexaggeration there. If missiles were that great, I doubt the civilian casualties in Iraq would be so atrocious (and if missiles were that accurate, we wouldn't bother with those crude laser guided smart bombs or anything like that).

But yeah, directed energy defenses = completely different battlefield. That impossibly fast, impossible to intercept ballistic missile? A cakewalk for the speed of light. And that's when its crude, I wonder what a refined laser will be capable of.

Impractical in earth atmosphere. Impractical against volleys of missles. Effective countermeasures can be developed.

Earth-based beam weapon would be useless due to limited radius of action (needs direct line to the target).
Orbit-based beam weapon is:
- extremely vunerable to a volley of cheap missles or enemy beam weapons
- has to be very powerful to deliver sufficient damage to a target on earth
- easy to fool. For example, send alluminum fake targets flying along with the missile.

Also, beam weapons will not be using visible spectrum anyway: they would use radars.
Those causalties are not due to faulty missile navigation: they hit targets they were programmed to very very reliably. Civilian causalties are due to blast radius (the missile delivers the payload sufficient to break a fortified position. That means that unfortified civilians will suffer) and not knowing what exactly is being targeted: it is easy to target a missile to hit a certain area, but the real trick is to make sure that there is insurgent inn that house, not a civilian. By the time the order to launch the missile is given it is very likely that insurgents left the house, filled it with kids and brought camera crews to tape the "show".

As for laser guided - that is why they are so damn accurate:D
Long range ballistic fire is good for hitting the coordinates, which is only efficient with target sitting still. Laser guidance allows, among other things, to track the target. However, laser guidance can be used on long-range missiles as well as it is on airplane missiles.
Problems with that:
- A very small shift in potition of the laser and over a thousand of kilometers between laser and the missile that would result in a miss.
- Energy required is HUGE in order to penetrate through atmosphere to the missile and still have enough power to destroy its hull.
- At the moment the beam is fired, location of the missile relative to the beam must be known precisely. Given that newer ballistic missile maneuver, it is near-impossible to do. One should consider that there is a lag between radar signal sent, radar signal recieved, coordinates sent to the beam weapon and weapon being fired. During that time position of missile will change in a manner that cannot be predicted.
- Beam weapons require a direct hit on the missile while conventional anti-air weaponary does not: anti-air missiles explode near the airplane and shread its hull with shrapnell. Energy weapons cannot do that.

I agree that beam weapons will change the nature of war, but as of now and observable future, they cannot be used in earth atmosphere, they are obscenely expensive and they have other flaws that need to be worked on first (like making good enough nanopositioning for laser tube to actualy fire in the right direction).

In any case, cloaking from visible light is absolutely useless for missiles since no one in his/her right mind will look for the missile using the visible spectrum.

Anti-radar measures are so expensive that it is much cheaper to just build decoy missiles and send them along with the real one.

An effective countermeasure can be developed against anything, that doesn't invalidate the technology. Blooming and energy requirements are a problem, but they're still being worked on.

One defense laser couldn't stop a volley of missiles, no. If either the attacking or defending side in almost any situation has an enormous quantity advantage, it's in their favor. Volley of missiles against "volleys" of defenses?

As for tracking position - it takes a bit of time, but that's the whole idea, it still tracks, and a missile on a ballistic trajectory is not "impossible" to predict, even if it's designed to shift around a little; it's not going to be very accurate for hitting a target if it's only concern is dodging shit.