WHAT'S A "BUNKER BUSTER" NUKE?

In the debate tonight, Sen. Kerry made an aside about cutting the money to develop a new, "bunker-busting" nuclear weapon. What's he talking about?

Some of the bad guys' most lethal arsenals are assumed to be buried in deep, underground caverns -- places that America's current arsenal has trouble hitting. So the Bush Administration would like to build a nuclear bomb -- a "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator" -- that burrows into the ground before unleashing all kinds of atomic hell. The San Jose Mercury-News explained how it might work in a story last year:

A nuclear penetrator is built in the shape of a thin cylinder with a pointed nose. Dropped from an airplane, its weight and speed allow it to smash through the surface of the ground or puncture rock or concrete. It buries itself 20 to 30 feet deep before exploding, Fred Celec, the deputy assistant to the secretary of defense for nuclear matters, said. The power of the explosion "couples'' with the earth to send shock waves down toward buried targets.

Anti-nuclear groups are spooked by the new brand of bomb, of course. "Because of its earth penetrating capability, the RNEP is considered by some in the Administration as a more "usable" nuclear weapon than existing nuclear weapons," says one.

But, according to the Merc-News, there may not be a whole lot of enthusiasm for the new nuke.

"If you can find somebody in a uniform in the Defense Department who can talk about a new need'' for nuclear bunker busters "without laughing, I'll buy him a cup of coffee,'' said Robert Peurifoy, a retired vice president of Sandia National Laboratory.

THERE'S MORE: No. He. Didn't. When asked about the biggest threat facing America, President Bush mentioned -- after nuclear proliferation -- his cockamamie missile defense system. You know, the one that can't pass its tests -- and is being deployed anyway. When will this guy let a bad idea go?

TILT-CRAFT STILL NOT READY TO FLY

After nearly twenty years of development -- and $19 billion -- it's still unclear whether a controversial, ultra-pricey, tilt-rotor aircraft "can perform all the maneuvers that several pilots [say] are necessary in combat," the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram reports.

For an eternity, it seems, the Pentagon has been pushing the V-22 Osprey as "twice as fast, three times the payload capacity, and six times the range" of traditional helicopters. But the advantages of this "revolutionary" machine have been greatly exaggerated, critics say. (The Pentagon disputes this, of course.) "The V-22 might have only one significant performance advantage over helicopters: speed," according to the paper. "Important mechanical components continue to fail, reinforcing long-standing concerns about reliability and maintenance costs."

During recent tests, pilots weren't allowed to take the V-22 on "extreme maneuvers" like sharp banks and U-turns. Why? Because "program officials feared the maneuvers would damage the aircraft," according to the Star-Telegram.

Back in April 2000, a V-22 crashed in Marana, Ariz., killing 19 Marines. It's one of several major mishaps that've happened during the Osprey's two decades of testing.

Some veteran pilots and aviation scientists said the accident exposed an inability in the V-22 to descend rapidly and abruptly change directions, key requirements for combat aircraft. Aerodynamic experts advising Christie and his predecessor, Philip Coyle, argued for additional tests. The Government Accountability Office, a government watchdog agency, called for "realistic" tests.

Some testing was done. But a series involving specific, sharp defensive maneuvers was skipped after Bell engineers warned that it would severely damage the rotors, according to a source within the testing program who asked not to be identified for fear of losing his job.

LASER ZAPS PILOT'S EYE

"A pilot flying a Delta Air Lines jet was injured by a laser that illuminated the cockpit of the aircraft as it approached Salt Lake City International Airport last week," according to the Washington Times.

The plane's two pilots reported that the Boeing 737 had been five miles from the airport when they saw a laser beam inside the cockpit, said officials familiar with government reports of the Sept. 22 incident. The flight, which originated in Dallas, landed without further incident at about 9:30 p.m. local time.

A short while later, however, the first officer felt a stinging sensation in one eye. A doctor who examined the pilot determined that he had suffered a burned retina from exposure to a laser device, the officials said.

Earlier this year, an intern at Los Alamos National Laboratory was struck by a laser in the eye, causing retinal damage. That incident lead to a shut down of the lab, and the firing of at least two employees.

John Mazor, a spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Association, said commercial pilots have been exposed to laser illumination. "The Air Line Pilots Association has received reports in the past of incidents where lasers penetrated cockpits and, in at least one case, caused injury," Mr. Mazor said...

Military personnel also have suffered eye damage from laser illumination. In one case, Naval Lt. Cmdr. Jack Daly and Canadian helicopter pilot Capt. Pat Barnes suffered eye injuries hours after an aerial surveillance mission to photograph a Russian merchant ship that had been shadowing the ballistic-missile submarine USS Ohio in Washington state's Strait of Juan de Fuca.

The Navy recently turned down an appeal from the Defense Department inspector general to award Cmdr. Daly a Purple Heart for the incident. Cmdr. Daly, who retired from the service last year, continues to suffer eye pain and deteriorating vision. (via Drudge)

BYE BYE, BLACK BOOTS

After October 1, the traditional black or green jungle boots of the Marines "may no longer be worn," according to new rules from Corps HQ. Instead, Marines are going to have to pay up for two new pairs of newfangled, next-generation footwear.

That means no more spit-shining: these new boots are rough-side-out. And they're more comfortable, too, the government promises, with special padding to reduce injuries.

"But with the government-issued boots hard to find amid lagging supply - especially in the average sizes of 9-Regular to 10.5-Wide - Marines might have to dig deeper into their wallet for commercial boots," a story from Camp Pendleton notes.

"I just can't find my size," said Gunnery Sgt. Steven L. Soares, battery gunny for Headquarters Battery, 1st Battalion, 12th Marine Regiment...

A former recruiter, Soares says he repeatedly has had to ship boots back through the mail to get the right size. At this time, the only boots in his size are the commercial safety boots.

"113 bucks?" Soares said. "I don't know, that's kind of outrageous to me."

Boots are available for any Marine or sailor who needs to buy a pair for the Oct. 1 deadline, said Laura L. Scott, a supervisor at the 22 Area military clothing store here. But finding the less expensive government-issued boots can be hit or miss.

"There is a $37 to $55 difference between commercial boots and the government-issued ones," Scott said on a day when several sizes of government-issued boots were out of stock. "Most Marines buy the cheaper ones, but some will buy the better boots, especially if they are going to deploy."

Commercial boots are more expensive because of the quality, explained Scott. The boot soles are cemented instead of glued and the stitching is reinforced.

Ummm... One quick question: why the hell should Marines -- some of them on their way to Iraq -- have to buy their own boots? Yeah, I know. They're forced to buy all sorts of personal gear. But it's not right. These guys don't make very much as it is. And to say they're working hard is the understatement of the eon. We've spent, what, $200 billion on Iraq? Don't tell me we can't find some boot money in there, somewhere.

IRAQ GUIDE SWINGS

It may look like a manual for fetishists, designed by a down-on-his luck coloring book designer. But, really, it's a "visual language survival guide," used by coalition soldiers and contractors in Iraq.

Strange, strange stuff. Be sure to catch the "two-part diagram where a man is asked to remove his toupee so the interrogator can determine whether or not any weapons are stashed beneath."

I.E.D. DEFENSE - NO LUCK YET

It's priority A1 in America's defense research labs: Coming up with technologies that can spot and defuse the roadside bombs which have proved so deadly to U.S. forces in Iraq.

But so far, Defense News reports, there hasn't been a whole lot of progress made in figuring out how to stop these improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. There's no "single silver bullet out there that can stop this threat," a member of a Pentagon task force on IEDs told the journal. "As we find some solutions that may address a particular type of weapon they’re using, a particular tactic, they shift, find new ways to do things."

Meanwhile, IEDs are doing something terrible to American troops. On Monday, an Oregon Army National Guardsman, Spc. David W. Johnson, was killed by an IED near Camp Taji, northwest of Baghdad. "Since the beginning of [Johnson's] battalion's Iraq deployment in April, eight guardsmen have been killed, all by IEDs planted on roads or in vehicles," the AP notes.

One of the only effective devices has been the Warlock Green electronic countermeasure system, which "emits a radio frequency that jams communications signals that detonate roadside bombs," according to Federal Computer Week.

"The Defense Department, however, has struggled to establish the industrial base for these systems," Defense News notes. "EDO, a New York-based firm specializing in high-tech niche products, was the only company to bid on a $35 million contract to produce 1,000 Warlock systems. And until recently, it was the only company capable of such a task — preventing mass production of the life-saving systems."

Also in the works are “change detector” sensors for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). UAV program officials are seeking payloads and software that can be added to the service’s fleet of unmanned vehicles to monitor roadways and report any changes back to soldiers.

So far, the Army has tested several technologies but has not found one that works well enough to deploy, a top UAV official said this summer. Most UAV technologies can survey areas for changes, but typically are effective in dealing with objects far larger than IEDs.

THERE'S MORE: The Washington Post's Steve Fainaru was almost killed by a roadside bomb in Sadr City yesterday -- an explosion that killed four Iraqi National Guardsmen, but left their American counterparts with only sharpnel wounds.

The blast "demonstrated the uneven vulnerability of U.S. forces, who are equipped with the most sophisticated weaponry and armor, and their Iraqi allies, who fight the same battles using vastly inferior equipment," Fainaru writes in a gripping, must-read account.

DARPA LOVES TRASH

U.S. bases of the future are supposed to be self-sustaining. But, right now, they produce too much junk -- more than 7 pounds per day, per soldier. And a whole heap of "personnel, fuel, and critical transport equipment are needed to support the removal and disposal" of that waste, the Pentagon notes.

That's why the Defense Department's far-out research arm, Darpa, has just given a Menlo Park, California "gene synthesis" company a grant to give the junk a second life, by turning the plastic waste into fuel.

"Plastic packaging waste has energy content that can approach that of diesel fuel, Darpa notes. "Diesel fuel has lower heating value of 43.9MJ/kg and hydrogen content of 12.5 weight percent. Plastic heating values can range from 26-43MJ/kg with a hydrogen content of 5-14 percent. If energy content of the waste is optimized for secondary use as a fuel source, at today's level of packaging being discarded, a military unit could achieve well over 100 percent self-sufficiency for their generator fuel needs."

Professor Richard Gross, at Polytechnic University, New York, thinks he has a polymer that can get the job done. It'll have "properties similar to polyethylene and will be prepared from renewable resources with a cost comparable to current commercially manufactured plastics," he claims. DNA 2.0, Inc., out of Menlo Park, will produce the enzymes needed to make the designer material for Darpa's MISER (Mobile Integrated Sustainable Energy Recovery) project.

NO SCI-FI TECH FOR "FUTURE COMBAT"

Back in 1999, when the Army launched Future Combat Systems, its $117 billion modernization program, "discussions were dominated by visions of an all-electric, laser-firing fleet of fast-moving tank-like vehicles unburdened by the weight of conventional armor," notes National Defense.

"Five years later, reality has set in," the magazine sighs. "Industry experts consider it doubtful, however, that the FCS will bring, in the near term, major breakthroughs in power generation, weapon lethality or survivability.

Fuel-efficient technologies, such as hybrid engines, have improved, but they only will reduce fuel consumption by moderate amounts, experts said. FCS units, like today’s brigades, will require a substantial logistics re-supply tail of fuel and ammunition...

On the weaponry side, the mainstay of FCS will be cannons and missiles. These weapons will be more sophisticated than current systems, but not a major departure. Non-kinetic technologies, such as lasers and high-powered microwaves, are progressing, but are not expected to be ready for operational use for many years...

For survivability, it remains unclear what technologies FCS will employ. Conventional passive armor is out of the question if the Army wants to keep the weight of the vehicles at less than 20 tons. “We haven’t found magic armor,” the program official said. The most promising technologies so far are electromagnetic armor and active protection systems, which sense and defeat incoming rockets or missiles by deflecting or intercepting them... [But], according to several sources, there is a strong cultural bias in the U.S. Army against installing active defenses on vehicles, because they are perceived as unsafe...

The Army’s top acquisition official, Lt. Gen. Joseph L. Yakovac, acknowledged that much uncertainty remains as to whether FCS can deliver what it promises.

“I’m not clairvoyant,” he told reporters. “As we look at the technology, it may or may not mature at the rate we need.”

The current program is only a reflection of “the best guess today...”

Nevertheless, the Army has made a major financial commitment to FCS, increasing its overall estimated cost from $90 billion to about $115 billion, which will cover the entire 17 systems and a command-and-control network, to be fielded to possibly 43 brigades by 2025.

SMOKE SCREEN FOR TANKS?

One of the coolest gagdets James Bond ever had was the smoke screen that gushed out of the back of his Aston Martin, leaving Goldfinger's minions behind, choking and confused.

Now, a South African defense firm is teaming up with Saab to provide the same kind of protection to tanks and armored vehicles. A set of sensors, the companies claim, will pick up the signature of a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher. In less than a second, the Land Electronic Defence System 100 "will dispatch four smoke canisters covering the tank or vehicle and making it impossible for the attacker's missile to trace the vehicle," SABC news notes.

"The screen will obscure the attackers’ line of sight and give the vehicle and occupants a chance to get behind cover," says a Grintek Defence press release. Because the smoke obscures more than just the visibile spectrum, it "cannot be penetrated by thermal imaging equipment used to aim weapons or guide missiles."

But you can expect to see George Lazenby return as 007 before this gizmo is deployed on American armor. Picking up the signature of an RPG is beyond tough. And even if the smoke can be shot out in a second -- a big if -- these big vehicles don't exactly accelerate like an Aston Martin. The Abrams battle tank, for example, takes seven seconds to go from zero to twenty miles per hour.

THERE'S MORE: The smoke screen might "have some utility in defeating an ATGM [anti-tank guided missile], but against an RPG it would only prevent the crew from seeing what was about to hit it," says Defense Tech reader JA. An RPG is a "fire and forget" weapon, he notes. "Once launched they travel to point of aim, or somewhat near it, without any further input from an operator. An ATGM, on the other hand, does, in general, require course guidance input from an operator and smoke systems are of some utility against them.

"This assumes that the crew recognizes that something is inbound and moves the vehicle," however. "If they sit still, then they blow up in complete privacy."

PAINT VS. BIOTERROR

Army-backed researchers at the University of Pittsburgh are working to develop a paint that would change color in a biological or chemical attack -- and might even kill off the deadly agents, too.

REPENT AND RETURN

I'm getting ready for Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. Defense Tech will return, newly free from sin, on Monday.

RATS TO THE RESCUE

"Rats equipped with radios that transmit their brainwaves could soon be helping to locate survivors buried in the wreckage of collapsed buildings," according to New Scientist.

Rats have an exquisitely sensitive sense of smell and can crawl just about anywhere. This combination makes them ideal candidates for sniffing out buried survivors. For that, the animals need to be taught to home in on people, and they must also signal their position to rescuers on the surface.

In a project funded by Darpa, the Pentagon’s research arm, Linda and Ray Hermer-Vazquez of the University of Florida in Gainesville have worked out a way to achieve this.

First the researchers identified the neural signals rats generate when they have found a scent that they are looking for. “When a dog is sniffing a bomb, he makes a unique movement that the handler recognises,” says John Chapin, a neuroscientist at the State University of New York in Brooklyn who is collaborating on the project. “Instead of the rat making a conditioned response, we pick up the response immediately from the brain.”

JUNE FLIERS BECOMING ANTI-TERROR GUINEA PIGS

If you flew on a plane in June, your personal information is about to be dumped into the Department of Homeland Security's new terror-screening database.

"The Transportation Security Administration will use passenger data from June 2004 from 77 domestic carriers to test the Secure Flight program, which is designed to check airline passenger names against a centralized terrorist watch list," Defense Tech pal Ryan Singel writes.

The program is a scaled-back successor to CAPPS II, which the TSA scuttled after months of criticism from privacy advocates and disclosures that early CAPPS II contractors secretly got data from major U.S. airlines.

Secure Flight will expand on the current use of watch lists by using a centralized terrorist watch list run by the Terrorist Screening Center housed at the FBI.

The center's director, Donna A. Bucella, told Congress in March the list is now 120,000 names long.

The data poured in Secure Flight "will vary by airline," the Times notes. "It will include each passenger's name, address and telephone number and the flight number. It may also include such information as the names of traveling companions, meal preference, whether the reservation was changed at any point, the method of ticket payment and any comment by airline employees, like whether a passenger was drunk or belligerent in encounters with airline personnel."

1 YEAR UNTIL IRAN NUKES

"Some American analysts warn that there is only a year or so left to stop Iran from achieving nuclear self-sufficiency. After that, they say, the country will have the means to create a nuclear arsenal without outside help, forever altering the Middle East balance of power."

That's the depressing prognosis from today's New York Times, in an article about Tehran's announcement "that it had begun converting tons of uranium into gas, a crucial step in making fuel for a nuclear reactor or a nuclear bomb."

DARPA: DROP THE WATER, DRINK THE AIR

As much as bullets or body armor, rations or radios, an army needs water to survive -- especially when it's fighting in the blistering heat of an Iraqi summer. But hauling a soldier's daily requirement of three to four gallons of water has become a gargantuan burden to U.S. armed forces. So Darpa, the Pentagon's mad science division, has come up with a plan for thirsty GIs: Cut the amount of the water they're carrying in half, and pluck the rest from out of thin air.

Even in the parched Mesopotamian desert, the air holds plenty of water. The trick is getting it out. Machines have been around for years that can cool the air down to the point where water droplets will condense like dew beading on an oak leaf. But they're energy hogs, using almost 650 watt/hours just to get a single quart of H20. The goal of Darpa's Water Harvesting program is to extract that water without using up so much power.

That would make a huge difference to troops stationed in the Middle East. "With the temperatures in August soaring well above 125 degrees (Fahrenheit)," writes Chief Warrant Officer Gordon Cimoli, a Black Hawk helicopter pilot who served 10 months in Iraq, " water is life."

My Wired News article has details.

THERE'S MORE: Several military bloggers who are currently on duty in Iraq (or who served there recently) weighed in for this story.

"I know myself during July, the hottest month here, I drank about 10 liters a water a day. I got so sick of water I asked family and friends to send Koolaid or lemon-aid drink mix so I stand to drink that much water," says Cpl. Michael Whitney. "If you didn't start drinking water first thing in the morning you would start feeling symptoms of dehydration by 11 am."

But for Whitney and his fellow soldiers at Camp Cooke, there's some relief: "a swimming pool that opened up in June, which was a welcome activity for a lot of us wanting to escape the heat of the day."

Pools or no, Sgt. Chris Missick notes, "this is an extremely hot region though and hydration is essential, it really can be life or death. Any device that would make it possible to endure less of a burden in transporting liquids and yet enable soldiers to retain the necessary levels of hydration would be invaluable."

But Marine reservist Daniel Amster is skeptical. "The last thing I want to do is to carry that amount of weight on me, and depend on it for water, and have the thing not work. If that happens, then the supposed 'gain' of not carrying as much water for the operation is lost because now I do not have enough water."

"The Darpa experiment should be tried but in conjunction with present water sources as to not bring the supply down," agrees Spc. Ernesto Haibi, a medic serving in Mosul.

"We didn't have a tremendous number of heat casualties this summer," observes one blogger currently in Iraq. "[But] the ones we did have were mostly due to soldiers not drinking the water they had, rather than not having enough water. Which just proves the old axiom 'You can give a soldier water but you can't make him drink.'"

SPECIAL FORCES LAND CARGO DRONE

The Marines many have a few GPS-guided parachutes for airdropping supplies. But U.S. Special Operations Command has gone several steps better, by ordering up to 200 propeller-driven, cargo-carrying delivery drones.

The SnowGoose unmanned aerial vehicle is "capable of carrying up to 600 pounds in six bays, which can include a combination of cargo, surveillance and sensor equipment, communications links or other devices," according to its maker, MMIST -- the firm that's also responsible for the made by the Sherpa GPS chute.

"Once deployed from air, land or sea, the SnowGoose can climb to greater than 18,000 feet, and can steer and navigate autonomously," the company claims. "The onboard, multiple-mission guidance system can be reprogrammed by satellite or line of sight data link during flight. It has a flight endurance of up to 20 hours or a maximum cargo capacity of 600 lbs."

Special Forces just signed a $10 million contract with MMIST for eighteen SnowGooses. But those numbers could rise to $75 million and a couple hundred drones, if all goes well with the initial batch.

ISRAEL'S GIANT STINK BOMB

"The ever-ingenious inventors at Israel's weapons research and development directorate have created a schoolboy's dream," the Independent delcares, "the ultimate stink bomb, with a disgusting smell that lingers in its victim's clothing for up to five years."

The foul-smelling liquid squirted by angry or frightened skunks at their victims was analysed by Israeli defence scientists and a synthetic version created for use in a weapon they call the "skunk bomb". Fired with great care, and from a respectable range, it is designed to force civilian protesters to disperse.

Cops in places like L.A. and South Carolina are using a similarly stank-ass spray to keep crackheads out of abandoned buildings.

THERE'S MORE: "If used by military forces, it would be a violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol, to which Israel is a contrating party," notes Defense Tech reader JMW.

"All weapons delivering gasses or liquids, or anything analogous to a gas or a liquid, are forbidden. Whether the gas or liquid is harmful or not is not relevant. Such a weapon could be used by police forces unconnected with military forces."

NASA NUKE MISSION BEGINS

NASA's nuclear-powered mission to Jupiter's moons is on. The space agency tyesterday handed out a $400 million contract to Northrop Grumman to start work on Project Prometheus, its effort to send an unmanned probe to the moons of Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa.

Under the contract, Northrop Grumman will work with a government team to complete the preliminary design for the spacecraft. The work includes developing hardware, software and test activities for the design of the non-nuclear portion of the spacecraft. It also includes developing the interfaces for the spacecraft, space reactor, and science instruments. The contractor is responsible for the integration of government-owned and provided technologies into the spacecraft. They are also responsible for assembly, integration, and testing of the space system in accordance with applicable government requirements.

The government team will co-design the spacecraft with the contractor. NASA will supply the launch vehicle. The Department of Energy's Office of Naval Reactors, Washington, will own and be responsible for the space reactor.

Nice. This was a mission that needed to go forward -- tight budget times or no. Nuclear power may be the best answer for reaching the solar system's outer rim. And the "Galileo spacecraft found evidence that Jupiter's large icy moons appear to have three ingredients considered essential for life: water, energy and the necessary chemical contents," NASA notes.

DALEY DOES DARPA ONE BETTER

Last year, I took at look at a Darpa proposal to keep an entire city under watch. The idea was to network together surveillance cameras, and use computer algorithms to watch out for suspicious behavior.

But it looks like the city of Chicago may beat Darpa to the punch. "A highly advanced system of video surveillance that Chicago officials plan to install by 2006 will make people here some of the most closely observed in the world," the Times says.

"Cameras are the equivalent of hundreds of sets of eyes," Mr. Daley said when he unveiled the new project this month. "They're the next best thing to having police officers stationed at every potential trouble spot."

Police specialists here can already monitor live footage from about 2,000 surveillance cameras around the city, so the addition of 250 cameras under the mayor's new plan is not a great jump. The way these cameras will be used, however, is an extraordinary technological leap.

Sophisticated new computer programs will immediately alert the police whenever anyone viewed by any of the cameras placed at buildings and other structures considered terrorist targets wanders aimlessly in circles, lingers outside a public building, pulls a car onto the shoulder of a highway, or leaves a package and walks away from it. Images of those people will be highlighted in color at the city's central monitoring station, allowing dispatchers to send police officers to the scene immediately.

The Times notes that Daley & Co. "designed the system after studying the video surveillance network in London." It's an odd choice. Because the British camera systems' role in reducing crime has been, at best, inconclusive.

AUSSIE GAS GETS DRONE DEFENDERS

The Australian government will start using American drones to keep watch over Oz's oil and natural gas reserves, CNN reports.

Tens of billions of dollars in fossil fuels sits under Australia's Northwest Shelf, off of the country's western coast. But protecting the Shelf's vast array of pipelines and platforms has been a task that's beyond tricky. So Prime Minister John Howard's government has leased two U.S.-made pilotless planes -- the high-flying, long endurance Global Hawk and the Mariner, an ocean-going cousin of the Predator drone.

The UAV trial will operate from Learmonth RAAF base near the West Australia town of Exmouth. But "mission control," the Herald-Sun observes, "will be 2700km away in Adelaide's northern suburbs, where a large support crew will be stationed at RAAF base Edinburgh.

"While no plans exist to arm the drones," the paper notes, "they are capable of firing killer Hellfire missiles, used to deadly effect by the US against al-Qaida leaders in Afghanistan."

The drone duo is just a first step for Howard's government, which "announced plans in February to spend up to $1 billion on 10 maritime surveillance UAVs," according to the Herald-Sun.

THERE'S MORE: "Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry has deployed Israeli-made unmanned aerial vehicles, each equipped with the same sensors the Israeli military uses to collect intelligence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip," according to Defense News. "The Aerostar UAV sold to Russia is designed for day and night flights of more than eight hours, at altitudes of up to 15,000 feet."

LOS ALAMOS PLEDGES NUKE CLEANUP

Los Alamos has finally committed to a timetable for cleaning out one of its most vulnerable nuclear test sites, the AP reports.

Back in April, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham pledged to get rid of all the the highly enriched uranium and plutonium at Technical Area 18. That's the spot, in '97, where mock insurgents made out with a garden cart full of uranium during a security exercise.

But this is the first time the Energy Department has committed to moving all the nuclear material from TA-18 by a certain date: September of 2005, according to internal documents obtained by our friends at the Project on Government Oversight.

GPS CHUTE MAKES THE DROP

In the last month or so, we've talked about the U.S. Army's interest in drone-launched missiles and spinning CopterBoxes, for airdropping medicines and supplies into the combat zone.

But the Marines have a precision airdrop project, too – a GPS-guided cargo parachute called the Sherpa Autonomous Parafoil Delivery System. And they're testing it out over Iraq right now.

With conventional airdrops, the Marines have to fly low, around 2000 feet, to make sure the goods are delivered accurately. And they have to do it fast, to make sure they don't get hit with enemy fire. Sherpa's satellite-enabled accuracy lets the Marines cargo plane fly slower and higher -- up to 25,000 feet, avoiding shots from below. The chute has been used twice in the last month or so to deliver food and supplies to Camp Korean Village in Iraq's Al-Anbar province.

According to the Marines, "Sherpa uses a Global Positioning System computer and control lines to steer itself from an altitude of up to five miles down to within a few meters of the designated target area on the ground, said Staff Sgt. Tammy A. Belleville."

"Basically, the Sherpa is an oversized 900 square foot parachute canopy attached to a servomotor," said the 40-year-old Oceanside, Calif. native. "The GPS computer calculates everything from winds, direction of flight, target coordinates, altitude and other information to steer the load to the designated delivery point on the deck."

The servomotor inside the Sherpa unit steers the control lines that direct the parachute and the load to the designated target point on the ground, said Belleville.

From an altitude of more than 10,000 feet, the Sherpas can guide their loads to other CSSB Marines on the deck below in five to 10 minutes, depending on the conditions.

But Sherpa is only a first step, really. The U.S. military is working on a family of computer-guided cargo parachutes, the Joint Precision AirDrop System, that could one day carry as much as 21 tons at a time.

FBI'S SNEAKY WEAPONS CATALOG

Knives hidden in coins and keys, in lipstick holders and crucifixes carried on chains. Pepper spray, squirreled away in key chains. Swords, sheathed in umbrellas and walking canes. Throwing cards, razor-sharp and made of metal.

It all sounds like an inventory taken from the Frank Miller era of Daredevil. But you'll find these goodies – and more – in the FBI's "Guide to Concealable Weapons." (via Boing Boing)

LOS ALAMOS WORKERS AXED

"Five employees have been forced out of their jobs at the University of California-run Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico following months of scandals involving missing computer disks and unsafe lab practices," the San Francisco Chronicle (and others) report.

Lab officials are still looking for two computer disks that may contain nuclear-weapons data. They noticed the disks' absence July 7.

Since then, officials from Los Alamos, UC, the U.S. Energy Department and the FBI have turned the nuclear weapons lab upside down trying to find the disks. The search has been so frustrating that at one point they speculated that perhaps the disks never existed in the first place.

5765

L'Shanna Tovah! And see you tomorrow...

ISRAEL GETS KILLER DRONE?

America's armed forces have used armed Predator drones in recent years to take out Al Qaeda operatives and Iraqi artillery. Now, evidence is mounting that Israel may have pilotless, killer planes of its own, Reuters reports. And they may be using 'em to take out Palestinian militants.

"I saw a small plane and then a flash of light, then I heard a huge explosion and a car went up in flames," said Abdel Karim Abdel of Jenin, recounting how three militants were slain by Israel while driving through the West Bank city on Monday...

"The Israelis almost certainly have armed UAV programs on the go right now," said Robert Hewson, editor of Jane's Air-Launched Weapons.
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"The UAVs offer an ideal 'closed loop': spotting the target and then hitting it from the same platform," Hewson said...

The Web site of Northrop Grumman, a U.S. avionics firm, says the company has rigged its Israeli-designed Hunter drone with missiles that are completely silent, coasting out of the sky onto their targets by using glider fins rather than a propulsion system.

ANTI-MISSILE TESTS DELAYED AGAIN

If you had to pick just two sentences to capture the willful stupidity of the Bush administration's missile defense push, this pair from Global Security Newswire would do nicely:

The U.S. Defense Department has once again postponed flight-testing new elements of its missile defense system until the end of November.

Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Henry "Trey" Obering said, however, that the delay would not alter plans to begin operating the system in the next month or two.

Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.), with the Armed Services Committee, asks the right question: "If you’re not confident enough to take a chance on a test, how can you say that this can engage successfully in a real operational mission?"

THERE'S MORE: "Keeping America safe from attack is the central theme of the president's re-election campaign. Why then — except for a rally last month at a Boeing plant where a piece of the program is manufactured — has he scarcely mentioned missile defense?" wonders Slate's Fred Kaplan. "Perhaps because the program is having serious problems — and because Bush knows it's having problems."

3RD ID RETURNS - WITH A BIG, NEW HUB

When the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division returns to Iraq later this year, it'll be taking a giant, new-fangled, multi-truckload network node to the battlefield.

The Joint Network Transport Capability (JNTC) "gives units — down to the maneuver battalion — access to the Army’s Internet protocol router networks, the Defense Red Switch Network, secure video teleconferencing and voice-over-internet protocol capabilities," notes Defense News.

The system also "gives the Army an early version of Warrior Information Network-Tactical capabilities," according to the magazine. That's the mobile data network that's supposed to become the backbone of Future Combat Systems, the Army's $117 billion push to digitize its forces.

Like so many military communications projects these days, most of JNTC's connectivity will come from commercial satellites. But the Army is hoping to change that, relying on a new wave of military satellites, due to come on line by 2007 or so.

"In the meantime, the Army will continue to expand JNTC to other combat units during the next four years," Defense News says. "The 101st Airborne Division will receive JNTC capabilities in January or February, followed by the 10th Mountain Division next spring, and the 4th Infantry Division by the end of 2005."

COUNTERINSURGENCY FROM ABOVE

Can you fight an urban insurgency -- from the air?

"In Fallujah and other Iraqi cities not controlled by American forces, the military is turning increasingly to air power to target suspected insurgent hideouts," the AP reports.

"The counterinsurgency led by U.S. forces has been fought mainly on the ground against a resilient enemy. But air power is taking a more prominent role" -- because, in cities like Fallujah, there aren't any American ground troops in place to fight the guerillas.

Air Force F-15 and F-16 fighter jets, as well as Navy F/A-18s flying off the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy in the Persian Gulf, have been used in the recent attacks, Pentagon officials said.

Air Force AC-130 gunships, with side-firing 105mm artillery guns, also have seen action lately.

On Monday, U.S. planes attacked a suspected militant hideout in Fallujah, the center of operations and support for a group led by Jordanian-born terror suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It was at least the fifth airstrike in Fallujah in the past week...

Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Arlington, Va.-based Lexington Institute think tank, said Monday the Americans seem to believe that airstrikes in Fallujah will wear down the insurgents and buy time for U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces to prepare for a ground assault in the weeks ahead.

"But you have to wonder whether we're radicalizing the Iraqi civilian population" in the meantime amid claims - substantiated or not - that airstrikes are killing innocent people, Thompson said. (via Juan Cole)

TROUBLE FOR DARPA SPACE PROGRAM

Darpa, we have a problem.

The Pentagon's way-out research agency has been trying for a while now to make space launches a whole lot cheaper and easier. But one of Darpa's main space programs -- the Responsive Access, Small Cargo and Affordable Launch Vehicle (RASCAL) project -- is "not going very well," agency director Tony Tether has confessed. Darpa will "re-evaluate the program following a design review this autumn," reports Defense News.

The RASCAL concept involves a jet-powered carrier aircraft that would fly beyond the atmosphere at a steep angle before releasing an expendable rocket designed to carry a satellite payload to its desired orbit. The aircraft would be equipped with an injection system that brings oxygen and water into its engines to compensate for the lack of air at extremely high altitudes.

During 2002's DarpaTech conference, RASCAL program manager Preston Carter promised flight tests in 2005. Now, it's pretty clear that's not happening. And, if and when RASCALs do come down the pike, they ain't gonna be cheap.

According to Defense News, RASCAL-designer Space Launch Corporation says "has not yet determined the precise cost."

Darpa has run into cost growth problems with the RASCAL program in the past, because the carrier aircraft turned out to be more expensive than anticipated. Early in the program, the estimated cost of developing the aircraft was $88 million, but the total program cost now is estimated to pass the $100 million mark in 2005 with significant funding still needed to carry through to a flight demonstration.

PENTAGON'S LIFELOG REVIVED?

It's been seven months since the Pentagon pulled the plug on LifeLog, its controversial project to archive almost everything about a person. But now, the Defense Department seems ready to revive large portions of the program, under a new name.

Using a series of sensors embedded in a G.I.'s gear, the Advanced Soldier Sensor Information System and Technology (ASSIST) project aims to collect what a soldier sees, says, and does in combat zone – and then to weave those events into digital memories, so commanders can have a better sense of how the fight unfolded.

That's similar to what planners at Pentagon research arm Darpa had in mind for LifeLog, its ultra-ambitious electronic diary effort. But ASSIST's aspirations are more modest, its battlefield focus is clearer, and its privacy concerns are more manageable, military analysts and computer scientists say. All of that combines to give the project a better chance of taking off where LifeLog crashed.

"Welcome to the wacky ways of contracting at the Defense Department. If it doesn't fly the first time around, you can be sure it'll be back. And so it is," said Steven Aftergood, with the Federation of American Scientists. "This time around, though, the work has a slightly more plausible context. And more of an effort has been made to connect it to a military application."

My Wired News article has details.

BRING THE PAIN

Can we have our pain ray now, please?

Yesterday, Iraqi insurgents got a big wish fulfilled, when an American military helicopter firing into a crowd of civilians, killing a dozen or more.

Some say the Iraqis, who were looting an abandoned Bradley Fighting Vehicle, fired on the copter first. Some say otherwise. It doesn't matter, really; either way, the U.S. winds up looking more brutal – and less legitimate -- in Iraq eyes.

But what choice did the American gunner have? When U.S. soldiers are faced with a hostile crowd, they only have, broadly speaking, two options for breaking it up: the bullhorn or the machine gun. Words or bullets. Deadly force, or no force at all.

What's need instead is a weapon that falls somewhere in between. That shoots to hurt, not to kill. That drives away looters, without driving up casualty counts.

A microwave-like pain ray, let's say.

Fortunately, such a weapon is already deep into development. It's called the Active Denial System, or ADS. And, by firing electro-magnetic waves that penetrate just a 64th of inch beneath the skin, ADS creates a burning sensation that tends to make people run the other way, fast.

A Humvee-mounted ADS prototype is expected to be ready by the end of the year, with budget decisions made in 2005.

But, whether ADS is accepted or not, attitudes about non-lethal weapons have to change. Right now, the Pentagon's division devoted to such weapons gets about $44 million a year – out of a $400 billion budget. That's to support the development of new weapons, and not build up stockpiles of existing ones, like stun grenades and rubber-ball-packed claymores.

These weapons often stay in warehouses, rather than get used in the field, however. As a combat zone grows increasingly hostile, commanders often become reluctant to use the weapons. It's like bringing a knife to a gun fight, they argue.

But that kind of attitude can play right into the hands of insurgents, generating the kind of ugly reports we are all reading today. Sometimes, in the middle of a gun fight, a knife is exactly what's needed.

THERE'S MORE: "You seem to assume that weapons such as the microwave device you describe will be used only for the purposes intended, and that their effects will generally be less harmful than more directly lethal devices," writes World Without Secrets author Richard Hunter.

But what happens if the people faced with such a weapon can't just run away? What happens if they're trapped in a crowd, and the crowd can't move? How much pain must that crowd endure? How long can any member of the crowd be exposed to that weapon before his or her skin -- or their eyes -- simply cook off?

What happens if the devices are used deliberately in a manner designed to cause maximum harm -- say, by training the device on prisoners trapped in prison cells until they literally go mad with pain?

What happens if the system operator turns up the power? A little bit works well, why not try a lot?

What happens if the scientists didn't test the devices thoroughly, and they turn out to render anyone touched by them blind, or impotent, or sterile?

I need a lot of convincing before I believe that weapons designed expressly to cause pain are humane.

Fair points, all. A system like Active Denial certainly would have the potential for abuse. But at least there would be the possibility of using the weapon non-lethally -- a possibility which doesn't really exist today with an M-16.

AND MORE: "Killing is in our intentions, not our weapons," says Defense Tech reader JMW. When faced with an adversary, "the individual soldier has to decide whether to kill or to take a prisoner. This has nothing to do with armament." Aim a pistol at the knees, and it's just about as non-lethal as a pain ray.

There are NO "nonlethal" weapons when in the hands of military personnel. Weapons which disable or confuse enemy troops are those used to prepare subsequent removal of threats by lethal force. This was the classical use of poison gas during WWI and in the Iran-Iraq War. When nonlethal arms are available, one prevents enemy weapon use nonlethally, and then applies the lethal force. Of course, whatever the weaponry, if capture is feasible, it will be carried out; it doesn't matter whether nonlethal alternatives are available -- and they load down our combatants with ineffective equipment.

This differs from police use, where the objective is law enforcement, not killing, threat removal, or capture of facilities (we hope).

AND MORE: "Whatever happened to good old-fashioned tear gas?" asks Defense Tech reader RR. A few rounds of tear gas into a crowd does a great job of changing the crowd's priorities. Safe, cheap, and effective."

CORONER: TASERS DIDN'T KILL

They're still not sure why 31 year-old Frederick Jerome Williams died in police custody. But it wasn't the five shocks to the chest from a Taser stun gun, the Gwinnett, Georgia County medical examiner's office has concluded.

Williams is one of five people in Georgia and 26 people nationally in the last nine months "to die after being shocked by Tasers," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes. That's as many as have died in the previous four and a half years.

"Those numbers got the attention of Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union, both of which questioned the safety and ethics of Taser use," the paper says.

"The gun's manufacturer, Taser International of Scottsdale, Ariz., says autopsy results have shown that no deaths have been directly caused by a Taser."

Recently, the company landed four major orderss from metropolitan police departments -- including those of San Jose and Knoxville -- totalling over $1 million.

BLOG, AND GET BUSTED

Army specialist Colby Buzzell mans a gun in a Stryker brigade in Mosul. He also keeps a blog, "My War." And the combination of these two activities is getting Spc. Buzell in a whole heap of trouble.

The Wall Street Journal calls the blog "a mixture of gripping accounts of caffeine-driven battle maneuvers and amusing vignettes from the dusty grind of life in Iraq's third-largest city." The L.A. Times recently featured the site on its front page.

"But Spc. Buzzell's writing aspirations may prove his undoing as a professional soldier," the Journal reports.

Recently, shortly after his commanders discovered My War on the Web, Spc. Buzzell found himself banned from patrols and confined to base. His commanders say Spc. Buzzell may have breached operational security with his writings. "My War" went idle as he pondered the consequences of pursuing his craft while slogging through five nights of radio guard duty, a listless detail for an infantryman. More recently, the pages again went blank, as he chafed under a prepublication vetting regime imposed by his command.

Such prepublication censorship is rare in the modern military: Soldiers' missives haven't been routinely expurgated since World War II and the days of "Loose Lips Sink Ships." The Pentagon doesn't prescreen soldiers' communications, whether print or electronic, assigning the job of policing soldier-journalists to commanders in the field. There are restrictions against divulging references to specific troop locations, patrol schedules or anything that might help the enemy predict how U.S. troops might react to an attack. But commanders in Iraq rely on the honor system and soldiers' common sense to enforce restrictions. Infractions are in the eye of the beholder, difficult to define but easy to recognize in practice...

The blog entry at the root of Spc. Buzzell's difficulties was an Aug. 4 piece called "Men in Black." Opening with a bland, four-paragraph squib about a Mosul firefight that he snatched from CNN's Web site, Spc. Buzzell spins a riveting account of a nasty, hours-long firefight with scores of black-clad snipers. It begins with an enemy mortar attack and a testosterone-driven scramble to arms. "People were hooting and hollering, yelling their war cries and doing the Indian yell thing as they drove off and locked and loaded their weapons," he writes. He describes a harrowing ambush. "Bullets were pinging off our armor all over our vehicle, and you could hear multiple RPG's [rocket-propelled grenades] being fired and flying through the air and impacting all around us," he writes. "I've never felt fear like this. I was like, this is it, I'm going to die."

Spc. Buzzell's account caught the attention of the News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash., the newspaper that covers Spc. Buzzell's home base of Fort Lewis. Noting that the attack got scant coverage by bigger media, the local paper drew heavily from Spc. Buzzell's anonymous account. The Pentagon's internal clip service picked up the News Tribune story and it landed in the hands of commanders in Iraq.

Within hours, Lt. Col. Buck James, the battalion commander, ordered Spc. Buzzell to his office. Spc. Buzzell quickly shaved and grabbed fresh fatigues to see the colonel he had never met. As he later recounted on his blog, he arrived to find Col. James leafing through a massive printout of his Web writings, which someone had marked up with a yellow pen. The colonel, whom Spc. Buzzell described as a cross between George Patton and Vince Lombardi, opened with a question: " 'Youre [sic] a big Hunter S Thompson Fan, arnt [sic] you?'"

Spc. Buzzell says he was called to account for two details: the observation that his unit ran low on water during the hours-long standoff and a description of the steps he took to get more ammunition as the firefight waxed on. Both were excised from his online archives.

In an e-mail exchange, Col. James says the Army was concerned about a possible security breach on Spc. Buzzell's blog, but had no desire to muzzle him. "I counseled SPC Buzzell along with his Platoon Sergeant on these points and ensured that he understood that anything he was unsure about should be reviewed by his chain of command," Col. James says. Spc. Buzzell has "performed gallantly" as a soldier, he says.

THERE'S MORE: "I am officially no longer writing about any of my personal experiences here in Iraq on this website," Spc. Buzzell just posted.

"OPERATING ROOM IN A BOX" UNFOLDS

At first, it looks like a normal shipping container. But push a button, and a minute-and-a-half later, out unfolds an operating room, 20 feet long and 8 feet wide.

"It looks like a cicada coming out," an Army engineer says of the prototype Future Medical Shelter System.

The Army's current mobile operating room comes in two containers, and it's a pain in the butt to set up. "You've got to manually unfold the existing container, which takes a fair amount of time, and then you've got to physically unload all of the stuff from one ISO container into one like this one," offers an Army program manager.

The FMSS shelter is powered by a 24 volt battery – standard for most military vehicles – and offers protection against biological and chemical agents, unlike its predecessors. The Army's prototype was built by Y12 National Security Company out of Oak Ride, Tennessee. But two other companies have designed the mobile operating rooms, including St. Johnsbury, Vermont's Mobile Medical International. Inside its version of the operating-room-in-a-box, there are "two surgical stations or four patient care stations, integrated medical gas, power and LED lighting systems," and integrated environmental controls.

Folks at the Army's Telemedi cine and Advance Technology Research Center are now testing out the FMSS, with an eye towards toughening it up against the elements. But for now, there's no cash to build a new shelter. "Congress initially funded the program, and no additional money has been appropriated for the second prototype," says the Armed Forced Press Service.

WHIRL-A-DRONE BEGINS TO SPIN

"Right now, it looks a lot like a Frisbee with four wings," the Wall Street Journal says. But, one day, this early prototype could become "an unmanned aircraft capable of hovering in the same spot for days at a time."

The craft, known as the Whirl, is being designed at the "Bike Shop" -- a small, secretive development shop tucked away in a corner of Raytheon, the giant defense contractor.

"What makes the Whirl radical is the guidance system," the paper says. "Slow-speed propellers keep the aircraft spinning, and rudder-like airfoils at the tip of each wing generate thrust. They do that by acting as sails, adjusting to the wind so the Whirl can either fly downwind or tack into it. The wingtip sails and the electronic brains that operate wing flaps to keep the Whirl stable in high winds are innovations included in a U.S. patent application Raytheon filed in July."

So far, a 20-foot wingspan model of the ship has hovered near the ceiling of a Raytheon hangar. But soon, the Whirl will be ready for open-air tests. "Then," the Journal notes, "the company will ask the Pentagon to finance the development of Whirls with enough fuel capacity to fly for four days."

THERE'S MORE: New Scientist puts its spin on the Whirl drone here.

AND MORE: "It may look like a combine-harvester," declares the Independent, "but a plane designed in a Tuscan farmhouse is being hailed as one of the great breakthroughs in aeronautical history. " Actually, to me the FanWing looks a little more like a helicopter with a giant razor blade attached. (Thanks to Defense Tech reader RC for the tip.)

SATELLITE PICS GOING DARK?

You might be able to see the hurricanes heading for Florida. Maybe. But just about all other commercial satellite imagery could be put off-limits, if a new Senate bill goes through as planned.

The measure, "Nondisclosure of Certain Products of Commercial Satellite Operations," would exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) unclassified, commercial satellite pictures bought up by the government, as well as "any... other product that is derived from such data."

"Almost every clause of the proposed exemption embodies patent hostility to the conventions of open government and public access to government information," Secrecy News fumes.

For example, "maps, reports, and any other unclassified government analyses or communications that are in some way 'derived from' a commercial satellite image would all of a sudden become inaccessible."

News reports would get a whole lot thinner, too. As Barbara Cochran, head of the Radio-Television News Directors Association, notes, the press relies on satellite pictures constantly, to track everything from weather to war to population shifts. "Recent uses include coverage of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts; nuclear and other WMD sites in Iran, Pakistan, India, Libya, North Korea, China, and other countries; flooding in Bangladesh and Eastern India; deforestation in Brazil; wildfires and tornadoes in the United States; and refugee crises in the Sudan [and] Rwanda," she writes.

If this regulation passes, much of that imagery – not classified in any way, and collected by a private company, not a government agency -- would vanish from public view.

"In essence," Cochran says in a letter to Congress, "this new FOIA exemption would result in taxpayer dollars being used to preclude the media from adequately informing the public about matters of critical importance that in no way implica