{"id":4830,"date":"2016-08-27T20:41:41","date_gmt":"2016-08-28T01:41:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=4830"},"modified":"2016-08-27T20:41:41","modified_gmt":"2016-08-28T01:41:41","slug":"add-plasma-and-shake-vigorously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2016\/08\/27\/add-plasma-and-shake-vigorously\/","title":{"rendered":"Add Plasma and Shake Vigorously"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article<\/a> in NewScientist<\/strong><\/em> (20 August 2016) is disconcerting:<\/p>\n

CAN you hear me now? The US Air Force has plans to improve radio communication over long distances by detonating plasma bombs in the upper atmosphere using a fleet of micro satellites. …<\/p>\n

The curvature of Earth stops most ground-based radio signals travelling more than 70 kilometres without a boost. But by bouncing between the ionosphere and the ground they can zigzag for much greater distances. At night the ionosphere is denser and more reflective. …<\/p>\n

Now the USAF wants to do this more efficiently, with tiny satellites \u2013 such as CubeSats \u2013 carrying large volumes of ionised gas directly into the ionosphere.<\/p>\n

There are at least two major challenges. One is building a plasma generator small enough to fit on a CubeSat. Then there\u2019s the problem of controlling how the plasma disperses once released.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The current approaches appear to center around heating a metal beyond its melting point and using the result to generate plasma. Radio waves will then bounce off the plasma, permitting the radio to travel further.<\/p>\n

I’m frowning over this one. What consideration has been given to side-effects?<\/p>\n

And … why again? To make your radio signal go further? But you have this nifty satellite system for that. And if you’re thinking it’ll be jammed by the enemy – what about the communications with these micro-satellites? Won’t they be jammed as well?<\/p>\n

ScienceAlert<\/strong><\/em> also covered<\/a> this story and offered an extra tidbit, which might make some sense:<\/p>\n

There’s another potential benefit too: a denser ionosphere should offer better protection against solar storms<\/a>, which can interfere with GPS networks and other communications.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If it offered more protection against solar storms affecting the power grid then this would be very interesting, as that is one of the catastrophes against which we don’t have a lot of protection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article in NewScientist (20 August 2016) is disconcerting: CAN you hear me now? The US Air Force has plans to improve radio communication over long distances by detonating plasma bombs in the upper atmosphere using a fleet of micro satellites. … The curvature of Earth stops most ground-based radio \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4830"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4831,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4830\/revisions\/4831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}