No sooner had I posted my News and Views from the Nefarium for Janu 9, 2014 a week ago, than a Mr. A.J.M. posted on You Tube the following two links, which, as the reader will quickly gather, tends to corroborate the view I was advancing, that "they" are preparing us slowly and gradually to accept the idea of the putting horrendously powerful weapons in space:

NASA-USAF SPACECOM-BOEING SVS Directed Energy US Military Space Weapons Platform

As the abstract of the article avers, there is serious effort underway (and really, let's admit it folks, it's been underway at least since the Reagan era if not before), to study the precision targeting requirements for space-based lasers that can target small moving targets accurately. Admittedly, lasers would be an effective weapon in the vacuum of space, but since the advent of optical phase conjugation, they can be ground based as well. In either case, however, the targeting of such weapons, particularly on a moving platform in space to another moving platform in space is an exponentially more difficult version of moving battleships trying to lay and target their long range naval rifles to land projectiles on target... hence the invention of the computer in the form of the fire-control computer.

But as I pointed out in the News and Views, there's a hidden factor here, laying carefully disguised behind the language, and that factor I believe is the UFO. Consider: a ground and/or air-launched missile or a rocket such as the Chinese are reportedly developing, can be an effective anti-satellite weapon, and for the money and ease of engineering, is a less intensive than building space-based or ground based high-energy lasers, thought the targeting requirements are still quite tricky.

So why bother with lasers at all? Well, before we get to that, consider this, also shared by Mr. A.J.M. on the YouTube version of last week's News and Views:

High Energy Laser (HEL) Test Facilty

While I normally don't post such personal stories here at this website, I do so here because Mr. A.J.M.'s story is one that bears mentioning, not the least of which because I too have personally seen (though unlike him, have not been in) some of these types of facilities. They do exist. And rest assured, even if one gains access like Mr. A.J.M. for deliveries, that means the technology represented has been eclipsed by more powerful and capable systems, otherwise, everyday people like us would not get anywhere near them, even for deliveries.

Which brings us back to Mr. Reagan, and the updated Boeing targeting system research linked above.

Recall that Reagan, in his various "Star Wars" speeches, made reference to the fact that strategic defense against thermonuclear missiles would be a good thing (kind of hard to argue with that logic). But Mr. Reagan also repeated made mention to something else, and that was an invasion by parties not of this Earth. Notice what Mr. Reagan was really doing, for he was stating publicly what I have argued in some books: the national security establishment had to contend with two potential threats, the Soviet one, and that represented by the UFO. The strategic decision had been taken long before to develop technologies that could do double duty in defending against both.

Star Wars long ago fulfilled its goal as a tool of economic warfare against the Soviet Union, but the Russian (and Chinese and French and Indian and Israeli and probably German and Brazilian) missiles are still there.

And so is the UFO.

And that, I suspect, is the real story here. Can't have those things buzzing around and threatening our satellites.

Which brings us back to that abstract about targeting research. Ponder the implications of this statement carefully:

"In addition, absolute pointing and inertial angular-rate measurements are required to support mission requirements."

While being able to determine inertial angular-rate measurements is certainly a good thing for space-based anti-satellite weapons, with lasers it should be a relatively easy thing to "point and aim" at a relatively slow moving satellite target. But if the target was much faster moving relative to the weapons platform itself, intertial angular rate measurements would be essential for targeting...

See you on the flip side.