Slashdot Mirror
Warfare at the Speed of Light
unassimilatible writes "From the They Said It Couldn't Be Done Dept., the Oakland Tribune reports that the Lawrence Livermore Labratory is ensuring that the Pentagon, inside of a decade, could be armed with a beam weapon that is near-instantaneous, gravity-free and truly surgical, focusing to such hair-splitting accuracy that it could avoid civilians while predetonating munitions miles away - perhaps someday even being mounted on Humvees."
Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaser
--
Kent, Stop playing with yourself.
"The ignorant fight to win, the wise win before they fight." -Sun Tzu
Finally! Time to start training my sharks. (puts pinky into corner of mouth)
Laslo Buddy, I failed! But I passed! Do you want to see a demonstration of gravity?
--fatboy
Hold Your Fire!
Too Late!
You Vaporized Kenny! You Bastard!
can you point it at a mildly victorian house from on board a jet fighter and fill the house with popcorn?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Won't be long before this thing is pointed at *us*.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
So it can avoid civilians who are miles away from the munitions? Even the few dumb bombs dropped on Iraq avoided most citizens in Kuwait...
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
and bring the popcorn
The evoloution of Thinkgeek's line of optical toys: 1. Red Lasar 2. Green Lasar 3. Lasar capable of pre-detonating munitions from miles away. (But no one will buy it because it is neither green nor capable of being seen in the air.)
Oakland Tribune
Warfare at the speed of light
By Ian Hoffman
STAFF WRITER
Sunday, October 19, 2003 - DOWN THIS tiled corridor, light does muscular, noisy work. Lasers dig dirt and weld metal. They pound aircraft parts into shape.
In Bob Yamamoto's lab, light devours.
He straps on emerald green goggles. A technician stabs a fire button and calls out the computer countdown. "Three
Then
In those two seconds, 400 blasts of light poured into slabs of clear, manmade garnet. Swollen in energy, the crystal's atoms then unleashed torrents of infrared light to ricochet 1,000 times between two mirrors and multiply, finally escaping as 400 pulses of pure, square beam.
Kilowatt for kilogram, this is
the world's most powerful solid-state laser. Its invisible beam drilled Yamamoto's inch-thick steel plate in two seconds. Add larger crystals and it will eat steel a mile or more away.
"What we're building," Yamamoto explains, "is a laser weapon."
After sinking 40 years and billions of dollars into beam weapons, defense scientists are on the cusp of what could be a military revolution -- warfare at the speed of light.
"We've made a quantum leap here," said Randy Buff, solid-state laser program manager for the U.S. Army's Space and Missile Defense Command. "We're anxious to get out there and do something."
No longer are laser guns the stuff of Hollywood and Strategic Defense Initiative fantasy. Instead of laser-guiding bullets and "smart" bombs, the Pentagon inside of a decade could be armed with a beam weapon that is near-instantaneous, gravity-free and truly surgical, focusing to such hair-splitting accuracy that it could avoid civilians while predetonating munitions miles away.
A laser arms race already is under way, chiefly in California. The prize is billions of dollars. Three families of high-energy beams -- powered by combusting chemicals, electron accelerators and crystals, such as Yamamoto's -- are vying for the Pentagon's eye.
Defense contractors are sniping at each other's designs, and corporate alliances are shifting. But no one seems to doubt that battle lasers -- perhaps mounted on Humvees, jet fighters and unmanned aircraft -- could knock down previously untouchable targets such as artillery shells, mortars, surface-to-air missiles and even cruise missiles at ranges of up to dozens of miles in good weather. In clear air above the clouds, a high-powered laser could lance out 500 miles to destroy rising ballistic missiles.
"If we had them today, they'd be at the former Saddam Hussein International Airport, making sure no one gets off a shoulder-launched missile at an aircraft," said Mike Campbell, a laser expert at General Atomics in San Diego.
By coaxing a huge power boost out of tiny laser diodes like those in CD players, scoreboards and supermarket scanners, scientists are squeezing unprecedented power out of lasers made of exotic crystals -- distant cousins of the world's first laser, which Theodore Maiman fashioned from a ruby cylinder in 1960.
The latest breed of solid-state lasers now are poised to break the dominance of giant, chemical gas-powered beams with compact, mobile weapons that can run off a Humvee's diesel engine or a jet fighter's turbine.
Experts liken this evolution to the shift from 1950s vacuum tubes to the solid-state transistors now driving everything electronic.
"We think the whole thing's going to go solid state," said Lloyd Hackel, chief of laser science technology at Livermore Lab. "Gas lasers are sort of the vacuum tubes of lasers. They work, but in terms of density, intensity and reliability, it's going to go solid state."
No coherent mili
"We're anxious to get out there and do something."
Always reassuring when someone in the US Army makes such a statement...
Frickin' sharks with frickin' lasers on their foreheads.
Hey, Dubya, please remember to kill all those dictators who own weapons of mass destruction. But please do us a favour, start with the greatest of them, yourself.
A laser arms race already is under way, chiefly in California.
...
Wow, Goverminator hasn't been elected for 2 weeks and Skynet is already flexing its muscles
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Just imagine what a Beowulf cluster of these could do....
"Nothing is impossible for the man who refuses to listen to reason"
The Crossbow Project. There's no defense like a good offense!
--fatboy
They had a phaser on star trek like forever ago.
Jeez get creative U.S. Military
Error 407 - No creative sig found
It's pretty funny that in the 50's, SF writers thought we'd have weapons like this and things such as moon bases by about 1980, but they also that there would be superpowerful computers...with vacuum tubes.
Leaving aside the technical issues of "can you do it," there are the political and moral issues of "should you do it." Precision guided, 100% accuracy is fine until you target the wrong point. The notion that we can have zero collateral damage assumes that we can distinguish between combatants vs. innocents and allies with high accuracy.
This invention might lower the tragedies of war if we have the intell to discriminate accurately. It might also increase collateral damage/friendly fire if the device inspires overconfidence in those who press the trigger.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
..but I'm scared of americans. They're too paranoid, and they have too many weapons, and they're expanding.
Now where are my matter/antimatter generator, warp coils and transporter????????????????????????
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
Oh god no...I'm against the development of this weapon simply because of the all the cliched Austin Power references and quotes. I have no doubt by the time this is posted, there's already half-a-dozen cliched and overused quotes.
Conspiracy theorests trade tin-foil hats for head-mounted mirrors.
The bold print giveth, and the fine print taketh away
... but who wants to guess that colleteral damage, as the military has come to calling it, or the slaughter of innocent civvies, as I tend to call it, will still happen? A gun is still a gun, and there's still the possiblity of human error. And that's a very real possibility.
Peter M. Dodge,
Chief Executive Officer,
LiquidFire Studios
Platinum Linux - www.
its time like this i'm glad i live in california
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Whats to stop me put up a load of mirrors around the items I want to protect?
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
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And yet it can't be used defensively?
How about the following quotes?
"What we're building... Is a laser for cutting through mountians (roads, mines etc.)"
"What we're building... is a laser to defend our skies, country against missles"
"What we're building... is a laser to cut underground bunkers on the moon"
"What we're building... a giant popcorn popper"
This is kind of sad, when we just exploit technology with weapons in the forefront of our minds and not research or domestic uses! I mean I know they're from the DoD, but with war on their minds, goodness knows what else they're up to.
gravity-free
Just as gravity is not free of the limitation that nothing may travel faster than the speed of light, nor is light free of the effects of gravity. The path light travels is affected by gravity; indeed, light can be completely trapped by a black hole.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
If it is a beam weapon... wouldn't such a beam be nothing more then waves? Can't waves be affected by gravity? Thus wouldn't such a statement about a gravity free weapon be flawed?
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Better to be feared than to be loved.
Now don't make any sudden moves...
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
I don't think so. Einstein won't let you be gravity-free! He showed a long time ago that even light is affected by gravity.
could knock down previously untouchable targets such as artillery shells, mortars, surface-to-air missiles and even cruise missiles at ranges of up to dozens of miles in good weather. In clear air above the clouds, a high-powered laser could lance out 500 miles to destroy rising ballistic missiles.
Having a powerful laser weapon is not the same as having a rapid laser targeting system!
To bad all laser weapons are line of sight weapons. You can't lob a laser like an artillery shell.
Ever play the Qbasic game Gorilla? Where you throw bananas at the other gorilla, well I'd pick the explosive banana over the laser. Becuase while gravity can work for my banana, you'll only be shooting up in there air.
Other problems are energy source, if you're close enough to fire your laser(damn line of sight again) you are also close enough to be shot at with a regular good olde fashion machine gun into your chemical tanks (chemical reaction probally powers your laser). Kaboom.
Of course lasers may offer some advantages, on airplanes/airships (large line of sight). The other use I see is defensive, intercepting artillery at your position.
Veramocor
exp(pi*sqrt(163))'s law dictates that you can successfully use a bluff with a frequency that is inversely proportion to the memory length of your intended audience.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
But would the detonating munitions know to avoid civilians as well?
Now people won't look at me funny when I am wearing my tinfoil hat in public. I am only protecting myself from the governments laser beams. I am also a scientologist.
And it's a jet bomber, not a fighter. :)
One word: Mirrors
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
I just hope they don't use this in space weaponry. Space should be kept international, such a beam weapon has the potential to do just that. Here is a link to the cause
-Seriv
Would a gravity-free weapon (even with light) defy General Relativity?
Will the enemy start using mirrors?
War-tech, hooray! Geeks' enthusiasm for machines which are designed to kill and destroy is disgusting.
truly surgical, focusing to such hair-splitting accuracy that it could avoid civilians while predetonating munitions
Yeah, it's just a shame that the civilians will get blown up in the resulting explosion...
I too support the adoption of bananas as weoponry by all military powers of the world. I estimate, that collateral damage will decrease, by approximately 100 percent!
Accuracy is for salesmen and bean counters. In the field, it's smarts that count.
The USAF bombed a Red Cross compound in Afghanistan. Twice. Poor intelligence meant that US missiles hit a Chinese embassy in the Balkans. Friendly fire incidents are far too common.
Pinpoint precision is only half the equation.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
What is stopping the "other side" from coating their shells with a reflective surface? Especially if only one particular wavelength is used by the military, it should be straightforward to create a coating that'll effectively reflect close to 100% of the LASER.
Think about the goggles scientists wear in high-power laser labs. You can see fine through them, except the one wavelength their laser works at...
Ponxx
PS yes, I RTFA, but AFAIK there is no real problem creating materials reflecting IR. If you can aim the laser, the other side can reflect it (away or back at you)
"... it could avoid civilians while predetonating munitions miles away..."
So it can avoid civilians who are miles away from the munitions? Even the few dumb bombs dropped on Iraq avoided most citizens in Kuwait...
I think (that you know) that it means munitions miles away from the LASER could be predetonated (pre- as in before the enemy sends them our way).
But the real question here is how whether they're implying that the civilians could be detonated too, separately without the munitions, now that we'll have got a big friggin' laser gun...
Well, on the scale we're looking at they're relatively gravity free (as compared to say, bullets). Nope, couldn't think of something more useful to spend money on, not like you know, feeding the hungry, vaccinations, coherent plans on vaccine distribuation in case of the rather unlikely event of a bioterrorist attack. Heck, we could you know, be building schools and housing for the poor, could be dropping money to reinforce the government in Afghanistan and to promote overall stability in the region (because I'll tell you after about eight thousand years, sticks/swords/guns haven't really seemed to do much for that), nope we have to build a laser.
I call first dibs to write my name on the moon with it. For evil...
"...focusing to such hair-splitting accuracy that it could avoid civilians while predetonating munitions miles away - perhaps someday even being mounted on Humvees.">
poor humvee drivers, that would suck getting blasted from miles away.
International treaty forbids the use of lasers for blinding people. But there is no legal ban on striking humans
You know, if you take a laser pointer, and you point it at a fluffy poodle being walked by a little old lady at night, she might just get startled and scream a little bit. Not that I would know firsthand or anything...
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
focusing to such hair-splitting accuracy that it could avoid civilians
Uhm, sure - that's what they say everytime they develop a new weapon. Didn't do the thousands of dead Iraqi civilians much good though...
1..2..3.. PROFIT!
it could avoid civilians while predetonating munitions miles away
Those lucky civilians, not being killed by the evil death-ray. Pity about the shrapnel from the munitions, though.......
Sounds like the US is escalating the arms race at an unprecented rate. I think our future will be a very scary place.
Suddenly the 747 mounted laser for shooting down inbound missiles becomes viable. These guys are blowing through an inch of steel in 2 seconds, that means they ought to be able to blast through a missile skin much more quickly than that.
This is my sig.
Nukes are now practically the only kind of threat that give Uncle Sam pause before attacking pre-emptively. Look at Iraq vs. NK. I highly doubt we would have gone rushing boldly into Iraq had there truly been a WoMD threat.
But then again, at least this gives us (US) the moral high ground when it comes to demanding "fair" play on the battlefield.
As well as the french and other assorted communist eurobitches.
You'll be all over soon. Now hold still...
BARNEY:
What is this thing? Some kinda weapon?
SCIENTIST:
Put that down-it's a prototype.
We hear Barney fire the Tau cannon. It blasts through the wall where the player is walking.
BARNEY:
Man! Why aren't we using it?
SCIENTIST
It's much too unpredictable. Don't let it overcharge!
BARNEY:
What do you mean, overcharge?
There is an explosion and SCREAMS.
# (/.);;
- : float -> float -> float =
oh and the creator should be there in the control room to witness his house explode in buttery goodness for good measure
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
ever see real genius? sleath jets mounted with powerful lasers high in the sky could vaporize an individual without worrying about AA. a secret mission could eliminate someone from the earth without any evidence how.
the para-noid in me (avoid the noid) thinks of a future where the protests against the increasingly military global state could find disappearing organizers as the increase of dissent gets threatening.
i wish the US Armed forces and the US Government would keep a tight lid on this kind of technology and not let the press get hold of it, it is ideas like this that give the enemy ideas, i rather not even know about it and only read about it after it has been used in actual combat...
loose lips sink ships...
Am I such a pansy that I have a moral qualms about someone dying? If so, then please, call me a pansy all you like. Killing period is wrong, no matter how you rationalize it, for all the rationalizations I've heard are excuses and not reasons.
Excuse me for being ethical and moral.
Peter M. Dodge,
Chief Executive Officer,
LiquidFire Studios
Platinum Linux - www.
"...is ensuring that the Pentagon, inside of a decade, could be armed with a beam weapon"
That'd look kind of cool, actually, with a big ID4-style beam weapon projecting from a huge five-sided building.
Not terribly mobile, though.
Wasn't that basically the conclusion of all the starwars laser crap: that it would all be made useless if the incoming ICMB was shiney?
First, it would attract alot of attention if you are trying to hide something...a shimmering metal object is easier to spot then a camoflauged one.
However, I thought you could make a mirrored building or vehicle, then cover it with a fast melting/evaporating coating. The laser hits the coating, disipates it and then hits the mirrored surface.
Soooooo where can i download plans for my own :)
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Surely that name can't be right.
I mean, it's close and all, but the wave motion cannon goes with the Yamato...
Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't there a weapon in StarCraft for the Terrans on their final ship, the really big one, called something to the effect of the Yamamoto gun that after charging up shot out a big nasty ray of energy?
Kind of interesting neh?
...and moving towards cheaper pick up truck-looking vehicles.
Absent human intent and use, technology stays on the shelf. Getting on a moral high horse about new weaponry will not stop people from deciding to war on each other, It will only ensure that they use more primitivw weapons.
War won't diappear if we're afraid to use new tools. People will throw rocks at each other if they have nothing else.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
And don't forget the pesky dog!
The visual line of sight to the target is bent by gravity (in both directions) just as the laser beam going to it is. In both cases, you are following a symmetrical geodesic. Just POINT AND SHOOT, BUCKO!
"No coherent plan" to use lasers in warfare?
...
Wrong, the DOD already uses laser rangefinders, laser-guided bombs, ring-laser gyros in submarines
Most likely they mean use of lasers as weapons, and it would be nice if it stayed that way. The inventor of the laser was recently quoted as saying that in spite of seeming like a death ray, he was unaware of any instance in which a laser had directly killed anyone, even by accident.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
"There goes the supertechnological soldier, staggering forward to wreak destruction on anyone he can entice within range. Meanwhile, the despicable enemy has opened fire with an old-fashioned but extremely efficient sub-machine gun."
Wish I could remember who wrote that book.
If we're talking about the solid state lasers, which the article emphaisized, then you'd think that countries big in semiconductor manufacturing would be following close behind. The technology for growing big synthetic lasing crystals is very similar to that used to create silicon for chips. As far as that goes, I've read that China's chip fabs are unusual in that some of them have their furnaces in the same compounds as the fabs.
Sure, most of China's fabs were laid out by european contractors, but that's where the technology is now.
And didn't we just read not too long ago about all these advances in the production of massive synthetic diamonds that originated in Russia.
I don't find this synthetic crystal monopoly theory too convincing.
Well, let's just hope they all get used for fission power or mining or manufacturing instead of frying innocent civilians in ultra high power long range "surgical strikes."
And you've been a very naughty boy...
Seriously, though, this is playing out almost exactly like the geek movie classic, Real Genius. Except I doubt this particular weapons program will wind up being scrapped...
I just don't understand why US needs more weapons?!?
Maybe this laser thing is just a stupid thing that won't work. But what I'm concerned with is the attitude you USA people have.. you are in a desperate run to destroy the world one way or another.
You are the people that want to rule the world, but to me you are just a bunch of guns_loving_freaks. You are like monkeys with razors. Hope one day you can mind just your business and be just_another_normal_country.
Your society and economy are based on selfishness, fear, competition and hate. Worst of all, you are trying hard to impose your ways to others.
go on and all you will get is hate and discrimination, you USA bastards killing everithin that moves or scares you,
hope you shoot in the foot soon...
Sounds more like Wlefare at the speed of light How much is this going to cost the government now?
All in the name of eliminating Terrorism I assume. Man what a cash-cow.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
for the 2015 H2 with heated leather seats, premium stereo, and optional TrafficBlaster commute-acceleration device...
Ceci n'est pas un post.
Well one of the labs in the running is actually developing them for use in fusion, this is a side effect kinda thing, and the military paying for the weapon would help fund the research side of things. NOthing pushed forward technology like military spending
Whether we like it or not, the US spends as much on defense as the next 10-15 countries combined. Many R&D innovations start off as defense-related technologies and only later get applied to civilian problems. That's because our government is much more likely to fund research that has military uses. Other countries (e.g., Japan, Germany) are more likely to help corporations with their R&D project. Not the US.
GMD
watch this
Does america really need more weapons? Ok! Who's gonna say something like "Yeah, sure we do!"
Those mirrored sunglasses from the '80s will be making a fashion comeback by 2013.. This according to state run: DMZ Outfitters of North Korea.
-- I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous
From the article, "Lasers race to target at roughly Mach 860,000."
AFAIK, Mach 1 is slightly more than one meter per second.
653899 - Another prime Slashdot UID
You mean Caltech, not MIT, right?
[It was "Pacific Tech" after all]
No less!
AT&ROFLMAO
"HAHA! Your hundred million dollar laser is no match for my tinfoil Captain Universe outfit."
Though it'd be funny to see all our enemies running around in shiny foil suits like the ones seen the old sci-fi tv shows.
In other news word is out that Duke Nukem Whenever will include a new BFG like weapon that attacks and distracts enemies at the speed of light. It is powered by bandwith and is called Pr0n.
Holds up a mirror?
yeah but it was really a mix of the two since MIT students would pull a hack that big
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Sure. In the same way that checking drivers licenses at the airport will stop bad guys from boarding planes. No hype here, just good old facts.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Bah!
I won't be impressed until they can mount them on sharks!
The submitter of this story linked to the printer-friendly version of the article, which I suppose is a good thing to do in general. There was, however, a small and rather crappy picture that was included in the original version.
every couple of months slashdot runs a story that says lasers will be seen in the military in a very short time. This has been happening for several years now.
Of course thats only slashdot. If you count star wars (not the fictional movies, but the fictional defense system), lasers have been on the virge of becoming a great weapon for about twenty years now. I.E. they have been in a state of vaporware for a period almost long enough to rival that of artificial intelligense.
Of course, if you look at star wars (or sdi, as its official name was) you will very quickly understand why lasers are being touted today. Some companies developed high powered lasers for the now defunct starwars program, made a lot of money, and now would like to continue to make money based on the same technology. So they are urgently seeking a new use for lasers.
SDI cost 30 bn before it was abandoned. It is a lot of money especially back then. The whole system was expected to cost up to 1 trillion.
Now there is a new anti ballistic missile system being developed, (which is also costing many billions of dollars and has very doubtful usefullnes) but the new system is based entirely on missiles, so the lazer developers must feel left out.
Subsequently you get a lot of slashdot stories about hiow exciting lasers are, etc.
this technology can go to the grocery store, buy a roll of aluminum foil, and wrap their "munitions" in death-beam deflecting reflector material.
If by "humvees" you mean sharks...then I approve.
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
I went through the thread with hot mod points, looking for a comment mentioning the one thing as cool as the Orion project and the /. standard story beanstalks.
Relax, people, military research is good! :-)
(-: But to actually build lots of the military stuff are usually a waste, though. :-)
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
I, for one, welcome our laser-gun toting, missile defending, underground-bunker cutting, popcorn popping overlords.
[narrator] The crossbow project. The best defense is a good offense.
[Miltary guy] Now all we have to do is build it!
There are 137 posts right now about this, and NONE of them make the obvious quote REAL GENIUS yet?
and he will...wait is that a laser, I want a laser, Give a military man a laser and he will...wait is that a black enameled human energy sucker, I want a black enameled human energy sucker..not much more to say except a lot of etceteras.//"This song starts out kinda slow then fizzles alltogether" Neil Young
I eat my grapes at room temperature, cuz the cold ones hurt my teeth
The last time this kind of thing came up it was about lasers mounted on fighter planes, and they came up with the same PR claims. A bit of analysis by those not 0wn3d by the War Department came up with "expect large numbers of civilians in the adjacent area" (within a couple of miles, if I remember correctly) "to end up permanently blinded". That's a paraphrase, as I don't remember the exact assessment. The upshot was that it wasn't against international law because it wasn't intended to cause widespread injuries among non-compatants. That it would do so was just an unfortunate fact, that it was reasonable for press releases to gloss over.
... though perhaps that wouldn't help with this system.)
Even without detailed analysis, I expect the same thing is true about this. E.g., one of the points was that shiny pieces of metal in the neighborhood could be expected to reflect the weapon with reasonable efficiency to impact non-targeted individuals. Things like cars, metal fences, etc. So even assuming perfect targeting (which almost everone found too big a lump to swallow) you don't get the kind of restricted focus that is claimed, as it takes a lot more to hurt a soldier in protective glasses than in unsuspecting child. And there would be essentially no warning (unless, of course, you had access to a radar warning system
The upshot is that armies are a lot more interested in having effective weapons than in having weapons that won't hurt people you don't intend to hurt. So they tend to gloss over inadequacies in the second part to get things that they want in the first part. And treaties are written to allow powerful governments to avoid them when they desire to. (And to claim that they are coerced by them, when that's what they prefer.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I, for one, welcome our new beam weapon wielding masters...
But... is it compatible with my orbiting brain-lasers?
Not so long as American soldiers use them it wont.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
-n
http://www.remix.net/
When will we stop spending R&D money on weapons and start spending on disease control, and quality of LIFE programs? I know of a half million people with spinal cord injuries who would gladly forgo laser-based weaponry so they might forgo the use of a wheelchair. Does anyone have budgetary numbers reflecting the spending variances between medical and military R&D in the public sector / private sector?
If other countries get these weapons, air power--the US's strongest military advantage--may become much less important. Lasers can shoot our planes out of the sky. Overall, laser weapons may reduce US power, not increase it.
That said, it may temporarily help the US to develop these weapons, as there will be a period of time before other countries get them. After that, however, these weapons will probably bite the US in the ass.
...but I'm holding out for the Starship Enterprise.
Catherine
I would prefer that the weapon be used to target the civilian use of Humee's
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Warfare at the Speed of Thought?
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
This is probably the wrong direction to go in. We could have all the fancy, awesome weapons out of every sci-fi novel and movie, but it would appear that big, expensive weapons, surgical as they may be, might be going by the wayside. Just take a look at Iraq. I was ecstatic when I saw all of my parents' tax dollars going into weapon systems that proved to be wildly successful in the war at large. However, I am now extremely frustrated that all of our fantastic technology can't protect our boys from suicide bombers or simple ambushes with ak's and rpg's. Somebody out there must be noticing how we can't even put Iraq under control. Lasers do nothing for me now; we need innovation. Serve me up a /. article about miraculous tactics that beat the t's at their own game, and I'll be satisfied. Roger that, enemy down.
Counter-Terrorists Win.
Yamamoto is a veteran builder of lasers and atom smashers... He expects to beat 25 kilowatts by Christmas and double it early next year.
Chris Knight: "Just what is it you want, Jerry?"
Jerry Hathaway: "I want 5 megawatts by mid-May."
Chris Knight: "Jerry, and I'm only saying this because I care, there are a lot of decaffeinated brands on the market now that are just as tasty as the real thing."
If Yamamoto doubles his output every 3 months he *will* get 5 megawatts by Christmas 2 years from now. Holy Crap!
we could then turn the moon into a "death star"... but i digress.
if a laser was fired from the moon at a target on the Earth, wouldn't gravity warp the "la-ser's" beam?
Looks at the facts: Very high power. Portable. Limited firing time. Unlimited range. All you'd need is a big spinning mirror and you could vaporize a human target from space.
BZZZTTT!! Wrong. What you meant to type was, ""
V
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
What the hell is that?"
"Why, it's a death ray, my good man! Behold!"
"Hey! Feels warm. Kind of nice."
"Well, it's just a prototype. With proper funding, I'm confident this little baby could destroy an area the size of New York City!"
"But I wanna help people, not kill them!"
"Oh. Oh, well, to be honest - the death ray only has evil applications."
This is similar to the discussion about synthetic diamonds we had a while back. Now we're at the next stage in Congo: applying the doped diamonds to our high-tech laser weapons so as to figh the next world war. My only concern is that the gray apes haven't shown themselves yet; they're bound to appear at any moment. Run!
Impressive...
</darth-vader-voice>
Unfortunately, a laser can scatter off of almost any surface and blind people at distances of miles. It's impossible to predict which way the scatter may go, so we're talking about the likelihood of blinding civilians...
It is against the Geneva convention to use weapons that intentionally or predominantly blind adversaries; so use of this may well be a war crime. Not that we've cared much about leglities recently...
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
It seems to be the pumping efficiency that's the advance.
Good. Scale this up or just replicate it a couple of thousand times, and there's our launch base, capable of pipelining a 25-50 kg package into orbit once per 10 minutes.
For extra points, the article might have included some physical measurements and a power comparison with gas lasers, which I believe are around 10 megawatts.
A taste of the discussion from a few years back, which did mention that diode-pumped solid-state lasers were coming on:
Here
Goodwill
The obvious solution to that technical hitch is to publicly cancel your starwars laser project but carry on building it in secret with the hope that your opponents will not bother to paint their missiles a nice shiny colour.
Would only work once, but the short term advantage might be decisive.
... that during preparations f through g were going to be called the Alan Parsens project. However, due to the unprecedented success of the latest project, they've decided just to call it Preparation H.
"Derp de derp."
That's because you are correlating timing between objects with different frames of reference.
2 things: relativity of simultaneity and moving targets
Any gravitational affects on the weapon beam would have affected the light coming from the target in the same fashion.
only if they are the same path (still object) and the same frequency (index of refraction is wavelength dependent)
A Usenet Troll Triumphs on Slashdot
Last night I was watching an anime with the same type "tool" in it. Of course its inevitable for life to imitate art...Next come the mechs.. ultimate gaming
"Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the life-long attempt to acquire it." -Albert Einstein
Oh, what fun. I'm so excited. What a great new leap forward, blah blah blah.
How you can be blinded by one of these things. More. Still more with a pic of a laser cannon.
I'm sure you folks can find more.
As you may recall, this same line about precision and avoiding civilian casualties was in vogue when laser- or GSM-guided munitions were deployed by the US. While there has been a remarkable decrease in collateral damage thanks to these new guidance systems, the same may not be true with regards to laser weapons. If they blast a building with it, and Joe Bozo happens to be looking in that direction from a relatively close distance, he may be blinded or even receive severe burns. I recall a discussion on /. not long ago about a 100,000 watt airborne laser weapon with some discussion of this, but was not able to find the original article. Will this revert the historical trend towards lower collateral damage?
Does anyone in a position of responsibility even give a flying fuck?
Sorry, I meant GPS, not GSM.
you are constantly at risk of the laser beam bouncing back and obliterating you.
If you stand next to a solid surface, like a tank, and fire a conventional automatic weapon at it, you had better be wearing some serious bullet proof armor.
The main problem is that any reflecting surface can act as a mirror
Mirrors do a great job of reflecting low power light. Put a sufficiently high powered pulse laser on the scene, and the behavior of reflective surfaces becomes "non-linear" in the sense that it will simply burn through them.
and turned the h20 into h202 which is deadly hydrogen peroxide
Which is regularly used as a mouth wash, and easily noticeable because it tastes like crap and fizzes in your mouth.
Man, this would be great for clearing minefields, a'la Mr Bond. Where are my cool shades?
a weapon like that in the hands of people who try to throw bombs on Iraq and hit Turkey and Iran.
Who will control that button? I don't like war technologies, I think we should be trying to abolish war, we are already 100 years ahead of most countries in terms of technology, why do we need to continue this insane military spending unless its spending to actually control us American's ? I mean I worry about terrorists but not so much that I think we need to destroy our own freedoms to defend ourselves from it, I dont think we need to get into another coldwar.
The only way to fix the deficit is to tax sunlight.
Why do we want our government to be so big and so power? Don't you worry that the government can become so big and so out of control that it could enslave us all and we can do nothing?
The only way to fix the deficit is to tax sunlight.
So it sounds like he's an excited state, after making that quantum leap.
I bet that he just can't wait to get out there and emit a photon!
And all his buddies feel the same way too!
From my internet research of high energy lasers, it appears that the longest range that a laser will have in the forseable future is 6 miles through the atmosphere. In space a laser can go forever, but in the air thermal blooming, atmostpheric turbulence and normal attenuation make it impossible to blast things farther.
Thermal blooming is a big problem. A laser heats up the atmosphere around it which causes the index of refraction of the air to change which changes the direction and focus of the beam. And this is a non-linear chaotic system. You can't aim a beam a long way through the atmosphere. So that mean you can't use laser beams to shoot down incoming missiles unless you station the laser really close to the targets. And even if you do that, you can only start shooting when the missile is within 6 miles or so of the target. And even then if its bad weather - no go.
Laser weapons have some fundamental physics problems to overcome. It would be good if the US goverment told the tax payers about this before spending tons of money on them.
As the general theory of relativty predicted (confirmed by numerous observations), even light is not free from the effects of the curvature of spacetime.
So this beam weapon can't be "gravity-free"!
Whats different between this and getting a nuke shield working ? How many years have they been working on that ?
The researchers are at LLNL, a Department of Energy lab. They probably do have funding from DOD, but don't work there.
... that I'm worried about.
The US executed the biggest terrorist activity in recorded history: the 'Shock and Awe' campagin, not so long ago against the Iraqi people. Thousands died. This wasn't because the weapons weren't accurate enough. It's because the Pentagon deemed the Iraqi civilians to be expendable.
Plenty more Iraqi civilians have been shot while protesting about such things as food, water, and ( get the irony of this one ) PETROL. Numerous reports come out of Iraq each week about US soldiers shooting indescriminately into crowds of protestors to silence them and have them 'step back into line'.
Against this backdrop of US aggression, I don't feel particularly good about any weapons developments. Just who are they planning on 'defending' ( pre-emptively striking ) next? Surely having the largest stockpile of Weapons of Mass Destruction on Earth is enough for them?
So far that hasn't been a priority. Or a problem, no.
"Other bands play, but Manowar KILLS"
You are an idiot. Your post was worthless. Why do you clog /. with such pseduo-scientific babble? Your post is neither insightful nor informative, and not even remotely interesting. Please go somewhere else.
What a lot of you seem to be forgetting is that the lasers still need to know where the target is in order to hit it. That's exactly how stealth bombers are able to strike with impunity even when the targets are protected by AA systems that keep the regular aircraft out. It's only logical to assume that ordnance with stealth features will be developed in order to evade detection rather than resist a possible laser attack. If the tracking system doesn't "see" the missile that's about to break some expensive equipment, the laser is worthless. In addition, some active countermeasures may be used as well. Keep in mind that tracking a something like a missile or an arty shell is also difficult. What happens if the enemy attacks the defense battery with a large number of shells? Lasers are a long way off from an easily portable package that be mounted on a humvee, and will fry everything that moves within a 5 mile radius.
This is specifically referring to Solid state weapons. The AC-130 Gunship already or shortly will be equipped with a COIL. The Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser is a bit too big for most applications, but when you absolutely have to slice a tank in half at 25 miles, Accept no substitute. (Besides, it's gotta be scary as hell for the enemy to see their tanks getting melted)
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
At what point, to use the sound barrier as an analogy, does the war machine break the war barrier, in that going beyond it is pointless? ...Such that monies spent on the waring R&D can then be put into genuinely eliminating any desire to commit waring acts?
What the World really wants
can you point it at a mildly victorian house from on board a jet fighter and fill the house with popcorn?
AHAHAHAHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAA +5 Funny ROFLOLOL!!!!!11
That is fo fucking hilari...
oh, wait. Actually, nevermind. The parent post is absolutely devoid of any humor whatsoever. It's not even remotely funny. But while we're moderating completely unfunny posts as funny, let me try my hand at this style of humor:
Can you point it at a somewhat tudor house from on board a navy ship and fill the house with peanuts?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!!!11 I KILL ME!
that the laser wouldn't be effective; the point was that light is not "gravity-free".
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Well, at least they'll have some use for a big laser beam, since we all know it's NOT going to be used in inertial confinement fusion (the whole reason their new 192 laser beast is being built)... way too inefficient.
z-pinch 4 life
What a complete and total waste of skin. Please kill yourself. Now.
I always understood the Starcraft weapon to be a reference to the classic anime series Space Battleship Yamato (or Uchu senkan Yamato). It featured a pretty freaking big laser of sorts, the Wave Motion Gun (or Hado Hou). The edited American version was known as Starblazers, and is pretty popular.
The near-coincidence of the names is cool, though.
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon
One small bump from a free-floating piece of space junk will alter the path of the beam by quite a bit, assuming it doesn't rip right through the weapon. Even an error of 1/1000 of a degree with a laser at 180km in the sky (the altitude of most spy sats, I think) misses the mark by over 3 meters. Assuming a circular area of error, that's almost 30 square meters! That doesn't seem any more precise than an "ordinary" smart bomb.
Someone check my math, please. My degree is actually in history(!) and not Math/Physics/Astronomy/Engineering.
I can just imagine the reprucussions of trying to use this laser to vaporize . On the ground it will look as if he has risen to heaven on a pillar of searing light. How better to create yet another true prophet and ensuing religion?
Is rolling over in his grave. I guess some of those papers were saved?
Cool how Moonraker all of a sudden sounds like, totally visionary. Vials of biological agents as the threat to the world? Portable laser weapons?
Next, we'll have space warfare
Then, lasers mounted on Space Shuttles, just like in the movie... Oh, wait... we'll have to mount them on Soyuz instead, since the shuttle fleet is grounded.
Look out! Here comes the battle bus!
I saw some images of the newest Chinese main battle tank about a year ago, and it already has a laser system for blinding enemy gunners and optical guidance systems, and there is talk of the Chinese also doing a lot of high powered laser research.
But apart from that, while I can very good immediate uses for laser weapons in defending against missile attacks, I can't see these being of much use in close combat in the near future, even they make them much smaller. An assault rifle and machine gun will still offer far higher rates of fire ofr a long time to come, and one shouldn't forget that more people on the US side died from 19 nutcases with boxcutters (WTC) and roadside bombs (Iraq) than any other weapon. On the other sides in Afghanistan and Iraq, they had no chance against the US in open warefare in any case, which explains the boxcutters and the roadside bombs.
Well it can now avoid civilians but can you now imagine the friendly fire incidents. Lazer goes amok on a hummer.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
when can I have my light sabre...
IIRC, if you take three square mirrors and arrange them at 90 degrees to one another, like the corner of a cube, then a ray of light entering into this arrangement will reflect back in the exact direction it came from.
So, as far as I can see, if you have many of these mirror arrangements, and coat the outside of tanks with this geometric pattern of small mirrors, then not only will lasers bounce off, but they will also return right back from where they started. Boom!
I am betting that a future president will approve the sale of this to "friendly" goverment and organizations. Kind of like when we gave CIA training to people like Osama Bin Ladin to defeat Russia in the 80's, or when we sold biolgical material and offered genetic engineering training to Iraqis, also in the 80's.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Shortly before the first world war new technologies like exploding artilery shells, amunition with integrated powder and slugs, guns that could fire these shells hundreds of times per minutes, devices that could shoot flaming fuel at enemys and poisons that could be spreyed over long distances. These weapons facilitated the killing of much more people and so countires had to start taking wars far too personally, their soldiers held themselves up in trenches in battles that would take months, have tens of thousends of casualties and would be no fun for anyone in the slightest.
It was probably during the second world war when people just realised "damn these soldiers are getting too hard to kill, civilians are far easier!" so they used their new toys: aeroplanes and high explosives to kill them instead.
Now real war (not just invasion of third world countires) is something that if it was ever to occur again would clearly be the end of our species. We now have hydrogen bombs, intercontenental balistic missiles and germ bombs and one would have to be a fool to suggest that a country armed with these weapons would not employ them.
I know that these lazers are not as bad as nutron bombs, napalm and other things that were invented last century but the more of these new toys we invent, the further we get from those fun battles we used to have three thousend years ago with swords and bows and absolutely no civilian casualtys, the battles that made one into a man, not a radioactive ember.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
http://www.motionmountain.rg3.net/
has been considerably extended. It adds a new section on nuclear physics that includes the story of radioactivity, a MRI scan of humans making love and the dream of grand unification. The present 14th revision also adds more figures on special relativity, a short explanation of k calculus, the paradox of the relativistic submarine, a photograph and description of how some caterpillars shoot away their faecal matter, a photograph of a basilisk running over water, Stowe's periodic table of the elements, a beautiful picture of the analemma, references to monadology, the question why birds are not usually seen on high voltage lines, the question whether the moon is larger or smaller than the nail of your thumb at the end of your extended arm, the proof that Peary did not reach the north pole, and much more. Many photographs and drawings have been added, the graphical presentation reworked and several hundred challenge solutions have been added. (Tell me which ones you want next!) For all fields of physics the newest research results and the main unanswered questions are presented. The text remains a structured walk through classical physics, relativity, quantum theory and unification. In total, the text aims to give an overview of what motion is and what it can effect. The accent on surprises and thought-provoking puzzles has been kept. It will please both readers who open the text at random and those who read it systematically. Thank you to everybody who has sent criticisms, corrections and suggestions. Enjoy!
Bruno Bezerra Lima
P.S. In physics texts, figures take the biggest part of the budget - both in time and in money. Any help on (preferably colour postscript) images to be added to the text (with permission of course) is much appreciated. Such help will allow me to concentrate on the writing and make sure that the text can continue to be free for all readers throughout the world.
Put the weapon on a 747 or C5 airplane, fly above the clouds and you have a potent missile deterent. Hydrogen Peroxide poisonous? I know people who drink it.
near-instantaneous, gravity-free
Someone forgot to go over their notes from physics class? Last time I checked light still had a speed limit and could be affected by gravity.
Anyway... new hulls for tanks and such will, i guess, feature a layer of highly, highly reflective material...
This is mindless propaganda. US troops are not "shooting indiscriminately into crowds" to "silence them and have them 'step back into line". They start shooting at protestors when one of the protestors pulls out and AK-47 assault rifle and starts trying to shoot the US soldiers guarding whatever it is the they are guarding. Surprisingly enough, most US soldiers are human, and as humans generally do not enjoy gunning down civilians for shits and giggles unless pushed to the extreme of their limits. Iraq, while a mess, is not such a mess that US soldiers are breaking down into a Vietnam like mentality where they are literally going insane. Further, there is no running order to US units to 'shoot civilians back into line'. Suggesting that there is some evil US plot to shoot people back into line is utterly ludicrous. Protests are allowed in Iraq, unfortunately due to the fact that these protests some times turn violent people die during them. It is not intentionally and I imagine if the military had a special "make the protestors stop shooting at us button without harming them", they would use it liberally.
As to claims that the war in Iraq was a terrorist campaign, I can't help but wonder if you know anything about the history of warfare. The US did an amazing job preserving innocent life during the invasion of Iraq considering the scope of the war. Taking over an entire nation with so few civilian losses was an amazing feat. Compared to wars of the past it was down right mind blowing. People die in wars. Yes, the military bombs targets knowing that there is a possibility civilian will die. We have not learned how to do it any other way yet. Bomb a target with an airplane and you might miss. Send soldiers into the streets to fight house to house and bullets are going to accidentally hit things they shouldn't. People die in wars. That is a fact that can't be helped. The fact that the US was so careful around civilian targets and that civilians didn't even loose power in Baghdad until just days before it was over run shows a very strong effort to minimize the pain inflicted upon civilians.
Want to argue that the Iraqi war was bad thing? Sure, I can bite that. In fact, in many ways I agree. Just stick to the reality of it. The war might have been bad, but it wasn't executed the malicious hatred of civilian life you seem to imply. The military planners did their damndest to make the fight as quick and as painless as possible. Suggesting that they had a policy of hunting down civilians is utterly foolish. That last thing anyone wanted was a pile of dead civilians. Dead civilians don't convince a people to accept the invaders and it sure as shit doesn't win any support back home or abroad.
have learned to respect the ways of the force.
It is imperative that we expel all laboratory employees who were born or grew up in Taiwan. It is already a matter of national policy that persons born or raised in mainland China are denied employment at American weapons labs. This policy should be extended to include person born or raised in Taiwan. The facts at "Reality of Taiwan" further elaborate on the security risk posed by Taiwanese.
Note that a Taiwanese gave American neutron-bomb technology to Beijing. The Justice Department has classified Taiwan as security threat to the USA.
To reiterate what the "Wall Street Journal" reported, the majority of spies who steal American technology to give to Beijing were born or raised in Taiwan. We should treat people from Taiwan in the same way that we treat people from mainland China. They should be denied employment in any sensitive job in the American government. The alternative is to risk the security of the free world.
Interesting reading, nonetheless.
-FL
This would actually be a legitimate application for "smoke and mirrors". The article did refer to problems with particulates.
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
So now Slashdot gets its news from the Drudge Report.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Why on a Humvee? I'd mount it on the moon, and call it my "Death Star".
bullshit check your physics!
If you don't know what I'm talking about, you must be a virgin.
Little Brother, watching the watchers
. . . after reading this: ". . . perhaps someday even being mounted on Humvees." . . . of a humvee driving down a bumpy road and someone accidentally taking out a bunch of civilians after hitting a pothole?
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these. Then you can tell anyone, "All your bases are belong to us".
In response, they, for one, will welcome their speed-of-light-laser-weapon overlords.
What a wonderfully fantastical world you must inhabit if you believe there is such a thing as a "fun" battle. Three thousand years ago, combatants had nothing like modern medicine. Minor limb wounds often lead to gangrene, amputation and life as a cripple (and severly, painfully crippled, too) if not death. Most stomach injuries were fatal, along with practically any chest injury that got through the rib cage.
Armies travelled slowly on foot for the most part, taking food and female company from local farms by force. The idea of taking revenge on an entire race for the actions of small groups was commonplace. Roman soldiery would massacre whole communities of innocents in retribution for "barbarian" raids where a single Roman citizen was killed.
History is not a happy place. With all its faults, modern society is a safer and far more comfortable way to live.
Politas
Fully automated firing on offensive targets is a short step behind
They're making these things in California right? I guess the fashion police are going to have a new toy.
see title!
No one ever got fired for buying IBM [apple.com].
...
From that link: How many transistors can dance on the head of a chip only 118 millimeters square? Over 58 million
With a chip that huge, the defect rates must be astronomical! No wonder Macs are so expensive.
Either the G5 chip is *really* huge (a square 11.8 cm on a side) and has not-so-great density, or someone needs to explain to the Apple advertising folks the difference between "millimeters square" and "square millimeters."
Nobody has mentioned sharks with big frikking lasers yet so I guess it's my duty to.
Sharks with big frikking lasers!
What times the death star satellite goes over Washington (DC or Redmond)? And what IP address it is running IIS from?
Sooo surgical, so what!
A bullet travels in a straight line too. The problem is not the weapon, but the idiot behind the gun.
... its called a rail gun. sorry, pentagon. no more quake for you lads.
While the US has the NIF, by far the majority of the laser technology comes from Japan. The article was way off on that point. In fact, you probably noticed that the guy they had building the laser diode array was Japanese.
So how long before I can get one for the back of my car to get rid of those irritating tailgaters (by aiming at their tyres and giving them a blowout or something)?
Even better, one at the front as well so I can blast those lane hogs who won't get out of my way! Tailgating just doesn't seem to work, and (see above) may soon pose additional dangers...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye!
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
We've already seen some hair-splitting accuracy recently, as well as in 1991, delivered by laser-guided bombs and other "intelligent ordnance". How many civilian lives did the accuracy cost this time?
But then, the current mood is very positive about new weapons development, and after all, "they'd be at the former Saddam Hussein International Airport" and protect freedom if we had them today.
Thank you very much indeed. A mere 10% of the money spent for such development put into the war against hunger and poverty worldwide, and the Western countries would have a couple of problems less. Except that such a policy would not protect the US industry.
About the last thing the people of the world need is an almighty USA who thinks it can win a war against so-called terrorists and under cover guerillas. Vietnam was not enough.
open (SIG, "</dev/zero"); $sig = <SIG>; close SIG;
Sorry, but I'm culturally illiterate. What movie or TV show?
... after a terrorist destroyed a new state-of-the-art laser station by showing a finger, a defective RPG and a mirror ...
...
In other news:
On the newly released tape Osama bin Laden
thanks to Allah for the new, more precise
weapon - he found that RPGs were grossly imprecise
why even use this stuff for warfare? shows how mature they are up there in washington.
it can be good for disabling the bad guys, but when we start attacking innocent countries that refuse to go with us on something, I think that's when there will be hell to pay.
They are anxious to use it on the so called terrorists at camp delta. who needs to get medievil anymore when u can get american.
It gets even worse:
could knock down previously untouchable targets such as artillery shells, mortars, surface-to-air missiles and even cruise missiles at ranges of up to dozens of miles in good weather. In clear air above the clouds, a high-powered laser could lance out 500 miles to destroy rising ballistic missiles.In the first place, even the most rudimentary armor on most modern combat vehicles is greater than an inch thick; the armor on a certain very popular tank is 16 inches thick. Secondly, the burst is way too long to be practically usable. It is almost impossible to point a beam at the same spot on a moving object for anything more than a few milliseconds. A modern artillery battery can send 20 rounds downrange per minute; a mortar battery can send 50. With a two second burn time, even supposing that you had the computer and mechanical systems necessary to track incoming rounds, you still couldn't hit every one of them.
Even if we compressed the burst time down to the microseconds, this weapon would still be nothing special. A modern .50 cal round can go through an inch of armor a mile away, and at a sustained rate of more than 100 per minute. A Copperhead guided artillery round can take out a tank more than 6 miles away. The SABOT rounds fired by M1's can penetrate several feet (not inches) of concrete.
With the range of modern ballistics, anything that can be seen can be destroyed. A laser would buy us nothing here - the flight trajectory of ballistic projectiles is well understood, and a computer can easily provide firing solutions in real time. While ballistic projectiles can't yet take out incoming missiles, this laser would need to be at least 200,000 times more powerful to do the trick. At 2 km per second, to paint a 2 cm "target spot" on an incoming missile would require a burst of less than 10 microseconds in duration.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
that smallest possible discrete change causes a significant improvement, advance, or breakthrough.
Then it would be a quantum leap (or quantum jump)
Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
Your sig is going to get funnier and funnier if SCO keeps falling.
-- MarkusQ
P.S. Or is it intended to apply to itself?
at the rate the porn industry is churning out x-flicks i doubt it, they'll ever get beyond what technolgy we have today. and looking at the education system, well it's going to be damn near impossible to service/maintain nukes and nukeplants in the near future. so get ready for some spectacular "incidents/accidents" a-la challenger++ come to you from the country of free speech SOON!
A little from the end the article states:
"In theory, that means a liter of everyday Army diesel fuel costing as little as $1 will generate enough rapid-fire laser pulses to destroy a standard airborne missile. The job now falls to Patriot missiles costing $3 million apiece."
This comparison is a tad unfair because the supposed $3 million price tag includes several decades worth of research and development costs spread over current and predicted usage of the technology, along with maintanence and logistics costs (whether this sort of equipment pricing is in itself misleading is another matter), but to say that an equivilant laser based defence would only cost $1 per use based entirely on the fuel consumption is very misleading.
Escpecially as towards the beginning of the article it is stated "After sinking 40 years and billions of dollars into beam weapons, defense scientists are on the cusp of what could be a military revolution", which surely using the same pricing system would raise the price tag up to atleast (if not far more than) $3 million per predicted anti-airborne missle use.
If one is counting purely the cost of the production of the disposable part of the patriot missile defence system than by my estimates the cost would be around the $25,000 mark (still a lot more than $1 I admit).
Is good article other than that though.
me is buying Chromium futures!
I think you're confusing real life with Red Alert again.
Considering that Tesla's "death ray" ideas were purely based on throwing around massive amounts of electricity and that the laser wasn't invented until 7 years before his death in 1943, I seriously doubt there is any connection. Plus, considering the fact that Tesla was living in America during the time period that loony Tesla fanboys claim he did his tests in the USSR, I wouldn't assign much credibility to their theories.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
He didn't do his tests in the USSR. From what I've read, he fired his death ray from the US towards the North Pole, attempting to cause an effect the expedition to the North Pole at the time could see and report back on. Nothing happened, but later he heard about the explosion over Tunguska, Siberia, and believed it to be the effect of his death ray (he believed he overshot the North Pole).
Also, his death ray had nothing to do with lasers. It was supposed to be some sort of particle beam.
Also, his death ray had nothing to do with lasers.
No kidding. If only someone has said something to that effect...
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Of course, definitely way up there.
"Monkeyboys in the complex! Monkeyboys in the complex!"
"No matter where you go, there you are."
Man, I'd _love_ for them to make the sequel to that movie. *sigh*
I did some research a few days ago, and I deduct that what he was trying to do, was beat two signals at different frequency from different locations, to the same point. He was possibly trying to create ball lightning to cause muntions to explode.
Written on the grenade: "Pick me up" ...
Research? On unpublished theories? Exactly what sort of "research" did this involve?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I had found this site, and finally a link to the fbi public information, and was reading about somebody in one of the letters requesting more information, about what he thought the theory was, and then this came out on slashdot and I thought it was funny. I know he was working on some laser stuff, but the process destroyed the crystal every time it was used. Might visit this site: http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/tesla/tesla.html
and i found the link to the fbi releases here:
http://foia.fbi.gov/tesla.htm