BAE Atmospheric lens concept

An interesting promo video released by BAE's YouTube channel showing a Skylon type craft with a artificial lens ISR payload that also doubles as a laser self defense system. It seams right out of sci-fi but with BAE involved there might be more reality or at the least feasibility to a concept such as this than many may realize. The X-37b has been rumored to be doing some kind of advanced optics development over the last few years.

I mean if you're not using lasers and the atmosphere to magnify images from space, what the point of even doing surveillance, right?

That is pretty incredible.

our never ending ways to try and annihilate each other.

a reply to: Sammamishman

Just reading the thread title, I immediately thought about the X-37b and the theories surrounding it. I imagine that we'll be seeing some big advancements in this arena over the coming years...

originally posted by: odzeandennz
our never ending ways to try and annihilate each other.

True but if you look at all that military stuff that has made its way into the civilian sector: The internet etc. we get most of our tech from military research

originally posted by: FredT

originally posted by: odzeandennz
our never ending ways to try and annihilate each other.

True but if you look at all that military stuff that has made its way into the civilian sector: The internet etc. we get most of our tech from military research

... which means we could have gotten such technology at a fraction of the cost if our species weren't so hellbent on nuclear annihilation.

As for the video, I'm having a hard time deciding if it's one of those sci-fi ideas that someone gives to the PR department promo video guys to visualize, or if it is current or near-future feasible tech. It seems to me like an extension of the lessons learned from adaptive optics, and if turbulent air can distort a wavefront, then perhaps it can be made to work like a lens. After all, stars are occasionally brighter when they twinkle.

So there seems to be two questions: can the properties of atmosphere be locally manipulated to act as a lens, and can this be accomplished with a laser?

My gut tells me that the former is possible, but probably limited in the scope of the lens you could create. Dissipation time would be a key obstacle, which is probably why this video depicts a pulsed laser.

a reply to: wirehead

Impressive, certainly what I would consider as "out there" tech. I hadn't even considered such a concept would be feasibly possible. I'm assuming this could be a naturally occurring phenomena scaled up?

But, the questions I would love to know the answers to are -
Who is producing their cgi and how much do they pay them? I do hope they aren't throwing anything in the 10's of thousands or higher away...

I can see the meeting now.
"Well, this footage will cost you £1,000 per poly per minute, and as you know poly's are expensive. We have to import them from a mine on Phobos and the supply is very limited. No sir we wouldn't swindle you..."

a reply to: Sammamishman
So take millions in carbon taxes which are supposed to discourage heating up the Earth, and spend those millions on lasers to heat up the Earth's atmosphere? That's the plan?

a reply to: Arbitrageur

If they were testing an artificial star for an adaptive optics system they would probably just report that.
Could be the cover story for something else like the new high density weather layer analysis program.

originally posted by: LeviB
I mean if you're not using lasers and the atmosphere to magnify images from space...

The bigger the aperture the better the resolution. Painting a Fresnel lens on the atmo is a way to do that.

originally posted by: wirehead
...or if it is current or near-future feasible tech.

Well...the first practical tests were done back around 2004, IIRC.

So there seems to be two questions: can the properties of atmosphere be locally manipulated to act as a lens, and can this be accomplished with a laser?

Yes. But it's not the only way. You can also do it, with less effect, by locally heating small patches of the lower ionosphere, although the lesser density there makes the effect less pronounced. And you need an agile beam-steered array with some ass behind it to keep repainting your lens. That method doesn't work well for optical scattering because the beam patch is so large. But you can test SAR interdiction that way, to see if the method is practical to take to the next step.

You can also use the same laser trick to prevent SAR imaging from space. Or detailed optical imaging. Or LIDAR based imaging. And it's been tested in places you'd expect such tests to be done.

This is one of those things I have floated out here several times over the years to see if anyone would respond. I guess the project security was ok, no one bit.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
a reply to: Sammamishman
So take millions in carbon taxes which are supposed to discourage heating up the Earth, and spend those millions on lasers to heat up the Earth's atmosphere? That's the plan?

It's not like you're heating big volumes. Or heating it a lot.

a reply to: Bedlam

Some of us were able to follow along.

But i can think of other ways this type of concept could be used thats not depicted in that video. Kerr effect. Kinda useful

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: Bedlam

Some of us were able to follow along.

But i can think of other ways this type of concept could be used thats not depicted in that video. Kerr effect. Kinda useful

"I wonder why the AF is spending bucks on painting charge patterns on the upper atmosphere?" LOL I think I hummed that out here at least three times over the last 10 years. It seemed like it would elicit a response without giving the show away.

I actually had someone from HAARP thinking they had blown the project back when it was still ts over on the 'other web site that starts with F'. She popped on and was saying how she worked there and could answer anything, so I asked her if she was on the SAR interdiction team and she went away forever LOL. I think I even commented 'well she must really work there, she took off'

I let her stew a good two weeks. You so rarely get that sort of opportunity to mess with someone.

a reply to: Bedlam

Lol. I was waiting for you to come in. Some of your subtle innuendos was the first thing I thought of when this video popped up. I guess it's time for the tech to gray a little more.

You can also defend against a ground based laser attack by simply adding a bit more energy of your own to a patch of upper atmosphere between you and the attacker. If you can push the energy density up enough, you'll get a plasma bloom and then it just takes care of itself.

originally posted by: Sammamishman
a reply to: Bedlam

Lol. I was waiting for you to come in. Some of your subtle innuendos was the first thing I thought of when this video popped up. I guess it's time for the tech to gray a little more.

It happened faster than I would have expected, tbh. I think it's probably 15 years downstream from concept, maybe only a decade from execution.

The project was farmed out in bits and pieces in open rfq's, too. You can see the big chunks go out on SBIR, if you poke around you can find who won the bids. If you follow the crumbs, you might can even tell where it was developed and tested at.

If you can project a plasma bloom and induce a Kerr effect changing refractive indexes whats to stop you from doing that with your....