US Army to Test Laser Based Mine Clearing Device

QueueEhGuy writes "Yahoo News is running a Reuters story indicating that the United States will soon be testing a laser which "will either explode or evaporate the explosives in the device which can be up to 250 yards away.." It's about time, I was starting to think that we'd never blow stuff up with light." New Scientist has another story, complete with nifty graphic. The Zeus homepage has a few pictures and specs.

Comments

look at the other point

[doubtless]

This is all good and neat, but how about we look at the treaty for banning land mines? Take a look at http://www.banminesusa.org.

Hey, we can clear your land mines with our cool laser technology for only $200,000,000. By the way, here's the brochure for our newest offering of grade AAA mines.

Re:look at the other point

[rlthomps-1]

look at the other other point.

Right now the US can't sign a treaty to ban land mines because of our involvement in Korea and other countries. The Korean penninsula is so small that an invading army could take south korea in a matter of days. The only thing short of a fully equipped battle ready army that can slow this kind of surprise attack are the land mines that currently occupy the area in the DMZ between the north and south.

Its not pretty but in some cases the only thing we can do is use landmines.

Normal military-industrial spin

[tagishsimon]

Let's recheck the facts: portable laser device that:

a) cannot penetrate soil
b) is judged useless for civilian mine clearing
c) is presumably 1,000,000 less efficient than a tank mounted flail

So. Perhaps what we're looking at is the normal machinery of death industry dressing up some weapons R&D in a quasi-humanitarian guise? How much more likely that there are 101 offensive uses of this device to each defensive use?

Re:Not for de-mining during peacetime

[Qrlx]

There are plenty of places where landmines from previous conflicts are waiting to be cleaned up. Southeast Asia is probably the best example. Africa has its share of problems too.

The United States does deploy land mines, (a.k.a. Area Denial Weapons) mostly along the South Korea / North Korea border. The USA stands alone among Western countries in not banning the use of the devices. Regardless, land mines can be bought for about six dollars on the open market! (Gotta love those economies of scale)

So the problem is people wanting to kill others. The antimine people look to me to be avoiding the real issue in favor of blaming the tool.

The problem is not people wanting to kill others. The problem is *land mines*, which continue to kill and maim long after the war is over. The world considers this to be acceptable. Part of the problem is that the USA considers this to be acceptable.

We were able to ban the use of poison gas after World War I, and Western nations have not used it since. Poison gas kills indiscriminantly, without regard for civilian or military status, and it is a very unpleasant way to die. Civlized nations decided that even in war, there are rules. The USA, of course, has more chemical and biological weapons than any other country on earth...

Like we did with poison gas, we should ban land mines, and stop using them, and most of all stop producing them.

We can't prevent people from having bad intentions but we can set some boundaries on acceptable behavior. Poison gas was deemed unacceptable. Land mines kill indiscriminantly long after the war is over. They must be banned, and they should be removed from the face of the earth.

I've never looked into this too closely so I haven't made up my mind on anything but it looks like once again the problem is people w/bad intentions. Can't ban that.

Look closely. The problem is not people with bad intentions. It is that these people continue to use a weapon which keeps fighting after the war is over. The combatants have gone home, but the land mines they left behind keep blowing up.