Northrop Grumman Gets The Green Light To Develop Solid-State Lasers For Military Applications

Spacewar ^

[MARKUSPRIME]

Northrop Grumman has been selected to develop "military-grade," Solid-State Laser technology that is expected to pave the way for the U.S. military to incorporate high-energy laser systems across all services, including ships, manned and unmanned aircraft, and ground vehicles.

[MARKUSPRIME]

Good news.

[PaulaB]

Great News!!!

[finnman69]

[EnigmaticAnomaly]

ROTFLMAO!!!!

[Omedalus]

It'd be punny if they were green lasers.

[kingu]

I suppose someone will, somewhere along the line, figure out how to power a 100kw laser. An aircraft carrier should have enough excess power, but...

[MikefromOhio]

LOL

Or maybe this is more apt:

[jbwbubba]

"Forget Stun, set to phasers to extra-crispy"

[steel_resolve]

whoah...

[MARKUSPRIME]

LOL

[pointsal]

will these rigs hit a news satellite?

[Lucky Dog]

You are thinking of "continuous" power. A burst of 100 KW would relatively easy to achieve...think of the power put out by an cannon firing a shell.

[Steely Tom]

"Captain, did you know that these new phasers have an MP60 player built into the trigger guard?"

[50sDad]

Hot dang, the future is finally here!

Where's my hovercar?

[sportutegrl]

Real Genius.

[Sender]

I've seen a 5-watt Lumistar LED flashlight with a 'bulb' the size of a peanut...bright too. If even that were in the form of a laser diode, it would be impressive.

I don't know how hard it is to scale up the ubiquitous, cheap laser diode.

[kingu]

*drool* I want one of those flashlights... But for now, I'll have to live with my three watt until the price drops. Speaking of LEDs, I'm really curious to see if the quantum dot technology will make it to market this year or next. Really looking forward to real 'white' white LEDs.

As for the future of laser diodes - the leading edge continues to fly far ahead of consumer electronics.

[Sender]

...I'll have to live with my three watt

*drool* I'll have to get by with my SureFire with a bulb.

[tom h]

"will these rigs hit a news satellite?"

Great minds think alike ... what came to my mind were satellites that carry Al Jazeera, CNN, CBS ...

Kidding aside, I work in this industry and I think the real men in the military are looking ahead to the day when China tries to challenge us for supremacy in space. As long as real men (e.g., Bush and Rumsfeld) are in office this won't happen. China will not risk launching if they know we can distintegrate it with a 1 MW laser.

[El Gato]

I suppose someone will, somewhere along the line, figure out how to power a 100kw laser.

That's peak power, not average or continuous. You just charge up a capacitor, and then let 'er rip. Plus there are all sorts of interesting power supply possibilities. Including explosive magneto-hydrodynamic generators.