Shiva Star (plasma weapons)

Greetings all!

I've been following the topics here on ATS for a while and finally thought I'd make an entry and say hello!

Anyway, I found this article and hope it hasn't been posted before:

In the early 1990s, the US Air Force was preparing tests at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, designed to lead to a ground-based plasma-weapon in the late 1990s capable of firing plasma bullets at incoming ballistic missile warheads. The enabling technology was a 'fast capacitor bank' called Shiva Star that could store 10 million joules of energy and release it instantaneously. Officials anticipated firing bullets at 3,000km/sec in 1995 and 10,000km/sec - 3% of the speed of light - by the turn of the century. The tests absorbed little more than a few million dollars of annual funding (Jane's Defence Weekly 29 July 1998).

Dumped into the 'soft' electronics of a re-entry vehicle, the bullets were envisaged as destroying multiple manoeuvring warheads at rapid reacquisition rates. By the second half of the last decade, the Shiva/plasma bullet programme was officially dropped. Observers have remarked on how its sudden disappearance at the time the firing tests were scheduled was redolent of a transition to the classified environment.

The rest of the article can be found at Janes.com.

Think this is pretty interesting and hope maybe someone has heard of this as well and can add to this. Ty

[edit on 22-10-2005 by Midav] edit:Typos

[edit on 22-10-2005 by Midav]

Man Im not really sure If I understand how Plasma weapons would work in real life. Plasma is the fourth state of matter a super heated gases and like gas plasma wants to expand in every direction. I cant see a plasma weapon working without some type of containment device. I mean think about shooting a bullet of a gas say (nitrogen) without a containment device it would just spread apart in the air before going very far at all.

If you could make some type of force field to contain a plasma projectile wouldnt there be much better things to put inside it like say anti-matter. Anti-matter bullets man that would be scary.

I might have a poor understanding on how these weapons could work, so I could be very wrong.

Intelgurl's article on energy weapons from last year:
EXCLUSIVE: Directed Energy Weapons, An ATS Analysis & Discussion
www.abovetopsecret.com...

quote from a missing website:

Pulsed Power Facility at the Air Force Phillips Laboratories experimenting on compression of solid and quasi-spherical liners in plasma research. The Air Force accomplished 120 thousand volts and 10 million amps down to one millionth of a second (1 Terra Watt) and 10 MJoules by 1982. This system is also key in the study of anti-proton energy releases, ala similar to Star Trek's anti-matter drive systems...no one has such as drive, but this system is exploring the science that might lead to such a device.

The research is done at the HERFT facility:
www.globalsecurity.org...
fas.org...

The last article I can find on plasma weapons is back in 2002:
Aviation Week 2002

HPM and lasers are the primary directed-energy weapons available to the military, but on the horizon is a third called a plasma weapon. A plasma packet has mass, moves through space and has been compared with a bolt of lightning. It is slower than a laser beam or HPM spike, but it can cause much more physical damage.

It appears that "shooting" plasma at a target, is no longer researched, or has gone over to secrecy. The last that I remember, was experiments with lasers to open a conduit through the atmosphere for the plasma bolt, with mixed results. Current efforts, from 1995 to date, are on use of high energy microwaves, which can create plasma at the target. Note that the plasma can be used to attack targets, disrupt communications or electronics, disable detonators, or interrogate targets for data.
www.globalsecurity.org...
Aviation Week on current microwave created plasma

The Shiva Star was the capacitor bank used for the tests. News reports say that the newer Nova device produces more power.

Note: the internet is full of imaginary science-fiction data on "plasma weapons". Don't be fooled by them.

[edit on 22-10-2005 by ZPE StarPilot]

First off, hello Midav.

Second, like I've said b4, Plasma Weaponry r possible. It just takes magnetism, but that's a lot more tricky than it sounds obviously. Both firing and storing it with magnetism would work, but I don't see it being used anytime down the road soon. It might be many decades when I'm 80 or something as far as I know.

[edit on 22-10-2005 by SEAL Trident]

Wonder who came up with that name?
Shiva is a 7 day week or mourning in which all the mirrors are covered and the family stays indoors..Orthodox Jews do that..
Called Sitting Shiva.

www.ehow.com...


PS: I cannot access janes link..

hmm, good queston then, but then again the Hindu God "Shiva The Destroyer":

www.sanatansociety.org...

But dunno.

[edit on 22-10-2005 by SEAL Trident]

Originally posted by SEAL Trident
hmm, good queston then, but then again the Hindu God "Shiva The Destroyer":

www.sanatansociety.org...

But dunno.

[edit on 22-10-2005 by SEAL Trident]

Yes, I forgot that..
Strange how the Jews and Hindus use that same word, but totally different meanings..Just gives me more to re-search..:]
Wonder if this was a reagan offshoot from when he declared Star Wars after the aliens melted with a beam a 20 megaton warhead and it's silo at Minott AFB..
This was in 1983, and it freaked him out...and him and Gorbachev made the same type speeches..see link..


www.aaaa.demon.nl...

Very interesting and appreciate the feedback! Ty all!!

As a hindu I can contribute by saynig that the name IMO is indeed derived from the god Shiva, who is supposed to hav a "third eye" at the centre of his forehead and when he is really mad it opens, breathing fire on who/whatever may be so unfortunate as to incur his wrath...

"Think this is pretty interesting and hope maybe someone has heard of this as well and can add to this."

I think one of the key aspects is that the plasma is formed into a torus, and this is essentially a 'vortex ring' weapon. You can fire a 'smoke ring' make of gas (or air or plasma) at surprisingly high velocity; AFAIK the Germans and Allies both worked on vortex ring weapons in WWII.

if anything like this actually worked, and was cheap, i think we would have a good replacement for conventional weapons-ammo would be relativatly easy to createand carry

I know the US got very far with Coil/Gauss and Rail Guns and is probably moving that underground for who knows what, perhaps a nuclear delivery system or something in that sense.

Plasma Bullets could simply be containers fired conventionally or with a Gauss/Rail-gun principle that are filled with plasma, upon impact it would rupture and discharge.

Originally posted by ShadowXIX

If you could make some type of force field to contain a plasma projectile wouldnt there be much better things to put inside it like say anti-matter. Anti-matter bullets man that would be scary.

I might have a poor understanding on how these weapons could work, so I could be very wrong.

The most likely form plasma would take if it were fired would be a rotating toroid. A toroid is a doughnut-shaped object whose surface is a torus. Its annular shape is generated by revolving a circle around an axis external to the circle. (Wikipedia said it better than I could.)

The toroid is formed and put into motion simultaneously during the firing of the weapon ala the spin given to a bullet due to rifling. The rotation of the toroid keeps the plasma in a deliverable package until impact. Upon impact the energy released is significant, but the EMP pulse is massive.

Yeah, also, bear in mind "3% of the speed of light". I expect even if some did dissipate like a gas it'd still be "enough" at the sort of distances we fight to do a serious ammount of damage.

As a side note I once stood a match up in a microwave to see if it was "true" about what would happen (the plasma thing), and to my suprise... it is. Also very stupid, so nobody do that. I wouldn't now I know what it was. The noise was really intresting though, like this "Bruuuhhbbbb" noise, and it looked ace. That could be the next lava lamp in 50 years.

Listen, plasma weaponery is impossible unless ofcourse your talking about tazers. Plasma reqiures tons an tons of energy that a coil gun or a rail gun could not continuosly supply. For plasma to exist it needs lots and lots of energy and once that energy is gone, no more plasma. Plasma can not self sustain in any capsule or anyway. And plasma consumes energy it will not release it in an explosive form, allthough the four state of matter can act as a conductor it will not in itself store energy.
Anti matter weapons are centuries off, antimatter cannot exist long when in a matter environment. It can't even be transported today, it may neuteralize matter but it is not explosive and would have to be released in the location it is to effect and therfore need suidcide "bombers". This ofcourse asumes it could be transported. Oh and only about a gram of antimatter has ever been made on earth and that means only and gram of matter nolonger exists. Amount of Antimatter=Possible matter neuteralized.
,HVF
Ps.ten million joules of energy storage has been far exceeded by some pretty small laboratories and even home experimentors, so don't think that its an ungodly ammount..

[edit on 25-10-2005 by HVF]

Originally posted by HVF
Listen, plasma weaponery is impossible unless ofcourse your talking about tazers. Plasma reqiures tons an tons of energy that a coil gun or a rail gun could not continuosly supply. For plasma to exist it needs lots and lots of energy and once that energy is gone, no more plasma. \[edit on 25-10-2005 by HVF]

No doubt it requires lots of energy, but keep in mind plasma torches have been in industrial use for years.

Plasma cutters supply continuous power, that is different. And plasma cutters only work on conductive materials, and they show that plasma cannot explode.
,HVF

After reading ShadowXIX's post I was thinking about this. I am wondering if there isnt some way that a laser couldnt be used to burn a path for the plasma nullet or packet to travel in? Im just thinking out loudly and dont know if that would work or even makes sense.

U.S Air Force Research Lab's pulsed-power device Shiva. Which is the world's largest pulsed-power device, used to conduct research into plasma physics.

Picture

'I am wondering if there isnt some way that a laser couldnt be used to burn a path for the plasma nullet or packet to travel in?'

Check out Laser Induced Plasma Channel (LIPC)