America's laser of death cleared for take-off

The Sunday Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 02/17/2002 | Sean Rayment

[samtheman]

AMERICA'S enemies will soon face a weapon, once confined to the Star Wars films, that can bring death at the speed of light.

Hate to quibble with a minor point but I do believe it was Star Trek that got this weapon first, not Star Wars.

Anyway, great weapon. Keep up the great work, Rumsfeld!

[GOPJ]

Rattling sabers?

And the Telegraph is privy to this information how?

Army magazine just ran a similar article.

[samtheman]

Victoria, fantastic pic! Thanks!

[xp38]

The Force is with you, young America. But you are not a Jedi yet. zzzipt crackle hummmmm

[RightWhale]

reflect it back

Laser beams diverge. That is, the beam coming back would not be as intense as the one going out. The laser on your keyring diverges a lot, but even the best optics will have some divergence.

Also consider a weapon system covered in reflective material. Hard to keep clean in the field, and not very stealthy.

It seems directed energy weapons have some future, not as a final weapon making all others obsolete, but as yet another kind of weapon. Will they be the "nuke" of the century? Sounds like PR exaggeration.

[Jhoffa_]

Hummm..

Alternatively, if you detect that beam (like our laser guided weapons are capable of doing) you know there is a big fat airplane on the other end of it.

[lentulusgracchus]

Already true of radar and radio emissions. And the Mark One Eyeball.

[piasa]

Well, a concave mirror would mean the reflected light would no longer be 'coherent.' In other words, reflected light wouldn't have the properties of laser light, which is coherent. Maybe if they used a massive fiber-optic U-shaped thing to take in the laser beam and turn it back towards the shooter... that would keep the light coherent instead of dispersing it or having to 'focus' like a magnifying glass. Coherent light doesn't scatter and get weak. Of course, making a chunk of fiber optic the right size is a tall order... and 'catching' a laser beam won't be easy unless the aircraft targets one end of the fiber optic in such a way that the laser goes in perpendicular to the optical surface.

To keep the light coherent and useful, a mirror would have to be flat- perfectly so, since even the slightest imperfections in the reflective surface would scatter light, including the glass itself if the mirror is made of silvered glass, since laser light would pass through the glass and be altered according to the properties and impurities of the glass, hit the silvering, which would also alter or scatter the light, and be reflected back through glass, further altering the light. How much 'power' the beam would retain through that I don't know, but it would be diminished considerably, I would think. A concave or convex surface would be able to focus the light but for the most part it would be scattered and useless, except perhaps at the focus point. It might be hard to get the plane to fly where the focus point is...

Interesting question though. Maybe the laser would burn through the imperfections in the silvering and glass and fry everything behind it. More likely, someone in another plane would spot that big glistening mirror and take it out conventionally.

Maybe Radio Astronomer's closer to the technology than I've been, or knows someone who is. I've only taken one course and that was back when people were still giggling whenever someone mentioned lasers, much less asked about what effect mirrors have on them.

[piasa]

Well, maybe the French could use them to heat up a few spots on the ice at figure skating events, instead of using the old fixed judge method.

[Sabertooth]

Despite the successful operations against Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, the emergence of asymmetric terrorist warfare - attacks such as September 11 where the enemy is unseen - has led the Pentagon to identify the need for a more sophisticated and deadly weapons system.

And not a moment too soon!

[piasa]

"which is almost coherent," I mean.

[lentulusgracchus]

Actually, H.G. Wells described energy weapons in The War of the Worlds, a century ago. And chemical weapons.

[RightWhale]

It's a bad day for figure skating, and a diplomatic embarrassment for the French. Embarrassment is a French word, isn't it?

[piasa]

Of course, if we REALLY wanted to make a dent in terrorism, we could just buy up all the towel factories and sell plastique-impregnated towels with just enough power to blow off one head, and with trigger mechanisms we could set off by satellite.

Or, my personal favorite counter-terrorism method: flood Berkely, California , Indonesia, south Asia and the middle east with American flags and Uncle Sam effigees which explode when lit.

[Sabertooth]

You still haven't solved that little problem with the clowns.

[samtheman]

HG Wells, of course. That's where the credit should go.

[Enemy Of The State]

This is not new news....The US has been using laser tech. for years now. Unless you have served in designated areas of the military you probably dont know about the use of lasers during the invasion of Panama. They are completely capable of leveling entire villages.

[Travis McGee]

bttt

[jwh_Denver]

A mirror is nothing but a thin shiny coat of metal behind glass or something transparent. A laser would burn right through it. The kind we're talking about anyway.

[soundbits]

The black r&d world seems still to be gleening from Tesla's notebooks confiscated when he died.