I'll admit to having been left baffled by almost every story I've read about the Large Hadron Collider. Stephen Barr, however, has written a short piece for First Things that left me less baffled than the others. I mean this as high praise. You can read it here.

Roggio had an interesting piece the other day on "over the horizon" strikes into Pakistan. There are some technical aspects of such strikes that raise a lot of questions. First of all, "over-the-horizon" implies non-line of sight and a lock-on after launch weapon, probably with some sort of inertial (and GPS-aided) midcourse guidance. The range of such a weapon would be at least fifty and possibly as many as 250 kilometers, depending upon how deep into Pakistan the target is located, and how far back from the border the launch platform wants to stand.

Obviously, there also needs to be some sort of target acquisition and tracking system that can provide target coordinates in real time. Only two methods appear viable; either a high-altitude, long-endurance air platform, such as a Predator or Global Hawk UAV or a manned TR-1 (U-2); or a special operations team (probably 4-6 men) providing surveillance on the ground. Since the terrorists come together at a specific place and time, they need to be tracked and observed, in order that the weapon be launched at the right time to do the maximum damage; at the same time, there has to be a way of diverting the weapon if the terrorists should suddenly pick up and leave while it is in flight (or a bus full of school kids suddenly pulls up in front of the target).

In addition, the weapon has to be fairly fast, to minimize time of flight, and the chances of the enemy getting away. Finally, inertial navigation, even when assisted by GPS and terrain scene matching, is not sufficiently accurate to destroy a point target with minimal collateral damage. This would tend to rule out a Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise Missile, while the distance involved precludes the use of a short-range missile such as an AGM-130, or a guided bomb such as a JDAM.

Taking all of those factors into account, I believe that these attacks are being conducted using both a deep penetration reconnaissance team on the ground and a long-endurance UAV such as a Predator. The Predator provides wide area surveillance, and keeps track of the terrorist group's activities as they assemble in a building or compound. The ground team then closes with the target area to verify the image intelligence provided by the UAV. They can also provide additional high-resolution video that can be transmitted to the operational commander using the UAV as a communications relay. The standoff weapon, probably an AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) or an AGM-84E Standoff Land Attack Missile-Extended Range (SLAM-ER), would be launched from a manned fighter such as an F-15E Strike Eagle flying at high altitude over Afghanistan.

According to the Financial Times, "Lycos Europe, a vestige of one of the first internet search engines, is touting itself as a possible acquisition target for a US media or telecoms group seeking scale in Europe’s fragmented online markets."

Note to the company that buys Lycos: I just found an article through my WebCrawler that says Infoseek is for sale. Maybe with those two engines combined, you can make a bid for AltaVista or HotBot. Then it will just be you vs. Excite@Home. Good luck!

As things currently stand, the Space Shuttle program will be suspended in 2010, as the existing orbiters reach the end of their useful lives. The U.S. will then have a window of approximately 5 years in which it will have no independent capacity for manned space flight until the Orion system comes on line. During that 5 year period, American astronauts are expected to travel to and from the International Space Station on Russian ships.

That plan took a big hit on April 19, when a returning Soyuz command module reportedly failed properly to separate from its service module, endangering the 3 astronauts on board (including one American). This was the second consecutive Soyuz mission that ended this way -- strongly suggesting a systemic flaw. With the Russians downplaying the problem, there's a real concern that it may not be safe to put all our eggs in the Soyuz basket.

Several NASA advocates in Congress -- Floridians Bill Nelson and Dave Weldon -- are beginning to suggest that we need some sort of plan 'B:'

"We could have six astronauts up on the space station and literally no way to get them down and all the people of the world will be in the sad prospect of watching them die as they run out of food and supplies," said Rep. Dave Weldon (R - Indialantic)....

Senator Nelson said one problem is President Bush has put in motion the plan to shut down the shuttle program during the next president's term. By the time the next president takes office, it will be too late to try to keep the shuttle program going.

In the wake of the latest Soyuz accident, the Orlando Sentinel argued for an additional $2 billion for the speedy development of Orion, to reduce the window between Space Shuttle and Orion from 5 years to 3 years. This is an issue that bears watching; right now $2 billion seems a small price to pay to for self-sufficiency.

I hate to pick on Jay Leno, but he really makes it too easy. While Leno is a famous gearhead, he seems to share the same basic misunderstanding as many environmentalists who paint the internal combustion engine as the scourge of the planet. Specifically, he seems to think that if a car is powered by something other than gas, it magically becomes non-polluting:

LENO: it's pretty neat. and this week, we drove -- today, I drove the ford escape hybrid. This is what they call a plug-in hybrid. Now, this is not something on the market yet. It's still a little bit experimental. It's a hybrid car, but you plug it in at home and you get 40 miles free, essentially.

EUBANKS: Whoa.

LENO: So, after about 40 miles, the gas engine will kick in. You can charge up the battery if you drive it again. But my commute is like, 18, 19 miles. So, I drive in, plug it in here, drive home. I use no fuel at all...

If Ford really had developed a car that can travel 18 or 19 miles using no fuel, the company would undoubtedly be doing a lot better. The reality is that Leno is eschewing gasoline in favor of a combination of coal, natural gas, and nuclear to power his car. (That's assuming he lives in the City of Los Angeles and gets his electricity from Los Angeles Water and Power). I don't know how old the Los Angeles coal-fired plants are, but the Sierra Club warns that coal plants are a significant global warming threat.

This is just a reminder that when it comes to policy responses to global warming, you're rarely going to get the unvarnished truth. The lawmakers that point to alternative fuels and CAFE standards rarely talk about the cost to taxpayers and car owners. The Leno example is a reminder that for all the excitement over electric cars, there's no such thing as a free lunch -- no matter who tries to tell you there is.

Like most members of the defense community, I've grown tired of hearing about Chinese hacks against DoD databases. To live out a military campaign (cyber or otherwise) solely on the defensive is every soldier's nightmare. So I found this to be most welcome news:

U.S. military officials seeking to boost the nation's cyberwarfare capabilities are looking beyond defending the Internet: They are developing ways to launch virtual attacks on enemies.

But first the military will have to figure out the proper boundaries.

"What do we consider to be an act of war in cyberspace?" asked Lt. Gen. Robert J. Elder Jr., who heads the Air Force's cyberoperations command. "The military is not going to tend to do that (use virtual strike capabilities) until you cross some line that constitutes an act of war."

Elder said initial uses likely would be limited to diverting or killing data packets that threaten the nation's systems, the way the military may intercept a foreign ship carrying arms in international waters.

Nice to see that the Air Force's fledgling Cyber Command has found better things to do than police the internet. For years the Air Force has been mostly silent about its strategy for offensive cyber-ops against hackers, state-sponsored or otherwise. As for the enemy, the simplest definition of strategy is the analysis and exploitation of an enemy's weakness: China has been hacking us for years, so draw your own conclusions as to what they think is our Achilles' Heel.

Of course, if China really wanted to use cyberwarfare to bring the U.S. military to a standstill, all they'd have to do is figure out a way to bug Microsoft Powerpoint.

Seems like they've been cleaning up lately. This time from across the channel:

French electronics firm Thales announced here April 1 that it had won a multi-million-pound contract to provide submarine support services to Britain's Royal Navy.

The deal, worth an initial 35 million pounds (44 million euros, $69 million), was the result of a partnership between Thales and the Ministry of Defence, Thales UK said in a statement.

The British Submarine Service, like the rest of the Royal Navy, has suffered terribly from Labour's defense cuts. The small British SSBN fleet of Vanguard class submarines, for example, is in a horrible state of disrepair and isn't scheduled to be replaced until 2024. And while $69 million might seem like chump change in the defense world, that's a sizable cost for what appears to be a mere servicing and logistics contract for the once mighty Submarine Service's diminutive force of 13 boats.

Boy the Aussies weren't kidding when they said that they wanted the F-22, were they?

DEFENCE Minister Joel Fitzgibbon will step up pressure on the US to overturn its ban on the sale of the F-22 Raptor fighter, amid growing federal government concern about delays and cost increases affecting the Joint Strike Fighter program.

Mr Fitzgibbon said yesterday he intended to push US Defence Secretary Robert Gates to allow the sale of the world's most advanced operational stealth fighter to Australia at next month's NATO conference in Bucharest.

"Ongoing question marks over the delivery schedule of the JSF reinforces the need we have to look at other '5th Generation' aircraft such as the F-22 Raptor," he said.

This really is in our best interest, and the same can be said for Japan. It keeps the Raptor production line rolling on a foreign military's dime, and helps strengthen our position in the increasingly important Far East. Still, I'd like to see any Aussie/Japanese proposal to purchase F-22s include some strict language on how--exactly--they intend to protect the Raptor's super classified schematics from the highly competent Russian and Chinese intelligence services. If either get their grubby little paws on something as mundane as the stealth material used to construct the bird, it could be used against us in new iterations of Sino-Russian fighter jets. The only other workaround is someone (not us) spending billions to create a less stealthy version for export, but that, of course, would offset much of the value of exporting the bird in the first place.

The New York Times tackles the hottest trend since carbon offsets:

Green jobs are especially good “because they cannot be easily outsourced, say, to Asia,” said Van Jones, president of Green for All, an organization based in Oakland, Calif., whose goal is promoting renewable energy and lifting workers out of poverty. “If we are going to weatherize buildings, they have to be weatherized here,” he said. “If you put up solar panels, you can’t ship a building to Asia and have them put the solar panels on and ship it back. These jobs have to be done in the United States.”

Many advocates of green employment say the jobs should be good for the workers as well as the environment. Two weeks ago in Pittsburgh, more than 800 people attended a national green-jobs conference, where much of the talk was about ensuring that green jobs provided living wages. Many speakers anticipated that the jobs would do so, because they often required special skills, like the technical ability to maintain a giant wind turbine (and the physical ability to climb a 20-story ladder to work on it).

It's hard to decide where to wade into this silliness. First off, what's wrong with Asia? Do environmentalists not want Asians to have jobs? Second, if a green job cannot be outsourced, does that mean that manufacturing solar panels isn't green? After all, they can be produced anywhere. And why do green jobs -- not including functions such as accounting -- require more skill than traditional jobs? Another green jobs advocate tells the Times that a traditional mining job magically becomes green when the metal is used for a green purpose. So which is it?

Advocates also say that green jobs are different because they produce things 'the world wants.' I suppose that sets them apart from traditional capital intensive and polluting jobs such as say, producing food and energy. Those are clearly things that have been forced on the reluctant consumer.

It seems it might be time to conduct a poll and figure out how much Americans are willing to spend to create more green jobs. I bet it's about the same as they'd spend to combat global warming.

It's official. Boeing is going to the mattresses.

Boeing Co. said it plans to protest the Air Force's decision to award a $40 billion contract for aerial refueling tankers to a team comprising Northrop Grumman Corp. and the parent company of rival Airbus.

The move sets up a protracted political fight over the use of foreign contractors for U.S. military jobs.

Boeing said it will file a formal protest today for the first time this decade, asking the Government Accountability Office to review the Air Force's decision to give the contract to Northrop and European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co.

This hurts everyone. It delays Air Force acquisition of a badly needed airframe (most of the current tankers are 50+ year old KC-135s), it forces the winning bidders to waste resources playing defense, and it's a PR disaster for Boeing. Every day that this story is in the news, it reminds the American public that the reason the Air Force is still flying such an ancient fleet of tankers is the Boeing corruption scandal of the early 2000s. Now they're further delaying the deployment, in what looks to be a chronic case of sore loser syndrome.

Boeing is smarter than this. They should recognize a losing battle when they see one, and let the Air Force get those new planes into the war.

HT - Hot Air

Lockheed hits all the right notes: versatile attack/reconnaissance ability, budget concerns, the need for a long-range loitering bird, all while playing out the sort-of obvious attack on a hypothetical "WMD base." Honestly though, all they would have needed to do to sell me on this thing would be to show a 30-second clip of a self described "totally awesome transforming UAV!!"

Lockheed makes great toys, but I wasn't really convinced of a deep, pressing need for a morphing UAV (unless of course, the UAV "morphed" into a giant bipedal robot). One, swing-wing style technology is old news (B-1, F-111, F-14)--though I admit that the folding morph looked pretty rad--two, the scenario that Lockheed ran could have been accomplished with a Global Hawk and an F-16 or F-15E Strike Eagle. Understanding that LM was shooting for the whole cost angle here--near and dear to the Air Force's heart--it just seems like they would have made a stronger case if they were advocating Global Hawk/Predator/Reaper v2.0 instead.

HT: Hot Air

But of course it does! Almost every engineer who looked at the problem knew it was eminently possible to design an anti-ballistic missile system, once high-speed computers and miniaturized seekers were developed (not to brag, but I wrote something to that effect back in 1986). A ballistic missile (or a decaying satellite) is a very predictable object; it acts in accordance with basic laws of physics, so that, after tracking it briefly, one can extrapolate its state vectors and predict where it will be in space at any point in time. After that, it's equally easy to figure out where in space to aim your interceptor missiles. The trick comes in the end game, when small errors can result in significant miss distances. That is why, during the 1950s and 60s, U.S. and Soviet ABM systems relied on nuclear warheads. By the 1980s, miss distances had come down to the point that we could either use high explosive warheads throwing out large numbers of high velocity fragments, or, better still, use a "hit-to-kill" approach. Now, we have gotten to the point that hitting the bullseye at a combined velocity of more than 15,000 mph is becoming routine.

The difficulties of the missile defense problem have always been more operational than technical. We don't have to deal with one incoming warhead in isolation, but more likely with several to many coming in simultaneously and aimed at different places. That means detecting multiple objects, classifying them as threats, allocating missiles to each object, generating a fire control solution, launching the missiles, guiding them to the target, evaluating the end game, and re-engaging any targets that were missed. That takes a lot of computing power and RF bandwidth--but we can do it now, at least for small-to-medium sized attacks.

In the past, the main problem was the impossibility of defeating a large-scale attack by the USSR. Not only did the Soviets have so many missiles that at least some would get through, but most of them carried multiple warheads, so that we were dealing with tens of thousands of reentry vehicles. And the Soviets could have made the problem more difficult by deploying decoys (known as "Penetration Aids" or "PENAIDS") to further confuse the radar picture. While individually it is rather easy to discriminate between a PENAID and a live warhead (unless you want to make your PENAID almost as complex, expensive, and heavy as a real warhead), collectively they act like grit in the machine, slowing down defensive response times. The Soviets also experimented with "Maneuvering Reentry Vehicles" (MARVs) which could alter their course in flight, greatly complicating the defensive problem. Fortunately, MARVS were both heavy (cutting into missile payloads) and exorbitantly expensive. Still, on the balance, when dealing with a superpower adversary with a large missile force, the cost balance weighed heavily in favor of the attacker.

Today, of course, our potential adversaries have just a minuscule fraction of the Soviet Union's ballistic missile capability. And, with their smaller economic and technical bases, they certainly don't have the wherewithal to deploy thousands of missiles with multiple warheads and complex PENAIDS, so a relatively modest missile defense system can deter attack by small and medium-sized nuclear powers, or defeat an accidental launch or deliberate attack by a suicidal rogue state. It's a very worthwhile investment, on par with buying fire insurance for your house.

The recent successes of the Aegis/Standard III system have implications beyond forces afloat. Both the SPY-1 radar system and the Mk.41 Vertical Launch System (VLS) from which the Standard III missile is fired, are self-contained units. There is nothing that says they must be deployed aboard ships--they could just as easily be emplaced on land. Indeed, travelers up the Jersey Turnpike are familiar with the "Cruiser in the Cornfield"--the Lockheed Martin Aegis testbed at Moorestown, NJ. One could easily build similar facilities in Allied countries, connect them by fiber-optic link to a battery of Mk.41 VLS that could be buried in hardened concrete pits, and voila! Instant ABM system, capable of taking down short-to-intermediate range ballistic missiles. This would have a significant effect of extending U.S. deterrence to threatened friendly countries such as South Korea, Japan, Iraq, Israel (and, dare I say it?) Taiwan. It would go a long way to preventing nuclear intimidation by countries such as Iran and North Korea, and prevent the decoupling of the U.S. from its regional allies in times of crisis.

The fruits of missile defense:

The USS Lake Erie, armed with an SM-3 missile designed to knock down incoming missiles—not orbiting satellites—launched the attack at 10:26 p.m. EST, according to the Pentagon. It hit the satellite about three minutes later as the spacecraft traveled in polar orbit at more than 17,000 mph.

Because the satellite was orbiting at a relatively low altitude at the time it was hit by the missile, debris will begin to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere immediately, the Pentagon statement said.

"Nearly all of the debris will burn up on re-entry within 24-48 hours and the remaining debris should re-enter within 40 days," it said.

The use of the Navy missile amounted to an unprecedented use of components of the Pentagon's missile defense system, designed to shoot down hostile ballistic missiles in flight—not kill satellites.

The operation was so extraordinary, with such intense international publicity and political ramifications, that Defense Secretary Robert Gates—not a military commander—was to make the final decision to pull the trigger.

This is a major success for the Missile Defense Agency, the successor to Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, and it's going to be a tough pill for the program's critics to swallow. There have been two recent, successful tests of the missile defense system. In September 2007, the agency killed a dummy missile over the Pacific using one of its Ground Based Interceptors stationed in Alaska. General Renuart used the occasion to declare "that we have all of the pieces in place that, if the nation needed to, we could respond." There are up to 24 interceptors already deployed. And then in December the Japanese Navy knocked down a medium-range missile using the same, American SM-3 missile that was used in yesterday's strike.

Despite this good run, critics have effectively diminished the achievement by charging that the tests were rigged. This time was different. The administration bet big, and if the operation had failed, the program would have suffered a major, and possibly fatal, setback. Instead the bet paid off. It is the greatest PR boost the program could have gotten short of actually striking down a North Korean missile inbound to Hollywood.

The system will now be an easier sell to allies, and it should be a cudgel for Republicans in the fall. The "rogue" satellite cost more than a billion dollars. One suspects its destruction will be of greater value to this country than any mission it could have performed as a functioning spy satellite.

Check out the Danger Room for complete coverage of the operation. They've been all over it.

A dispute within NASA has emerged into public view over the last few weeks in advance of a meeting that will try to chart the organizations course after Bush. Four years ago Bush declared that NASA should return to the moon. Not everyone likes that idea:

Some see a subtext here — a desire to avoid building expensive lunar infrastructure and instead focus on something more exciting. “The real reason Mars advocates like asteroids is because we aren't going to build a base on an asteroid,” says James Muncy, a space-policy consultant and former adviser to the Reagan and current Bush administrations. The Planetary Society has long pushed for Mars missions, and one of the meeting's conveners is Stanford professor G. Scott Hubbard, a former head of the NASA Mars programme. Hubbard says that, although he personally wants to speed up Mars exploration, there is no preconceived result for the workshop. But Mike Griffin, the NASA administrator, says in an e-mail to Nature that some of the workshop organizers had a long-standing rejection of the Moon as a place to explore. “Balanced choices must be made,” Griffin says. “But they cannot be continually remade if there is to be progress.”

This type of thing really bothers me. Manned space exploration is extraordinarily expensive, and, frankly, impractical. Getting humans to Mars sounds great, but machines can do the job better, and cheaper, and safer. That doesn't mean there isn't a reason to send people to Mars. Manned exploration of space has always been about national prestige. If anyone was going to go to the moon, it was going to be an American. And if anyone is going to go to Mars, I'm all for this country taking the lead. But nobody is going to Mars. Meanwhile, the Chinese are going to the moon--and they're doing it to demonstrate their technological prowess, not to provide "exciting" work for their space geeks.

If the Chinese land on the moon, there should be Americans waiting for them when they get there. This is the only rationale for manned space flight right now, and it's the only way taxpayers will pony up the huge sums of money these programs demand.

The Chicago Auto Show is huge. Organizers say that it required about 10,340,000 pounds of freight, and enough carpeting to fill 571 average American homes. There are hundreds of cars on display.

Among them are stunning beauties like the... let me look it up...

Oh yeah -- that's a picture the new Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid. I apologize for the poor picture quality. The car is obscured by Jojo and Katelin. If you attend the show, be sure to say hello. They're very nice.

One of the main themes of the Chicago Auto Show -- and probably of a lot of auto shows nowadays -- is the effort by automakers to sell more fuel-efficient vehicles. More specifically, the challenge is not to produce them; it's to get consumers to buy them. The Big 3 already offer plenty. The big problem is convincing buyers that they represent a good deal. People just don't want them. They're either too small, too expensive, or too odd looking.

Over time, improved technology is likely to improve the overall picture. Batteries will get better. There will be easier availability of hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles. E-85 will be sold in more places. But what if that's not enough to get people to buy the cars that Washington wants on the road?

The simple answer is that automakers will refuse to sell them -- or they'll use price to ration them to the few willing to pay a premium. Come 2020, new fuel economy standards will require automakers to sell a fleet that meets a sales-weighted standard of 35 miles per gallon. So for every one car sold that gets 22 MPG, they better sell multiple cars that get 37 or 38. Ultimately, the best way for the manufacturers to do that is to raise the price of that 22 mpg car to make sure only a few can afford it. Maybe the profits from that Dodge Challenger will subsidize the sale of the latest hybrid. Or maybe Detroit will just bank the higher profit.

Without a significant improvement in the technology -- an improvement that is of course, entirely possible -- the car manufacturers will simply be in the position of denying the consumers what they want. They might even reap an inflated profit from doing so.

I'm in the Windy City today to blog the 100th Chicago Auto Show at McCormick place. The weather is frigid, and we're expecting about a foot of snow later today.

The kickoff is a breakfast address by Troy Clarke, President of General Motors North America.

Clarke's address picks up on the 'Super Tuesday' theme. He says that when it comes to cars, the American people vote with their dollars. He says that GM (and all other automakers) must make cars that people want to buy -- not the ones that they'd like to sell. The automakers can't just mass produce the most fuel-efficient car in the market and force them on consumers (which seems to be what many in Washington would like). Rather, they need to respond to challenges like energy security and global warming while giving drivers what they want.

Clarke relates the tale of a focus group in Los Angeles in which the participants expressed a strong desire for a 'green vehicle.' When the facilitators teased out what they wanted more precisely, the general consensus was for a Chevy Tahoe that gets 45 miles to the gallon.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports:

Five F-117A Nighthawk jets left Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., on Tuesday bound for their original home at Nevada's Tonopah Test Range as part of an ongoing effort to retire the nation's first stealth jets and close a prominent chapter of aviation history.

Arlan Ponder, a spokesman for the 49th Fighter Wing at Holloman, in Alamogordo, N.M., said the five jets that left Tuesday were preceded by five last week. Five more will arrive Friday at the Tonopah airfield, 140 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"We've gradually been sending them out," he said about the $45 million planes that, because of their still-classified nature, were spared going to the so-called "boneyard" at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base where rows and rows of outdated military aircraft bake in the Sonoran Desert sun near Tucson, Ariz.

One F-117 is headed to the Smithsonian, just in case you never got a chance to see one.

The brand new Tesla Roadster will soon start shipping, and the designers of what seems to be a pretty cool new electric car are giving test drives to publications like Automobile magazine. Autoblog Green beats them to the punch, with the first published review of the test drive (as far as I can tell). It seems as if the car looks cooler than it actually is. Alternately, it might just be that a site called 'Autoblog Green' just isn't the place to show off a car that goes from 0-60 in four seconds, nearly silently.

The Tesla Roadster is the product of the people who conceived it. Martin Eberhard wanted a really fast sports car that had no emissions. What they have wrought is a hard-edged sports car that fits like a pair of good leather driving gloves. It's not for everyone, even among the relatively few who can afford it. But for those who can and want it, it's a fine choice.

When (and if) electric cars begin to make headway in the domestic market, it will be more through cars like the Tesla than the Prius. The Prius has made headway through its distinctive look, as a symbol of environmental responsibility. But that market is limited. When green cars really capture the American imagination, it'll be because they look and act like the cars currently available with traditional internal combustion engines.

In fact, it sounds like the perfect car for me -- except that I'm 6'4". And have kids. And can't afford it at $100K. But apart from that...

An interesting piece ($) from Aviation Week on electronic warfare quotes BAE executive Rance Walleston on where the industry looks for talent:

“That’s because some of the best developers of attack tools are hackers that play around in the commercial environment,” Walleston says. “A standing industry joke is that we can’t hire the next batch of people because they’re not on parole yet.”

Walleston explains:

“Terrorists, nation-states and the U.S. government have something in common,” says Walleston. “They all shop at Best Buy [an electronics and appliances chain store], so that makes it critical that we understand the vulnerabilities of the [commercial] infrastructure we rely on.”

And nobody understands that commercial infrastructure as well as the people who go to jail for hacking it (except of course the ones that don't end up in jail). The piece describes a mobile "network laboratory" built by BAE to probe for weaknesses and try out new methods of electronic attack against the latest communications technologies. It's pretty cool stuff, but while our guys are practicing against the netwok lab, the Chinese are hacking into "anything and everything" the Department of Defense has online. So will a war with China be determined by which country has the best hackers?

The website link here details the imminent and uncontrolled return to Earth of a 20,000 lb spy satellite that has lost power and can no longer be controlled. Fears are now that radioactive and other hazardous materials that are part of the satellite's configuration could cause serious problems depending on where the vehicle enters the atmosphere.

Pike, director of the defense research group GlobalSecurity.org, estimated that the spacecraft weighs about 20,000 pounds and is the size of a small bus. He said the satellite would create 10 times less debris than the Columbia space shuttle crash in 2003.

Another rumor has it that the object with a decaying orbit is a failed attempt by the Chinese to build an orbital deathstar--an effort that has failed due to their choice of Windows Vista as the primary operating system powering the vehicle's navigational array and the power management grid for the propulsion systems on board.

Given the choice between the two I see the second scenario as more likely.

"Send the fleet to the far side of Endor," was the quote from Chinese President Hu Jin Tao just prior to this announcement.

This from from Defense Industry Daily, a trade magazine that doesn't normally take potshots at the Times and has no ideological axe to grind:

In fairness, the rest of the New York Times article is better than the title. Nevertheless, that title raises legitimate questions about the NY Times' journalistic practices. Especially coming as it does on the heels of their recent article "War Torn: Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles", which portrays US veterans as damaged and dangerous despite a murder rate that's actually considerably lower than the rate for equivalent US population as a whole. That NY Times article has also been sharply questioned by local papers who went out and did substantive research instead.

The New York Times' standards for reporting on the US military and the defense industry have become a legitimate news issue of their own, and a deserving subject of coverage. As DID's archives will attest, there are certainly more than enough legitimate controversies and debates in the USA that revolve around military procurement programs. There is no need to make them up.

The report also notes persistent and "persuasive" arguments against the Times's claim that this was "the first death resulting from an I.E.D. attack on an MRAP." We've been arguing the point all week, and have offered what I think is incontrovertible evidence that this is a bogus claim.

The Times needs to print a correction.

Apparently it's not enough that NASA and many other federal, state and local government agencies are operating portals in the multi-massive online role playing game (MMORPG) Second Life, now NASA is seeking to create its own such game:

The day after Valentine’s Day, the space agency hopes to receive a pile of five-page proposals detailing how it should go about creating a synthetic online world and a multiplayer game within it. The goal is to lure more youngsters into science, technology, engineering and math professions that NASA needs to achieve its lofty plan to return to the Moon and to build a spacecraft to carry humans to Mars.

In its Jan. 16 request for information, NASA seeks the input of organizations that already operate immersive synthetic environments that would be interested in partnering to develop a new online world and educational role-playing game.

“A high quality synthetic gaming environment is a vital element of NASA’s educational cyberstructure,” according to the RFI. “This new synthetic world would be a collaborative work and meeting space as well as a game space of a kind familiar to increasing numbers of American students. Games and challenges in the [massively multiplayer online educational game] would engage students in a way that is both familiar and comfortable for them.”

I've been wondering lately why no Republican presidential contender is campaigning on the message that government is simply spending too much. Indeed: my dad always reminds me that you just need to look at where the marginal dollar is spent to determine whether government is consuming too much of your tax money. If NASA can afford its own MMORPG, it probably has too much money to play with.

And before you ask, yes -- I will play.

For more on MMORPG, see Jonathan V. Last's "Get a (Second) Life."

The Dassault Aviation Rafale has had almost a charmed life in the world of fighter aircraft. In the almost quarter century since the aircraft first began its development and then entered into service with the French Armée de l'Air (AdA) no aircraft had been lost until this week.

The Rafale aircraft had taken off on Thursday from the AdA airbase at Saint-Dizier and later crashed in the township of Neuvic, Corrèze, in an uninhabited area. According to the AdA, two aircraft had taken off on a training mission that called for a nighttime head-on intercept at an altitude of 4000 metres. “One of the aircraft successfully completed the training intercept and then went into a dive and plowed straight into the ground,” said a source familiar with the AdA’s investigation. “The speed at which he impacted was so high that there were pieces everywhere on the ground.” The pilot, who was an experienced aviator, did not survive the crash. It is unknown at this time how a pilot could have become disoriented at night at such a high altitude and not have been able to recover before crashing.

The Rafale fighter has long been regarded as one of the most advanced aircraft of its kind. Its flight control system (FCS) is the envy of most other designers and permits the most carefree handling possible. One US pilot who flew the aircraft at Le Bourget pointed out the revolutionary automation that the FCS facilitates. “Coming in for a landing approach there is no need for adjustment of the flap controls--and no controls to adjust them with if you wanted to,” he said. The flaps, canards, and power management controls of the engine are all linked in one of the most sophisticated FCS architectures ever devised.

Dassault had long been famous for its several generations of “Mirage” aircraft, from the Mirage IIIC that had been the workhorse of the Israel Air Force during the 1967 Six-Day War to the latest model, the Mirage 2000-5 MkII that recently ended production. Dassault has manufactured 601 of the Mirage 2000 models, the last of which was delivered to the Hellenic Air Force at a ceremony in Tanagra Air Base in Greece on 23 November.

The Rafale was designed to be the next-generation successor to the Mirage 2000 series, and incorporated a number of new, leading-edge technologies that in some cases were the first of their kind to be on-board a NATO aircraft. It is currently the only military aircraft built by Dassault, but the programme is still profitable and on schedule, which is rare for most military aircraft that call for the introduction of so many new-age systems. Its Thales RBE2 radar is regarded as one of the most advanced in its class and had a unique feature in that its passive array (PESA) antenna can be removed and replaced with an active electronically scanning array (AESA) in one of the easiest and effective upgrades of its kind.

Another impressive aspect of the Rafale is that it was designed from the ground up to be both a land-based and carrier-based aeroplane. Not until more than a decade later when the U.S. armed forces decided to procure the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) would another combat aircraft be developed with both naval and conventional take-off applications as part of the requirement.

As impressive as the aircraft is it has had little success in the export market, sales that the program needs in the long run to keep the production line open. Near-misses in competitions in South Korea and Singapore saw the Rafale muscled out by the US lobby and government-to-government influence that convinced both nations to purchase the Boeing F-15 instead. The Dassault jet also was in line for sale to Saudi Arabia and Morocco, but in both cases the official French arms export agency, the Délégation Générale pour l'Armement (DGA) is regarded as having fumbled the ball at critical moments.

Next week, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi will visit Paris--the first such visit from a Libyan head of state to take place in 30 years--and is expected to sign a deal to purchase 10 to 14 Rafales for the Libyan armed forces. Dassault is also involved in a program to upgrade and refurbish the older Mirage F1s that Libya previously had in inventory.

Via the Danger Room:

I've heard rumblings in the defense community that the India was going to start self-manufacturing defense equipment, and buy up what they couldn't produce on their own from the West. I guess injecting your military with legions of cheap Russian goods is a tough habit to break:

Despite Russia's propensity to squeeze more money out of India in ongoing arms contracts, it continues to maintain its stranglehold over the huge market here. India inked yet another massive contract with Russia on Friday, worth a whopping Rs 4,900 crore, to import another 347 T-90S main-battle tanks.

These 347 tanks will be in addition to the 310 T-90S tanks already imported by India, at a cost of over Rs 3,625 crore, under a February 2001 contract. Moreover, the Heavy Vehicles Factory at Avadi has already commenced the planned production of another 1,000 T-90S tanks under transfer of technology from Russia. Defence ministry sources said that while 124 tanks under the new agreement will be imported in "fully-formed condition", the rest 223 will come in "semi-knocked down condition" to be reassembled at Avadi. After payment of the first installment, Russia will supply the first 124 tanks in 29 months, with the rest to follow 11 months later.

While I understand India's proclivity towards Russian hardware, which dates back to their quasi-socialist post-colonial government, I'm a bit surprised that New Delhi isn't taking advantage of its new strategic partnership with the United States. American defense firms are generally more reliable than their Russian counterparts, and in most cases our gear is superior. Ticking off Ivan might be pushing them in the right direction, though.

India's newfound bonhomie with the United States has not gone well with its old friend Russia. Moscow is conveying its displeasure by hiking the price of already delayed defence deals with India. It has not only increased the annual escalation cost of weapon system from 2.55 percent to 5 percent, it is also demanding an additional $1.2 billion to deliver the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov.

India is flying in Red Flag this year, which apparently is the primary catalyst for the Moscow-New Delhi spat. So NATO gets to train its pilots to engage all the latest Russian fighters (largely flown by our enemies), and Moscow reacts by driving India's defense industry right into our waiting hands. Hook, line, sinker, Ivan.

I've written before on the legislation introduced in Congress to deter internet providers from sharing data with governments that may use it to prosecute dissidents. The House Foreign Affairs Committee--which has approved that legislation--also held a hearing on November 6, to grill Yahoo for its testimony regarding the case of Shi Tao.

It seems that the Congressional brow-beating has caused Yahoo to settle the case brought against it by the families of Shi Tao and another dissident:

On Nov. 13, Yahoo decided to pay: It settled a lawsuit with the families of imprisoned journalist Shi Tao and political dissident Wang Xiaoning, both of whom were given 10-year sentences after the Internet company turned over information—from personal e-mails and anonymous posts on Yahoo message boards—to the Chinese government. The amount Yahoo will pay was not disclosed. "After meeting with the families, it was clear to me what we had to do to make this right for them, for Yahoo, and for the future," said Yang in a statement.

Yahoo also is establishing a fund to provide humanitarian and legal aid to people serving prison sentences for expressing their opinions online. The company is still working out the details of who will be eligible for aid, how much will be offered, and how it will be administered. "At Yahoo, we believe in the transformative power of the Internet," Yang's statement said. "That's why we are so committed to working to support free expression and privacy around the world."

While terms of the settlement have not been disclosed, the group that brought the suit on behalf of the dissidents' families says that they are pleased:

The terms of the settlement were not disclosed and are to remain confidential. But the plaintiffs and their families are pleased, according to Morton Sklar. He's the executive director of the World Organization for Human Rights USA, the Washington-based group that brought the suit on behalf of Shi and Wang. "Everyone's first priority is getting the prisoners released. What everybody realized was that if this case continued, that would take four or five more years."

It's unclear if Smith's legislation--the Global Online Freedom Act--will be considered by the full House. Nevertheless, the incident shows the power of Congress to affect how firms do business, without ever passing a law.

There has been much discussion regarding the threat to security from the sale of American technology companies to Chinese owners. Most recently it was the announcement that China's Huawei Technologies would attempt to purchase a stake in 3COM, which provides the Pentagon with technology to prevent cyber-attacks, that set off alarm bells (see Irwin M. Stelzer's "Selling National Security" in THE DAILY STANDARD). But it seems that American owned technology firms may be no less vulnerable to Beijing than those based in Shanghai. Here's the report from the Taipei Times:

Following findings by the Investigation Bureau that portable hard discs produced by US disk-drive manufacturer Seagate Technology that were sold in Taiwan contained Trojan horse viruses, further investigations suggested that "contamination" took place when the products were in the hands of Chinese subcontractors during the manufacturing process.

On Saturday, Seagate Technology LLC, the manufacturer of the Maxtor portable hard drive, said on its Web site (www.seagate.com) that Maxtor Basics Personal Storage 3200 hard drives sold after August could be infected with the virus....

The Investigation Bureau said the tainted portable hard drives automatically upload any information saved on the computer to Beijing Web sites without the user's knowledge.

The company does not confirm the specifics of the story, saying only that the "scenario [by which the virus is uploaded] seems unlikely"--but that won't inspire much confidence. Apparently the drives were made in Thailand, but that may just be final assembly. And given the nature of the attack, and the Beijing-based servers that received the hacked information, I don't see any reason not to take the Taiwanese report at face value. And if responsibility does lay elsewhere in the manufacturing process, it would hardly change the need to address this increasing threat to privacy and national security.

HT: China Rises