Airborne Laser Could Save Us From Terrorist EMP Scenario
September 15, 2009 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
Perhaps one of the most frightening terrorist-attack scenarios is one wherein a nuclear-tipped missile is launched by terrorists from a seemingly harmless cargo ship somewhere off the coast of the United States.
In such an attack, the missile could be hurtling skyward almost before our current missile-defense system had time to blink. The missile’s warhead could then be remotely detonated somewhere 20 to 60-plus miles above the visual horizon, and — in addition to killing everyone in the blast and radiation radius — trigger an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), which would basically fry every single electrical circuit in the blast’s line-of-sight for hundreds of miles in every direction. An EMP would effectively knock out all electrical grids, aircraft, trains, ships, automobiles, computers, medical equipment, ATM machines, cooling and heating systems, TVs, radios, telephones, blackberries, flashlights, electric toothbrushes, and children’s toys in an instant.
In less time than that required to take a breath, a huge section of North America would be catapulted back to the 18th century. Yet because we are so completely dependent upon 21st century technology, the ensuing chaos, crime, starvation, and disease would be something unimaginable.
A single enemy missile could do this to us.
The U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, however, have an answer to this threat in the Airborne Laser (ABL) program, essentially a high-energy laser-beam system housed in a Boeing 747-400 aircraft. (Boeing is the primary ABL contractor. Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are partners developing the laser-weapon system.)
The ABL system is designed to kill enemy ballistic-missiles — short, medium, and long-range — during the boost-phase portion of the missile’s flight, shortly after the missile has been launched. And being that the system is airborne, ABL is capable of patrolling the U.S. coastline as well as near-and-above “potential enemy ballistic-missile hotspots,” worldwide.
