Boeing Has Perfected A Missile That Wipes Out Electronics And Leaves Everything Else Intact

[applegrove]

Boeing Has Perfected A Missile That Wipes Out Electronics And Leaves Everything Else Intact

by Robert Johnson at Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/beoings-counter-electronics-high-power-microwave-advanced-missile-project-2012-10

"SNIP...............................................

While the U.S. geared up for the second presidential debate last Tuesday, a building sat pulsing with computers, electronic surveillance, and security systems in the Utah high desert.

The unoccupied site was awaiting the test of a weapon the Pentagon requested four years ago to the day on 16 October, 2008.

The Counter-Electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP), led by Boeing's Phantom works, promised to change the face of contemporary warfare, and its test was a complete success.

CHAMP flew over the Utah Test and Training Range last Tuesday, discharging a burst of High Power Microwaves onto the test site and brought down the compound's entire spectrum of electronic systems, apparently without producing any other damage at all. Even the camera recording the test was shut down.

...............................................SNIP"

[Javaman]

1. The genii has be let out of the bottle. nt

[leveymg]

2. A single warhead detonation at 60 miles will do the same thing to the entire Eastern Seaboard.

The more technologically intensive the targeted society, the more vulnerable. We should worry most because everyone else will have these things a few years after we do.

[shawn703]

3. Fatal to humans?

Just wondering

[siligut]

17. Maybe, over time

Microwaves are electromagnetic waves, like radio waves, only much shorter. Living things have electromagnetic fields, medicine uses EEGs (Electroencephalograms) to measure the electrical activity in the brain. EKGs (Electrocardiograms) measure the electrical activity in the heart.

So it is feasible that these waves could disrupt the functioning of the brain and heart, though realistically, they are having an effect on other organs as well, there just seems to be less research available, which makes sense. But, consider the known effects of radiation, again, electromagnetic waves, just really, really short.

Microwave research has also been done in the area of crowd control, aiming a pulse at people, causing, intense uncomfortable heat, as you might expect, but also to alter brain activity, causing fear or apathy.

[Vox Moi]

4. Is my pacemaker safe?

Nope, no collateral damage ... nothing to see here ... please move on

[leveymg]

7. You should get an official Dick Cheney EMP-hardened pacemaker. Boeing sells those, too.

Retails for about $5 million. Guaranteed to outlive the wearer.

[Frustratedlady]

5. In place to take Iran's nuke system out, if need be? eom

[leveymg]

6. As usual, we're fighting the last war with weapons that are already obsolete before they're even

deployed.

If we get into a war with Iran, their nuclear program -- whatever it might be -- should be the last thing we'll need to worry about.

[defacto7]

8. It's been theoretical for years. We knew it was doable.

There could very well be limitations as well; we knew that was possible too. Although it is another weapon of some type of mass destruction, the science is too simple to think it can't easily be replicated. If it is used, we just open another can of worms.

On the other hand, it is better than a neutron bomb that kills every living thing but leaves the buildings and infrastructure standing. This would probably be Romney's choice since it's more business like.

[WinkyDink]

9. And when, one day, it is aimed at our passenger aircraft, we will be shocked. SHOCKED.

[applegrove]

10. Oh man. I did not think of that.

[leveymg]

11. Why use a $billion Boeing EMP missile, when a $2000 SAM-7 looted from Libya will do just as well?

[WinkyDink]

25. Well, now you've got me thinking of TWA-800......

[leveymg]

26. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. Move along . . .

[Hutzpa]

23. Catastrophe in the sky

Some people are bent on creating Armageddon.

[hobbit709]

12. I have a book that shows how to build an EMP generator.

with simple easy to build components and parts available at any electronics surplus store. Max range is about 100 feet but judging from the diagrams you could ramp up the voltage and current.

p.s. The book is available from Amazon for $9.95

[Ganja Ninja]

13. Imagine trying to fight the Chinese and they have these.

This is a weapon that wipes out all of our advantages. All of our advanced weapons and even things like trucks and tanks would be rendered useless. The only things that would still work would be guns that don't require any sort of electric power.

On the up side though it makes conventional war almost unthinkable because it would be WWI all over again minus the planes.

[OldDem2012]

15. Not exactly. The US military has been hardened against EMP effects since the 1970s....

...but US civilian infrastructures are woefully unprotected.

[OldDem2012]

14. EMP effects have been known since the earliest nuke testing in 1945, although back then....

....they were not fully understood.

But, in 1962, scientists became alarmed when a US nuke was tested in space at about 250 miles above the mid-Pacific Ocean. The blast caused electrical damage in Hawaii, about 900 miles away, where it knocked out about 300 streetlights, set off numerous burglar alarms, and damaged a telephone company microwave link.

[justiceischeap]

16. I wonder if the creators of "Revolution" knew about this

and that's why they created the show.

This has been one of my worries since I started hearing about solar flares. I know most think of it as tinfoil hat territory but my concern isn't necessarily about the solar flare itself but what would happen to our nation if we lost our electrical grid. We'd be screwed.

[randome]

18. It's called Windows 8!! Ha-ha-ha! Couldn't resist!

[SomethingFishy]

19. How much?

How many schools could have been repaired? How many arts programs could have been re-instated? How many bridges could have been repaired? How many roads paved?

This nation has the most fucked up priorities I have ever seen.

I notice this comes from Business Insider... Destruction is our business and business is good...

[LongTomH]

22. Quote from Dwight D. Eisenhower

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. <...> Is there no other way the world may live?

[SomethingFishy]

24. That quote was used in Roger Waters' performances

of The Wall these past two years. It was powerful stuff. Before each show they would project the first sentence of that quote on buildings and sidewalks near the concert venues. Then during the song "Bring The Boys Back Home" He projected it full screen across The Wall.

I got to see it 4 times as the tour I was on crossed paths with his. It was an unforgettable experience...

[Hosnon]

20. Love the non-violent nature of this but there's a dark side.

Imagine if they are turned inward. Democratic revolutions rely more and more on the internet.

And why try in vain to shut down the internet when you can just take down the entire grid?

[Hutzpa]

21. Great!

now the billionaires have a new toy to fight over. If this falls into the wrong hands I can see them leaving yhoooge dent.