Month: March 2018

Enlarge (credit: US Department of Defense)

The Department of Defense's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Development Program (JNLWD) is closing in on a directed energy weapon that can literally tell people to go away—creating sound waves with laser pulses that can annoy, frighten, or otherwise send the message to people approaching a military unit that getting closer is not a good idea.

The Non-Lethal Laser-Induced Plasma Effect (NL-LIPE) system can be used to manipulate air molecules, creating a ball of plasma that oscillates to create sound waves with a stream of femtosecond-long laser bursts. A first laser creates the plasma ball, and a second then oscillates the plasma ball to create the sound. As Defense One's Patrick Tucker reports, the current Laser-Induced Plasma Effect implementation can only manage an indistinguishable mumble—though it can create a wide variety of very distinguishable sounds, as demonstrated in the video below.

David Law, JNLWD's Technology Division Chief, believes that, within the next three years, the system will be able to create intelligible speech from a glowing ball of plasma hovering in the air at a distance. "We're this close to getting it to speak to us," Law told Tucker. "I need three or four more kilohertz."

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images)

In a March 1, 2018 speech before Russia's Federal Assembly, Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed new strategic weapons being developed to counter United States ballistic missile defenses. Two of these weapons are allegedly nuclear powered: a previously revealed intercontinental-range nuclear torpedo and a cruise missile. As Putin described them:

Russia’s advanced arms are based on the cutting-edge, unique achievements of our scientists, designers, and engineers. One of them is a small-scale, heavy-duty nuclear energy unit that can be installed in a missile like our latest X-101 air-launched missile or the American Tomahawk missile—a similar type but with a range dozens of times longer, dozens—basically an unlimited range. It is a low-flying stealth missile carrying a nuclear warhead, with almost an unlimited range, unpredictable trajectory and ability to bypass interception boundaries. It is invincible against all existing and prospective missile defense and counter-air defense systems.

Defense and nuclear disarmament experts did a double take. "I'm still kind of in shock," Edward Geist, a Rand Corporation researcher specializing in Russia, told NPR. "My guess is they're not bluffing, that they've flight-tested this thing. But that's incredible."

This is not the first time a government has worked on a nuclear-powered strategic weapon. Decades ago, the US developed engines first for a proposed nuclear-powered bomber and then for a hypersonic nuclear cruise missile. The US has also examined nuclear-powered rockets for space flight (that crazy Project Orion thing is a story for another time). These programs were all dropped, not because they didn't work but because they were deemed impractical.