Lockheed's MKV - Concept & Hover Test

Yikes! That thing looks like it came straight from the opening scene of Terminator.

I seem to remember seeing this exact type of machine years ago in another video clip. This is the bigger, ready to fly version maybe?

That sulphur smell is Valdimir Putin crapping his pants. 36$ oil and now this - his dream of being the big bear of Europe is in peril.

You can say a lot about the human race. But when it comes to weapons & kill power. Nothing beats human. Its no amplification that most of civilizations advances have come from military applications.

Revnant Dream, not all. I submit steam power and the humble wood screw. And electricity. And, oddly, the cap-lock firearm. And cars. And airplanes.

But not computers or the internet. ~:D Military applications have really only been a part of scientific advance since Victorian times, and they didn't -really- start to move there in a big way until Hitler's Germany.

I blame Dr. Maxim, myself. His invention pretty much ended cavalry and fancy uniforms on officers, thereby removing upper-crust idiots from the world's militaries in droves. Paving the way for innovation and our modern, more workmanlike approach to slaying the enemy in job lots.

I'm enthusiastic about robots killing other robots, myself. Leave the people out of it. Settle the whole thing in space, where the collateral damage burns up on re-entry.

Is this real? The clip has a video game animation look to it.

Uhmmmm this sure looks like one of the things that was chasing Han Solo around on the ice planet Hoth.

I love the smell of MKV in the morning. It smells like victory!

That would make an awesome remote controlled toy.

Revnant - back in the day of the cave-man they worried only about two things. What will I eat today, and, what is out to eat me? Today isn't much different. Mankind has committed more to destroying itself than it has to any other purpose. By that I'm not saying that all men are evil. There are those who belong to the second question: What will I eat today? Others belong to the first. In this life you have to do what is necessary to make sure the bad guys don't get to eat your lunch - so to speak.

I want one!

A little bit of Star Wars comes to life.

How to frag incoming warheads and data collectors all in one 'easy' step.

Cheers

Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief

Frankenstein Battalion
2nd Squadron: Ulanen-(Lancers) Regiment Großherzog Friedrich von Baden(Rheinisches) Nr.7(Saarbrucken)
Knecht Rupprecht Division
Hans Corps
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North

I'm glad the USA is on my side.

If you like the MKV you'll love this little piece of machinery:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhstuvzMiB0

Revnant Dream at December 21, 2008 5:47 PM :

You can say a lot about the human race. But when it comes to weapons & kill power. Nothing beats human.

This is simply huumans being humans. Do you remember the guy found in a Swiss glacier a few years back? He was entrapped in the glacier some 3 1/2 thousand yers ago. He had a spear, a bow and arrows, an axe, a knife; he was armed to the teeth. When, in the 18th Century, Europeans met the Australian aboriginals, they had spears, clubs and throwing sticks: armed to the teeth.

Be proud to be human; if we weren't able to kill, we would cease to exist ... biologically.

The video reminds me of the sales pitch in

http://20trektng.blogspot.com/2007/12/20-years-of-star-trek-tng-arsenal-of.html

man, could you ever fetch venison with that sucker

I guess the enemy will have to use cruise missiles or suitcase nukes.

Mark: cruise missiles would be easy pickings for this kind of stuff - slow and easy to see from space. Suitcase nukes are another matter and there are far more deadly, more terrifying and easier to accomplish options than either that I will not post on this site.

Nothing has the bang for the buck like a biological lab.

Couple grand tops, some nutrient solution, and in ten days, with the help of a few devoted martyrs a continent gets a hell of a "flu".

Be the first on your block to get one!

Titanium and lasers are so, how should I put it, 20th century.

Hey, it really boils down to a business decision.

"Whatever happens we have got,
the Gatling gun and they have not."
- Hillaire Belloc

Sut the point about bio-weapons is a critical one.

This was on the Jawa Report a few weeks ago. They posted it because Jawa although a Political blog holds Star Wars the movie to it's heart. Hence when they saw this new craaazy weapon they posted it.
This post is mainly for those who don't know about Jawa.

So-called "missile defence" is a fraud.

Tests of the Ground-based-Midcourse-Defense component have been repeatedly delayed, or have been held under such scripted conditions as to be meaningless.

(Well, not entirely meaningless--at $100 million + per test, they mean quite a lot to the American taxpayer, and to the corporate welfare beneficiaries the US's Missile Defense Agency exists to serve.)

Since Reagan's delusional speech in 1983, something north of $120 billion has been spent on so-called "missile defence," a dream of military planners since the 1940s.

The practical success rate so far? Basically zero.

Certainly, the current justifications offered for so-called "missile defense" are transparent falsehoods: the need to protect against a launch from "rogues" like North Korea or Iran.

No such "rogue" has either the ability or the inclination to launch a nuclear-tipped ICBM at the US or its allies.

And, furthermore, the US "missile-defense" system offers no practical prospect of defending against such a hypothetical launch anytime in the foreseeable future, even if it were to occur.

In truth, the only practical prospect offered by the US's continued "missile-defense" program is the prospect of billions of taxpayer dollars transferred to the likes of Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Boeing.

That's quite in line with general right-wing political and economic philosophy, of course: powerful state intervention (in the form of massive transfers of taxpayer dollars) to benefit narrow, private interests.

Few clearer examples exist of this philosophy at work than so-called "missile defense."

Without getting too specific:

Phantom, you are correct. The star wars initiative had a very similar program, as the ability to engage in space was, of course, essential to the project. However, if you compare clips (sorry, don't have a url for you) you will make some interesting points.

1) stability/Control is greatly increased, thus accuracy is improved.

2) Unit is has larger thrusters and more fuel, thus vastly more capable of the all essential delta V. In other words, it can be launched from more ground locations and still get to where it needs to go.

BTW, it doesn't need to hover in space, the hover test is to prove control ability.

Stephen : what a shmuck you are!!!

"the practical success rate so far? Basically zero."

Yah, zero if you don't count collapsing the USSR, but then again you consider that a bad thing don't you!!!

I imagine when some nutbar dictator or terrorist group decide to send a missle our way Stephen will send a strongly worded letter to the UN in order to deal with the situation.

Looks like the ultimate high-tech, very high altitude variation on the old WWII anti-aircraft wall barrage.

Stephen, I'd like to address your complaints about missile defense. And unlike Frenchie77, I plan to get specific.

First, your description of the THAAD (terminal high altitude air defense), the ground based system, would have been true in the mid-90's, but isn't anymore. 9 of the first 10 firings of the weapon have been characterized by the opponents of missile defense as failures, because they failed to destroy any target missiles. However, in 3 of those tests, there were no targets to intercept, and in the other 7 the system wasn't expected to destroy the targets. They were only to test of the THAADs flight control and targeting systems, to see how they interacted and figure out how to tweak them (and in one of those tests the THAAD still managed to destroy a target missile).

Since then the THAADs design has been put finalized, and has been put through 10 real tests, in real world conditions. In 8 of those tests the THAAD successfully destroyed the target, in the other 2 the target missiles lost structural integrity and broke apart in mid-flight before the THAAD could intercept it. I would call that a 100% success rate.

The ship based terminal interceptor, the SM-3, is also working fine. In 13 tests, it has successfully intercepted 11 targets. The first test was conducted before the SM-3s engine design was finished, so the missile was fired using the weaker SM-2 engine, and as a result was too slow to catch the target, but was able to lock on to and track it throughout it's flight. Only once has the SM-3 ever actually missed a target all together.

And those are just part of the program, the boost phase YAL-1s design has just been finalized, and now the basic designs for the arc phase MKV are apparently coming out. You can't just assert that something wont work because it's not finished yet.

And by the way, your assertion that there are no rogue states that pose a threat to the west; North Korea has a nuclear arsenal and missiles capable of hitting anywhere in South Korea, Japan, Hawaii and parts of western North America. Iran may or may not have a nuclear program, and has missiles capable of hitting Israel and parts of eastern Europe. Pakistan has nukes and missiles capable of hitting anywhere in India or Bangladesh. Not to mention that pretty much every crackpot dictator has conventionaly armed missiles that pose significant threats to their neighbors (or any military force that moves in to take them out, for that matter).

Stephen, typical Leftie arguments.

As Frenchie77 says, this technology has been around a while and is getting quite good. As Mabus says, its getting good enough to put into the field. Money well spent, because cities cost a lot more to replace than a couple hundred billion dollars spent on this system.

Long range ballistic missiles are getting both cheap and small, even fruitloops like Iran can manage nukes and the rockets to carry them. Thanks to our good friend Bill Clinton the Chicoms have both ICBMs -and- MIRV technology for their nukes.

Wouldn't it be nice to have something other than duck-and-cover to counter these a-holes? I think so, and that's why I salute Ronald Regan for having the vision and common bloody sense to pursue these technologies. We'd be a lot worse off today without Rockin' Ronnie Raygun and his Star Wars initiative.

If you don't know the difference between THAAD and GMD, don't bother saying that you're being specific.

So, evidently Stephen thinks duck-and-cover is just fine. Forgive me if I don't go along, eh?

Just to be clear, that machine gun noise on the video was not a machine gun, or any other weapon. It looks to me like short bursts of a control rocket.

Looking at the hovering video again, it is stunningly amazing. This vehicle can defy gravity on the surface. In orbit, it would be superlative.

Maybe you folks don't understand just what processing power, control algor*(sorry for swearing)*ithms and control actuators are involved in that demo. Spectacular!

Rick at December 22, 2008 12:48 AM

I am aware of Jawa Report, and many other sites. I don't have the time to visit them all. Most of the day, I must actually work; and then, after that, deal with squawking humanity. Messy but necessary.

So, evidently Stephen thinks duck-and-cover is just fine. Forgive me if I don't go along, eh?

Evidently, The Phantom--who poses as someone who believes in smaller government--actually holds with massive state transfers of taxpayer dollars to a "defence" program that's actually less effective than "duck-and-cover" at protecting the citizenry of the USA.

Oh, and yes, my arguments are the "typical Leftie" ones The Phantom derides, since they're based on evidence and logic, and not on the fairy-tales and willful self-delusion that so characterize the policy positions of the right-wing.

Take heart, though, Phantom--Riki Ellison and the other fantasists may have a place for you over at www[dot]missiledefenseadvocacy[dot]org.

Stephen - you cruelly expose us to your intelligence with statements such as: massive state transfers of taxpayer dollars to a "defence" program that's actually less effective than "duck-and-cover" at protecting the citizenry of the USA

Had the USA adopted just the "duck and cover" option, that option would have been exercised by the commies (much to your liking I suspect).

I don't expect your kind of brilliance to understand why deterrence works. I don't expect you to understand that it is precisely this expenditure that allows you to make a complete ass of yourself in complaining about it.

In fact, I don't expect anything from you or your kind at all (i.e. lefties)- it is not up to the lesser men of history to make history.

So crawl back to that little enclave in your mind where your words are important and respected.

Thanks for your response, Frenchie77.

It's about what I'd expect from someone who's spent next to no time looking into the subject of so-called 'missile defense.'

If it ever occurs to you to educate yourself on a topic before posting, I'd recommend Frances Fitzgerald's 'Way out there in the Blue' as a good starting point, though obviously that book only begins to scratch the surface.

Stephen: you should be quiet now, and stop embarrassing yourself further.

As an ex-military officer, with post-graduate degrees in space science and engineering and years of work as a spacecraft engineer somehow, just somehow, I suspect that I know a little more about the subject than you.

I don't need to "read a book" about the topic, it was my life in the forces and now I write the design documents.

Deterrence works (both passive and offensive), we are still here because of a strong american deterrence. The day that fails, then so will we.

So Merry Christmas, and enjoy this gift of deterrence as whether you understand it, love it, or hate, it is there helping to protect your pathetic ingratitude.