CC
Posted on 11/16/2010 12:51:22 AM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
The Navy has been seeking its “Holy Grail” free electron laser (FEL) weapon for a while now, but it would rather you think of it more as a multipurpose laser platform than a death ray. While the Navy’s ship-borne FEL, currently under development at Boeing, will certainly be used to knock incoming threats out of the sky, naval officers really want a platform that can also be used for tracking, communications, target designation, disruption, time-of-flight location, and a variety of other tasks.
Such a multipurpose tool certainly makes the Navy’s laser system seem a more practical use of funding, and a free electron laser is the proper tool for the job(s). All lasers require some kind of medium to turn light into high-energy beams--solid state lasers use crystals, while chemical lasers use (you guessed it) a stew of unfriendly chemicals. Both of those versions have their pros and cons, but neither is extraordinarily versatile; they generally power their lasers up to a certain wavelength and that’s that.
(Excerpt) Read more at popsci.com ...
Sounds awesome.
I hope that at the same time they are also working on defense against these things. “The rest of the world is trying to catch up...”
A Grrrail, you say?
Sounds awesome.
Sound like one could cut with it too. ‘Ya never know when you might need to cut some steel plate. They should try it. One might as well use what one’s got.
Why is Spencer Ackerman still employed as a reporter after his Journolist posts were made public? Ackerman is the one who told his colleagues to pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”
Is this the sort of person we want around American high tech weaponry?
Waiting for the Shark-Mounted Free Electron Laser.
“NO, Mister Bond, I expect you to DIE!”
CC
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.