Wired's Danger Room found the whole situation kind of bewildering, so they went to their military sources to find out exactly what happened:

The military initially developed the Remotely Operated Video Enhanced Receiver, or ROVER, in 2002. The idea was let troops on the ground download footage from Predator drones and AC-130 gunships as it was being taken...those early units were "fielded so fast that it was done with an unencrypted signal. It could be both intercepted (e.g. hacked into) and jammed," e-mails an Air Force officer with knowledge of the program. In a presentation last month before a conference of the Army Aviation Association of America, a military official noted that the current ROVER terminal "receives only unencrypted L, C, S, Ku [satellite] bands."

So the military fielded a rough, poorly secured video system on drones and AC-130s. We already knew that! The story's been reported, and late night comedians will have a good rest of the week. But there's a lovely twist:

Since then, nearly every airplane in the American fleet - from F-16 and F/A-18 fighters to A-10 attack planes to Harrier jump jets to B-1B bombers has been outfitted with equipment that lets them transmit to ROVERs. Thousands of ROVER terminals have been distributed to troops in Afghanistan and Iraq...

These insurgents didn't hack into a single type of drone; they found a cheap, dead-simple way to hack into the military's primary airborne surveillance system.

Is the ability to eavesdrop on live video streams from airplanes a significant strategic risk? It's debatable. But did this hack make a couple of dudes in a basement in Basrah feel like Angelina Jolie in (noted Western pornographic infidel film) Hackers? Hell yes it did. [Danger Room]

That's right, an Air Force aerospace engineer has developed a plan—well, let's call it a method—for altering the path of potentially harmful space objects by tethering them, via hilariously long cord, to a multi-billion pound weight. Theoretically, the weight would alter the menacing rock's orbit enough to avoid an Earth impact and certain doom. Oh, but that alteration would take anywhere from 10 to 50 years, which could be problematic based on our current detection capabilities. And we don't actually have a way of sending anywhere near that much weight into space in the first place, much less an idea of how to tie it around an asteroid. Maybe a really, really big sailor's knot? [Wired]

This isn't the first time that the DoD is using PS3 consoles for supercomputing. In fact, these 2,200 units are going to be added to an existing Linux cluster of 336 PS3s used by the United States Air Force. According to Justification Review Documents, the purchase is all about getting the best value out the DoD's budget:

With respect to cell processors, a single 1U server configured with two 3.2GHz cell processors can cost up to $8K while two Sony PS3s cost approximately $600. Though a single 3.2 GHz cell processor can deliver over 200 GFLOPS, whereas the Sony PS3 configuration delivers approximately 150 GFLOPS, the approximately tenfold cost difference per GFLOP makes the Sony PS3 the only viable technology for HPC applications.

I'm all for balancing cost and features, but isn't it just a bit curious that someone thought to save on upgrading the supercomputer just after Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was released? [Ars Technica via Boing Boing]

Apparently quite a few key observatories use lasers to adjust telescope optics for atmospheric turbulence. Those same lasers can damage Earth-observing satellites and so regulations on their usage have been getting stricter and stricter over the years. Now astronomers have had enough. They are happy to consult with the Air Force each time they point a laser at the sky to make sure that a satellite isn't in the path, but it seems that the turnaround time is too long. I don't see why they don't just change it to a "We'll have your analysis delivered in less than 30 minutes or you can point your lasers wherever you want" rule. [New Scientist]

The parked truck's hood and engine gets burned through like butter, and as you can see, the accuracy is pretty amazing. If this was a missile, it would have exploded in the air. The laser can produce between 100-300 kW of power, and the next step is to trial it on moving targets.

Even though the Air Force has scaled back the ambitious program's funding, perhaps we may still see the laser make it to battlefields. Maybe on the 250-Foot Long Hybrid Airship that will spy over Afghanistan in 2011? [Boeing via PopSci]

Apparently the pilots of an unmanned, but armed, MQ-9 Reaper drone lost control of the UAV a few days ago. The resulting manned mission to take it down was mounted almost immediately and ended successfully before the drone reached the edges of Afghanistan's airspace.

I wonder what would've happened if the Reaper hadn't been shot down. It is typically used for "hunter-killer" missions and targets enemies on the ground. Would it continue a mission like that without operator input?

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles like the Reaper are supposed to be programmed to return to their home bases in case they lose contact with their pilots. There's no explanation as to why the fail-safe didn't kick in for this particular Reaper. Nor is this incident the first time that a UAV has been shot down by intentional friendly fire. What's going on and when can I start to panic? [Aviation Weekly via Popular Science]

The Death and Taxes poster shows every single expense according to the president's 2010 budget request. The circles you see here are proportional in size to their actual weight in the total budget. Each of the figures include the percentage change compared to 2009.

Defense spending is more or less the same, only increasing by 2%. And still, everything else looks minuscule.

Since your budget for buying posters is probably minuscule too, you can get a 50% discount if you buy two or more posters if you are a Gizmodo reader. Just enter "gizmodo" as your discount code when ordering. [WallStats]

USA Today says that the Advanced Tactical Laser was carried aboard a C-130 plane. Though the power level produced during the test wasn't revealed, these lasers, Global Security says the Advanced Tactical Laser can produce between 100-300 kW of lethal or non-lethal power (in theory).

The Advanced Tactical Laser is said to improve accuracy of military attacks with less collateral damage, something the U.S. Military has drawn criticism for as of late. But you know that secretly, General Gates is even more excited by the idea of getting some pew pew action in real life. [USA Today]

The Air Force recently held a Twitter news conference to a—wait, what?

Force Space Command's subject-matter-expert on the Global Positioning System (GPS) program will Twitter on the command's site, www.twitter.com/AFSpace, in response to the recent Government Accountability Office report on the GPS program.

Apparently, the F-22 Raptor was only phased out to free up some funds to buy everyone Twitterific licenses. Anyway.

The conference was intended to assuage the people's fears of haywire satnavs and inconsistence Loopt performance. This was apparent from the start:

The issue is under control. We are working hard to get out the word. The issue is not whether GPS will stop working. There's only a small risk we will not continue to exceed our performance standard. Agree w/ GAO thr's a potential risk, but GPS isn't falling out of the sky—we have plans 2 mitigate risk & prevent a gap.

But that's not terribly specific, and they more-or-less said that they agree with the previous report. Well, not totally:

We have 30+ satellites on orbit now. We'll launch another in Aug 09, and again early 10. Going below 24 won't happen.

Dropping below 24 satellites was the central concern of the initial report, and the subject of all its various probability calculations: when reporters talk about the 90% chance of GPS degradation by 2017, they were actually referring to the chances of the satellite constellation dipping below 24.

So the Air Force is pretty sure they can prevent that, now that they know. That's reassuring, but also exactly what they kind of have to say, being that GPS is a critical tool not just for gadget enthusiasts, but for militaries and corporations around the world. [PC World via TechRadar]

The NYT published an interesting piece categorizing the new role of cadets from West Point as digital information sabotage—scenarios like mailbombs flooding email servers in hot zones —becomes a worrisome daily hurdle in a war.

During a senior elective class at West Point, the cadets competed with the Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine to thwart attacks from the N.S.A. The students went so far as to hang a sign reading "Information Warfare Live Fire Range" outside their class.

In other words, military dudes can now pwn your ass in analog and digital. [NYT]

There are a few Wings currently manned by Predator UAVs, which can indeed carry Hellfire missiles, but unlike the Reaper, their main mission is reconnaissance. Quite the contrary, the Reaper is the first true hunter-killer UAV, and its 66-foot wingspan and the ability to carry up to 1.5 tons of laser-guided bombs and other ordnances makes the Predator look like a fluttering sparrow.

And over Iraq, the Reaper can do the targeting-pod recon and close-air support that manned jets most commonly find themselves tasked with at a fraction of the cost (Reapers cost $18 million each, compared to three times that much for an F-16). Not to mention without the operational expenses or potential danger to the pilots, who can be in Las Vegas munching Taco Bell with their families. [Strategy Page via /.]

Namely, they want said holographic system to be bright, huge, have a great interactive interface, and be visible in 3-D with the naked eye. Watching a little too much TNG, guys? Noah at Danger Room compiles a few sources that say a lot of the holographic optics tech isn't that far off, surprisingly. Instant trips to Tahiti with giant palm-frond fans, here we come! [Air Force RFP via Danger Room]

According to Aviation Week, the X-37B test will use a launch slot previously reserved for another Atlas V, which would have carried NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite. This mission would have to be posponed to February-March 2009.

At first sight, it looks like the US military is starting to feel the heat of the May 2010 deadline for the space shuttle program—which will limit their capacity to service military satellites as well as their secret orbital base, with all those nuclear heads and chemical lasers capable of blowing up Teheran in a millisecond. However, the reality is that an "end-of-2008" launch was announced back in 2006. The spacecraft—as well as the X-40, its predecesor—has already been tested numerous times, one of them flying underneath the White Knight from Mojave Spaceport. [Aviation Week]

Officers already have what's known as the Silver Bullet—a small fleet of full-size trailers that can be loaded onto transport planes for officer travel, which the service claims is not sufficient for the amount of brass traversing the globe these days. What's got folks in Washington upset, however, is the diversion of over $16 million from the general "Global War on Terror" fund to build the pods, and ridiculous inefficiences like spending nearly $70,000 on subtle design tweaks like changing the color of the seat belts from brown to Air Force blue.

Granted, $16 million is pocket change for the Pentagon, and is anyone surprised that a government project is handling expenses inefficiently? When civilian first class gets more and more insane by the day, Air Force officers probably could stand a little in-flight R&R via SLICC.

[Washington Post via Danger Room]

Pictured: United first class pod, Onboard a C-130 transport

In an interview with CNN, Captain Matt Dean noted that "Seeing bad guys on the screen and watching them possibly get dispatched, and then going down to the Taco Bell for lunch, it's kind of surreal." In fact, their entire workday is fairly normal with shifts that rotate around the clock to prevent fatigue. Seems pretty cushy...if blowing terrorists up doesn't make you lose your appetite for the cheesy gordita crunch, that is. [CNN]

In fact, security broke down on a number of levels—including areas where nuclear weapons are stored. To put this baffling stupidity in perspective, consider this: after Col. Joel Westa took command of the 5th Bomb Wing post-nuke debacle, he was quoted as saying that this inspection was going to be the "most scrutinized inspection in the history of time." And the most terrifying part is that the wing will keep its certification to handle nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future. I feel safe...how about you? [Air Force Times via Wired]

Bringing the good ol' Cold War days to the future, the system would be linked to the Air Force's high-speed instruction detection systems, letting them immediately strike back at the source. I'm internally debating whether this is a good idea or not, all Skynet jokes aside. Your thoughts? [Threat Level]