I always get a sense of relief whenever I learn of practical limitations imposed by laws of physics that obviate my most paranoid nightmares of technological dystopia. Thanks heavens for the inverse square law, for instance.

I’ve read of the possibility of satellites obtaining and storing large amounts of power transmitted via microwaves from power plants on earth, in connection with me looking doing a brief and inconclusive survey of the maze of rumors and allegations associated with the somewhat infamous HAARP project.

But since I know of no evidence for a working model of such a technology at present, I’m inclined to discount the possibility- especially as far as its ability to store and utilize the huge amounts of power required for earth targeting laser weaponry.

(In preference to leading this thread astray into a tangent of doubtful value, curious readers are directed to the official site of HAARP, http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/ ; for the views of those who are suspicious or dubious about the project, http://www.haarp.net/ . I don’t mean to derail the commentary from a more grounded general discussion of the original topic.)

Without a lens, at the wavelength of a CO2 laser (the most efficient choice) beam dispersion would give a minimum width of 71cm for a satellite at 160km, and the width increases as the square root of the height of the satellite – the laser would need a diameter of 71cm, as narrower lasers will undergo wider dispersion – see any decent optoelectronics text for the beam dispersion equation 2\theta = \frac{4\lambda}{2\pi w_0} (in LaTeX notation). 2\theta is the dispersion angle in radians, \lambda is the wavelength, and w_0 is the beam width at the source (laser). The beam width roughly is the maximum of w_0 and L tan \theta (where L is the height of the satellite). Set them equal, and use the small angle approximation on tan (tan \theta = \theta when in radians), solve for w_0 and get ~71cm beam width.

Second, huge amounts of energy are necessary for any laser – efficiencies for semiconductor lasers are typically ~1% (this patent makes noises of reaching 10% – but high efficiency lasers usually put out less power). Efficiencies for gas lasers are usually ~0.1%, although CO2 lasers can reach 30% – although much of that energy would be pumped into moisture and ice-crystals, or simply be scattered by them, as the wavelength of that laser is 0.01mm, the same as the mean for cloud water-droplet and ice crystal diameter. High purity plutonium would be needed for any such a satellite system, as the solar panels would probably make the satellite obvious in the night sky, if not day sky, and impurities in the plutonium (e.g. the wrong isotope) tends to cause components to fail due to chemical interactions with daughter elements.

Third, high-power semiconductor lasers tend to wear with time, and need occasional replacement – this is especially a problem with fibre-optic communications systems. The difference is greater mass and/or repeated replacement of satellites – the more people or structures they attack, the sooner they have to replace. CO2 lasers typically last a few thousand hours at 200W – assuming a power-lifetime product behavior, even with great feats of engineering, will mean frequent replacement, which militates toward ground-based systems, which are vulnerable.

The advantage of this system is fear, not ability – once they anger enough people, the system’s continuous operation becomes prohibitively costly. Remember peak oil – it takes huge amounts of energy to prepare high purity chemicals (whether for power generation or the control circuitry). Peak water brings similar considerations. And there are at least three super-states who would consider this, which makes the proposition even more costly (inflation – much of the advances in military and other high-computation electronics in the last two decades came from using off-the-shelf consumer electronics to cut costs – dogwaggery?).

It’s been apparent to me for quite some time that there are no theoretical barriers to the development of a space based laser weapons array with the capability of identifying targets from person-carried data devices like cellphones- or, perhaps, VLSI chip implants, already a common technology for identifying house pets and currently being mainstreamed as a technology in humans, using the rationale of such microchip implants providing a ready database for medical providers- and blasting them with a Death Ray bolt from the blue with a linear accuracy of terrifying precision and power.

In fact, as far as I can tell, the biggest obstacle to achieving such a weapon would be transmitting and storing sufficient energy to the laser/maser/particle beam/directed energy weaponry in order to allow quick reload capability, to dispatch a large number of targets. Hopefully, that’s a problem that will elude practical solution by the budding Dr. Strangeloves out there. But the logistics underpinning the matter of precision targeting capability are pretty much already in place. A fait accomplit.

All of this sounds very sci-fi paranoid, I realize that. Rest assured that I’ve never been one to obsess over my being at the top of any list of potential targets, in the event of the employment of such weaponry.

But it nonetheless strikes me that any regime or militaristic elite that might manage to achieve such a capability would possess a power over the human population that would verge on the omniscient and omnipotent. There would be no way to shoot back or disable such a space-based weapon. There would be multiple ways to search out targets with unprecedented accuracy. Depending on the nature of the beam weapon, it might conceivably even be impossible to come to a sure conclusion about the cause of death, much less tracing the trajectory or origin point of a weapon employed in such a remote-control assassination, deployed somewhere in low-earth orbit.

What would have sounded like lunacy in 1993 is now accepted as commonplace, as far as landsat mapping, precision GPS location, personal digital electronics, and microchipping. And I have no assurance that moral or ethical considerations will prevent the research, development, or deployment of such a weapons array.

In fact, from reading documents on space weaponry produced by the USAF or its enthusiastic private contractor associates, it often seems as if such ethical considerations have already been dispensed with, because We’re So Good. And since We’re So Good, the horrific, totalitarian implications of a space-based Panopticon Remotely Controlled Garrison are never mentioned. Instead, the achievement of that goal is typically taken for granted as inevitable, necessary, and even as an Ultimate Solution. Unchallengable Power as the Key to World Peace.

I have issues with that worldview.

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http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20090511_eu_turkey_challenges_nabucco_pipeline
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http://www.stratfor.com/hungary_change_heart_nabucco
Hungary: A Change of Heart on Nabucco

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14412
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Nabucco Turkey EU and Obama Geopolitics

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http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5160