Posted on 05/16/2010 6:49:36 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
After more than a century of popular sci-fi fantasies that feature deadly energy weapons, including War of the Worlds, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Star Trek and Star Wars, it looks like the ray gun has finally arrived in the real world.
And even if the first ray guns out of the lab can barely fit on the bed of a 30-ton off-road truck rather than in a soldier’s palm, the novel, "speed-of-light" capabilities that lasers could bring to the battlefield has drawn the keen interest of the Pentagon brass, which spends about $400 million a year on directed-energy beam weapons.
At the end of this year, which marks a half-century of amazing progress in lasers, defense contractors Northrop Grumman and Boeing plan to test-fire a prototype mobile laser weapon against examples of the lethal ordnance—rockets, artillery, mortars—that insurgents in Afghanistan and elsewhere shoot at U.S. troops every day, says Mark Neice, director of the Department of Defense's High Energy Laser Joint Technology Office in Albuquerque, N.M. As long as such an area-defense system is fed electrical power (from the grid or battery packs), its 100-kilowatt, solid-state, or electric, laser should be able to use its “unlimited magazine” of low-cost shots and ultra-precision tracking/targeting system to zap out of the air multiple inbound munitions from several kilometers away, he explains.
(Excerpt) Read more at scientificamerican.com ...
I think their first real battlefield use will be as anti-aircraft systems. SAL’s, Surface to Air Lasers.
Maybe I just need to absent myself from FR for a while.
You are correct.
I wish they had SAMs - Surface to Air Masers.
Despite efforts by politicians like Obama, laser and RF weapons will show up on the battlefield within the next 10 years. Unfortunately, they may be fielded by China or Russia.
I agree that the Carly picture is getting old!
I just thought about Mazer Rackham [sic] from Ender’s Game
iCarly looks very annoying doesn’t she?
The Russians have been working at this since the 1970s at their Shary Shagan Facility in a facility called Terra-3.They built the major Terra-3 laser testing centre at Sary Shagan in the 1970’s, which was eventually equipped with Astrofizika high energy red ruby and carbon dioxide lasers. But the energies were not sufficient for anti-ballistic missile use. The first applications would have to be limited to anti-satellite, and then primarily to blind optical sensors.
ugh.
I hope whoever wins in 2012, not Obama, will get us back on the ball.
If you would like to see the Terra-3 facility, I would provide you the Earth coordinates:
45.881°N 73.533°E
Doctor Evil quotes:
Fire the laser!
Mini Me, stop humping the “laser”. Honest to God! Why don’t you and the giant “laser” get a fricken room for God’s sakes?
Okay, no problem. Here’s my second plan. Back in the 60’s, I had a weather changing machine that was, in essence, a sophisticated heat beam which we called a “laser.” Using these “lasers,” we punch a hole in the protective layer around the Earth, which we scientists call the “Ozone Layer.” Slowly but surely, ultraviolet rays would pour in, increasing the risk of skin cancer. That is unless the world pays us a hefty ransom.
You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads! Now evidently my cycloptic colleague informs me that that cannot be done. Ah, would you remind me what I pay you people for, honestly? Throw me a bone here! What do we have?
Of course, little things tend to get lost (wrong pocket in the wash) and then before you know it...
Yah. McWho too.
I fully understand and appreciate the positions involved, but too much of this stuff will result in my departure. Not to mention that it cuts into my readiness to check up on FR from committee meetings (during down times) from which I have established working relationships with liberals.
Maybe I just need a new rule: Access FR ONLY from the "privacy" of my hotel room.
Lockheed is working on one.
MTHEL THEL Mobile / Tactical High Energy Laser
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LThD0FMvTFU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCBwLJjzDJQ
Only 22 days left to stop this RINO... and counting down.
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