I had lunch today with someone who told me that the DOD had been working at least a decade ago on developing a particle beam that is DNA specific.

I just spit wine into my nose. Now please tell me it's true....

It would not surprise me. The DOD has engaged in a lot of what might be called crackpot ideas. They leave no stone unturned. The crazy idea of nuclear reactions was one of their crazier explorations. Their research into using chemical enhancements (LSD) on friendly and enemy troops is another.

^ At the time the topic was acquisition of zero days for Stuxnet.

They may not have known what hit them, but they knew that it was a single aircraft raid and it did this:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1502607803.jpg

Bit oversimplified if you ask me. It's not really just about having hte best people and building the best nation at home..

The US became a super power because it had geographic advantage, one nation, pretty much a single continent, and that continent had pretty much anything needed to become a huge manufacturing giant and owner of a huge pile of nuclear weapons (which the US as only nation has ever used in anger)./

Europe had the same, but, not united. in fighting between 2 of the 3 major industrialized countries (France & Germany , WW1 & WW2)which broke the back financially of the 3rd one (UK). And Europe had some nukes as well, we all got drawin into that Cold War which really was for the most part USA vs USSR. Capitalism vs Communism.

And at the same time the US got better from both WW1 & WW2, and by disconnecting the currency from the Gold Standard , instead monopolizing the Oil trade currency and agressive foreign police back'ed up by Aircraft carriers & Nukes.

I mean, It was ok to be a dictator in a banana republic or in an oil state, just as long as you were a dictator that played ball with the American foreign policy and did not play ball with the communists..

Like Sjah in Iran in power because he was anti communist (ignoring the human rights abuse he did)The support of Saddam Hussein, Mubutu,Marcos, the list is long and not very distinguished.

Not a single country anywhere in the world has as much military installations, bases and influence around the world like the US does.

And sure you can say 'wel we saved yer asses twice from the germans' or 'we police the world because y'all are weak' yeah yeah. Fact remains US dominance has not been achieved simply from bringing the best to the US and being nice guys all the time. There has been a lot of strong arming.
There have been a lot of very dark grey areas, some even pretty black in terms of ethics used by the likes of CIA, diplomats and even big US companies..

Just look at Union Carbide and how the Bhopal disaster was sorted out.


Most Americans i've ever met are really nice people, but in packs, that being nice goes out the window. Because you all think the same, from the same limited perspective, thinking that perspective is the only right one to have.

All big countries have that, but the USA Has it the most.
Just my 2 cts, coming from a really small country :)

you think? :)

There's a lot of course starting with not having 1000 years of history bogging us down, the creation of a middle class due in part from the creation of unions and strengthened by becoming a mfg superpower after WWII. Education for everyone also played a central role. And of course there's a lot more as you say and make some good points.

The DIA reports that the second stage of the Hansong rocket is powered by old Soviet submarine missile engines. Wikipedia has a lot of info on the hardware buried in the notes.

Looks like junk tech.

Tom

What's your GPS coordinates, Stijn?

Isn't the presence of those missile engines, some kind of proof that Russia violated some of the nuclear proliferation or some of the START 1 agreement?

Article I:[30] Each nuclear-weapons state (NWS) undertakes not to transfer, to any recipient, nuclear weapons, or other nuclear explosive devices, and not to assist any non-nuclear weapon state to manufacture or acquire such weapons or devices.

Providing the missile engines for ICBM missiles, I would think is exactly such assistance. No?
They may not be part of the nuclear package, but they deliver said package, and are integral to the weapons system.

40°41′21″N 74°2′40″W SmileWavy

Thank you. No need to crouch under a table, really.

lol

Its the mosquitoes you don't hear that bite you...

And your point is?

We have the biggest most expensive military because we dedicate a LOT of our tax dollars to it. A single American aircraft carrier costs more than many countries spend on their entire military. We have a lot of them. Same with our subs.

One of the issues, Germany and Japan and especially South Korea and Canada have relied on US spending big to protect them. Nato has a few countries that have paid up. Only five of the 28 members currently meet the NATO goal of spending 2% of their budget on defense. We spend 3.3% of a large GDP on defense so many other countries can keep their spending low.

uhuh.

That's kind of how it works but the satellites don't send out pulses they send out long strings of 1's an 0's (fixed and unique to the individual satellite). You figure out the time of arrival by seeing how your locally generated stream (sequence known in advance) lines up (time shifts) with respect to the incoming stream (correlates). The satellite encrypts the sequence it sends and if you don't have the key you can't decrypt it to see where it lines up with what you know it should be.

You are trying to measure something coming at you at the speed of light. You are trying to measure it with an accuracy of what it travels in one foot.

You actually need 4 satellites (4 equations 4 unknowns) so you can simultaneously solve for your position x,y,z and the time offset from your local clock to the atomic clock on the satellite like in the intro here Solving the GPS Equations (c is the speed of light)

What the civilian user gets is the Coarse Acquisition code and I don' think that will be disabled. It's accuracy is of limited value to the military.

We all think the same? No.
Not even close.