Laser System to be Tested in Boulder, CO

luv_jeeps writes "Ball Aerospace is going to test fire a laser beam on Sunday night, as part of the CALIPSO project. If you live in the Colorado/Wyoming area, chances are good that you could see it. The article, a little light on details, says that the beam could be as big around as a basketball hoop."

Comments

Colorado?

[WIAKywbfatw]

Get many sharks there?

Re:Colorado?

[stendec]

I'm afraid you misinterpreted the system's specifications. Nowhere is it documented that this will be a fricken-laser test; rather, it is a standard laser test.

Difficulties involved in getting phase coherence with fricken photons has yet to be resolved, but they're working on it.

Re:Colorado?

[fbg111]

The frickin-laser test also proved temporarily unworkable when Greenpeace sabotaged their operation to capture and airlift sharks to the laser test site in Colorado. Can't have a frickin-laser test without first mounting it on a shark's head. Of course, those Greenpeace spoilers are being disposed of as we speak, in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death, so they should be able to proceed with the real test shortly.

Someone has to say it. . .

[atc24]

Stop humping the laser!

I think it be cool

[RedHatLinux]

when this laser hits a house full of popcorn and totally ends the evil professor's dream of a super weapon.

Yeah I actually did watch a Val Kilmer film, But I was young so please forgive me :)

Re:I think it be cool

[John Seminal]

I loved Real Genius. It was one of my favorite movies as a kid. It made me want to go to a college like that, filled with crazy nerdy fun people. But we were never able ice skate in our dorm. We had a Nazi for a RA.

Re:I think it be cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop playing with yourself.

Re:I think it be cool

[John Seminal]

Ahhh... the trolls are comming out today.

And be a little more creative than "playing with yourself".

Re:I think it be cool

[Anonymous Coward]

It is god!

Re:I think it be cool

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a line from the movie, smart guy. How's that foot taste.

Re:I think it be cool

[mcpkaaos]

Oooh, and we were gonna make you king of the Christmas carnival!

Re:I think it be cool

[John Seminal]

Duh! Even that poor fool did not know where the voice was comming from?

Re:I think it be cool

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep trying but it's so hard to stop!

Re:I think it be cool

[Anonymous Coward]

You lost me.

Re:I think it be cool

[John Seminal]

When he heard the voice "stop playing with yourself." He thought it was God. They had that implant in his tooth.

Re:I think it be cool

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Well then you should have disassembled the Nazi RA's Panzer and re-assembled it in his dorm room. /RealGenius: Moles and Trolls. Moles and Trolls. Work Work Work Work Work.

Re:I think it be cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's he? God? Who's they? What tooth? Think before you say these things, Mitch.

Re:I think it be cool

[Anonymous Coward]

And you wish to destroy the white house, why?

Re:I think it be cool

[WindBourne]

be sure to talk to rjwoodhead. He was the head geek for the film. Nice guy.

Re:I think it be cool

[arothmanmusic]

Man, I had nightmares about a rollercoaster hiding in my closet for years because of that movie.

Hehe... penis enlarger. :)

Re:I think it be cool

[Anonymous Coward]

What was the one called where he did a combined parody of the Beach Boys and the NRA (s/California Girls/double-barreled guns/)?

That had to be one of the funniest movies of the time, yet it isn't a classic.

Re:I think it be cool

[ivanmarsh]

Skeet-Surfing!

"If everybody had an ocean, and a shotgun too"

Re:I think it be cool

[Anonymous Coward]

dumbass

got brains?

Re:I think it be cool

[CheechBG]

Adapted for John Seminal:

"This? This is ice. This is what happens to water when it gets too cold. This? This is our RA. This is what happens when you get too sexually frustrated." :)

I for one am excited

[Musc]

We have been hearing about so called 'laster beams' ever since forward-thinking science fiction started using them, such as in Austin Powers. I never thought I would see one in my lifetime, glad to see them finally being tested. So assuming that the "laser" functions properly, does anybody know what it will be good for, other than vaporizing martians?

Re:I for one am excited

[mr_tommy]

Well the US army has been testing a airbourne lazer for a while now which shoots down (well supposedly) missiles in flight. I think they got it to work on the ground, no to get it to work on a 747.

Re:I for one am excited

[saiha]

Uh dude, have you never seen a laser light show? This is cool because of the power of the laser but still, come out from under your rock. Or maybe I'm wrong and this 'laster beam' is something new.

Re:I for one am excited

[penguinoid]

From what I heard, the 747-mounted laser was a miserable failure. It seems the atmosphere disperses light so that the laser's power density would become wimpy at a few hundred miles (or something).

But I cannot tell, as I have not heard of the project for a year or two. I am not sure if that means it's a failure or that I am lost.

Re:I for one am excited

[UnknowingFool]

. . . does anybody know what it will be good for, other than vaporizing martians?

I suspect Marvin the Martian will be disappointed with the outcome of the test:

"Where's the KABOOM? There was supposed to be an earth shattering KABOOM!!"

Re:I for one am excited

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I remember seeing a documentary about that a while ago. The only thing I remember is that it used a chemical laser.

Re:I for one am excited

[gnu-generation-one]

"Well the US army has been testing a airbourne laser for a while now which shoots down (well supposedly) missiles in flight."

It's supposed to shoot down artillery shells (i.e. big lumps of metal with no guidance, fuel, or other fragile bits), although nobody's sure entirely how.

And it's not really developed for the US. It's developed for Israel.

Re:I for one am excited

[king_penguin_05]

First of all, congratulations, you are the first person to ever refer to an Austin Powers movie as science fiction.
Secondly, you say that we have heard of "laster beams." I am unaware of this invention or of its mention in the classic science fiction film, Austin Powers.

Re:I for one am excited

[blincoln]

It's supposed to shoot down artillery shells (i.e. big lumps of metal with no guidance, fuel, or other fragile bits), although nobody's sure entirely how.

You are thinking of a different laser system. There is a ground-based system designed to do what you're talking about, but there is also one mounted in an aircraft for shooting down missiles.

Re:I for one am excited

[Anonymous Coward]

That was the most fucking stupid troll ever.

Re:I for one am excited

[Anonymous Coward]

You are also wrong
We've got the one that shoots down missiles, the ground-based laser system. It works. Mostly. I guess there's still a few bugs to work out, but it's an incredibly simple concept -- find missile, point big laser at missile, fire laser for 2-3 sec., missile blows up. They've used it on missiles and rockets, with up to i think 1.5" metal skin, and blew em up.
We've got the airborn version, that I don't think worked as well on the missiles..
and we've also got an airborn laser used not for missiles, but for soft targets. Blow up a truck or a jeep or something like that. Fry a dude standing outside takin a piss. That one, I think, works
The only thing the Geneva convention bans is a laser designed and used specifically to blind enemy forces. Incidental blinding caused by a reflection from a death-laser is allowable.

Re:I for one am excited

[blincoln]

You are also wrong

[snip]

The only thing the Geneva convention bans is a laser designed and used specifically to blind enemy forces. Incidental blinding caused by a reflection from a death-laser is allowable.

And that makes me wrong how? I didn't even mention the Geneva Convention.

Re:I for one am excited

[Angry_Admin]

His Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator won't stand a chance!
Bwahahaha!!!

Caution

[corrie]

From the article:

"The company has taken special precautions to protect aircraft and birds that might fly into the beam."

I hope all those ducks got the memo.

Re:Caution

[EmagGeek]

"special nets have been placed below the path of the beam to catch the falling roast duck, to protect it from being splattered on the interstate"

I think that's what they meant...

How the F! do you protect birds that might fly into the beam?

Re:Caution

[penguinoid]

That is what the radar is for. I'm not sure if it is a conventional radar, or if they send a beam of weaker light surrounding the beam and turn it off if something reflects the light back.

Re:Caution

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's light, it would be lidar, not radar. Of course we have no reason to think the author would get something like that right.

Re:Caution

[ndogg]

Roast duck...

Why do you think the scientists built the thing? Any other reason is a coverup...

Re:Caution

[mcc]

Just remember: The inescapable progress of science is not only ultimately beneficial to mankind. It's also delicious!

Let's just hope that they remembered to set aside an appropriate amount of funding in the grant for plum sauce.

Re:Caution

[vigilology]

Turn it off.

Re:Caution

[fermion]

Perhaps someone could explain if this laser is dangerous. A laser's powerfulness comes from the fact that a lot of energy is packed into a tight space. The normal laser spot is around 1mm. This laser spot, which they claim is the size of basketball hoop, would be around 46 cm, or about 450 times that size.

Also, if they are claiming a continuous power of at most 200 W ( 4.5 W/cm^2), and maybe as low at 50 W, that is about equivalent to at most 500mW, and maybe a 100mW laser, which is powerful enough to damage an eye, even in reflection, but a far cry from the 10 W lasers that can mark a surface, or the 100+W lasers that can do some damage.

Re:Caution

[Alsee]

How the F! do you protect birds that might fly into the beam?

a-duh! You just paint them all silver first!

-

Re:Caution

[Art Tatum]

How the F! do you protect birds that might fly into the beam?

The same way you get deer to cross at the little sign.

Re:Caution

[strobexii]

How the F! do you protect birds that might fly into the beam?

A quick google search revealed this page, which answers your question. In fact, it even answers many of the other questions posted here. Check it out!

Re:Caution

[sharkey]

How the F! do you protect birds that might fly into the beam?

12-gauge loaded with #4 shot. Shoot the birds BEFORE they hit the laser beam.

Re:Caution

[Mad_Chocobo]

Does that include the aircrafts?

Re:Caution

[3.1415926535]

I don't understand -- how is radar not light?

Re:Caution

[lifechooser]

Never mind the birds, what about moths?

Re:Caution

[Anonymous Coward]

...

...

...

Power beams are sublime;

So nobody will mind

If we cook an occasional goose.

...

...

...

Home, Home On Lagrange

Where the space debris always collects

We possess, so it seems,

Two of man's greatest dreams:

Solar Power and Zero-G sex.

Points to anyone who can sing all the words without looking in the Westerfilk, NESFA, or any Leslie Fish lyrics books.

Re:Caution

[bar-agent]

Because light is visible, IR, or UV. Everything else is an "EM wave" or "field", or "photon", or "radio", or something.

yeah, sure

[arabagast]

"If you see a piercing green light shooting into the sky Sunday night, it's not aliens, it's the work of scientists at Ball Aerospace.".. That`s what they want us to believe! Do not go with strange green men into theyr flying saucers on sunday - they are NOT going to give you candy as they surely will tell you .

Re:yeah, sure

[a1cypher]

Does this mean that its ok to go with strange green men boasting free candy on days other than Sunday... ? Hrmm...

Re:yeah, sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, really. Five years ago, various people on the Art Bell show said to pay attention to Turret Peak (Turret Mountain? one of the two), north of Phoenix, on December 7th.

So what happened? On December 7, 1998, Phoenix and the surrounding area got its ass kicked by a snowstorm. I know it's December, but snow in Phoenix? That's nuts.

Article: -5, Bad Pun

[Dark Lord Seth]

The article, a little light on details, says that ...

Oh, the humanity!!!

PS, Slahdot is fucked. "Score: -5, Bad Pun" is being parsed as no topic at all.

Next week's headline

[Zork the Almighty]

British secret agent in Denver!Witnesses say he drives a cool car with lots of gadgets. Single women beware!

Re:Next week's headline

[RealProgrammer]

This just in:

(UPI) Sources for Bell Aerospace insist their demands for "one million dollars" have been met, but they will fire the "giant laser" anyway. The White House could not be reached before press time.

Re:Next week's headline

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you mean single, female double-agents beware. 007 probably has no interest in anyone not in the espionage business.

Re:Next week's headline

[sharkey]

British secret agent in Denver!... Single women beware!

I think things will be OK. Rumor has it that he has VERY bad teeth and thick glasses. Yeah baby, yeah!

Re:Next week's headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't that be: ... the giant "laser" ... ?

But the real question.....

[soulsteal]

Did Lazlo figure out that this could be used as a weapon?

If so, was it figured out in enough time to provide for the evil Professor's house to be employed in a scheme to re-direct the beam AND make a bunch of popcorn for all the neighborhood children?

Re:But the real question.....

[Drathus]

Watching that movie in my younger years I loved the ending with the popcorn streaming out of the ruins of Hathaway's house...

Watching it now being older as the kids from the neighborhood play in the popcorn my first thought is:

"Hey! Get out of there! There's broken glass from the windows in there!

*feels old*

Birds?

[John Seminal]

The company has taken special precautions to protect aircraft and birds that might fly into the beam.

I get the part about aircraft, but how will they protect the birds? I also wonder if this laser is powerfull enough to fry a bird.

Re:Birds?

[Bigtimes]

Did anyone read the part about the radar system? HellO?

Re:Birds?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're new here, aren't you?

Re:Birds?

[p3tersen]

I also wonder if this laser is powerfull enough to fry a bird.

The article says it's "about 40,000 times more powerful than a laser pointer", and 40k*5mW=200 watts. Since the beam diameter is "the size of a basketball hoop", nothing would be bursting into flames, although serious eye damage - to birds or pilots - could result.

Although come to think of it, for a LIDAR application I guess the beam is probably pulsed, so the situation is a bit more complicated. At any rate there's a safety shutoff mechanism as someone else pointed out.

Re:Birds?

[Anonymous Coward]

Zoology interns have to put anti-dazzle goggles on all the birds they can catch.

Re:Birds?

[gnu-generation-one]

I get the part about aircraft, but how will they protect the birds?

This from a country which just finished eating 45 million turkeys?

Re:Birds?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, we've got a subsection of our population that worships animals, headed up by PETA and various eco-groups.

The funny part is, not all of the animals are worth worshiping or protecting, only the 'deserving' ones, the 'holy' ones.

Re:Birds?

[merlin_jim]

The article says it's "about 40,000 times more powerful than a laser pointer", and 40k*5mW=200 watts.

You have to be careful with power measurements with lasers; there are several different ways to measure power and they all come up with similar units...

The key thing here is that this laser is q-switched, while a laser pointer is continuous-wave. Meaning the laser pointer is on all the time, while this laser is on for brief instances several times a second.

The power delivered, during that brief instance, may be 40,000 times as powerful as a laser pointer, which is not really that impressive... that's possible with significant cooling with off the shelf surplus hardware... because this laser might be on for 2 ns and off for 50 ms (Nitrogen lasers have exactly that sort of switching)... if it had a periodicity like that, it would actually be less powerful than a laser pointer in terms of energy delivered over time...

However, if the AVERAGE power delivered is 40,000 times as powerful as a laser pointer, that means the pulses may be a million times as powerful, and the energy delivered measured over any significantly long period of time will be the equivalent of 40,000 laser pointers.

But whenever reading laser manufacturer specs, it is important to know the difference between pulse power and average power...

A magnesium flare is certainly for the brief time it goes off much more powerful than my coffee maker. But that single magnesium flare would never be able to completely boil away 1 gallon of water... which is something that my coffee maker routinely does when I forget to turn it off...

Re:Birds?

[Anonymous Coward]

To the people who are using their brains instead of their warm fuzzy feelings over cute animals... it's not about worshipping animals. It's about not being a glutton, and taking only what you need.

Read the food questions:
How many Earths do you need?

Light on details?

[Bigtimes]

What does that mean, light on details? Do we want to know how they made it, or if it's running linux? ...oh wait, like hell we don't.

Re:Light on details?

[cgranade]

Linux: the OS that moves at the speed of light. Pardon me if that was a bit cutting, but I can't resist the burn...

Re:Light on details?

[Canadian_Daemon]

What I want to know is how they made it. My laser pointer, and correct me if im wrong, most lasers cannot be seen untill they hit an object, yet, from the pic on the web site , it is shown as a line in the sky. Is it hitting particles in the air to reflect the light to the camera? How does this work?

Re:Light on details?

[penguinoid]

Because dust particles or water droplets can reflect it; furthermore, the atmosphere will disperse it. FYI, the sky appears bright because it disperses light (it disperses blue the most and red the least. This is why the sky appears blue during the day and red/orange/yellow/gold/your-favorite-sunset-color when the sun is low in the sky).

In summary, you would see a bright enough beam in the atmosphere even if there were no dust in the air.

Re:Light on details?

[p3tersen]

Is it hitting particles in the air to reflect the light to the camera? How does this work?

Yep, it's just a normal laser, the light you see is due to scattering from dust in the atmosphere.

Re:Light on details?

[LnxAddct]

Green lasers are more susceptible to this kind of thing. You can get one on thinkgeek, and yes you can see that one in mid air too. Its actually pretty cool, you may want to look into it.

Re:Light on details?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Linux was the name of a kid who could learn anything that didn't have to do with usability.

Re:Light on details?

[NanoGator]

"Do we want to know how they made it, or if it's running linux?"

Yeah, Linux would make this article soOOoo much more interesting.

Re:Light on details?

[MechaStreisand]

Look into it... Get it? Get it? Look into the laser?

Hilarious!

tape it please

[Anonymous Coward]

will some kind person in Colorado video tape this event and put up a torrent for it.

Please :)

Re:tape it please

[BhAaD]

Let me know when you get the video..ild like a copy too :) and ill put it up for all to download like the gravity club vids...

http://sch5.digitalnines.com/GravityClub/

Re:tape it please

[Anonymous Coward]

No problem. I don't mind spending time and money on the equipment and transfer, or standing out in the freezing cold waiting for it to happen. Just don't make me RTFA.

Re:tape it please

[va3atc]

will some kind person in Colorado video tape this event and put up a torrent for it.

Please :)

Just for goodness sakes no, no, no Quicktime! Thanks, I just had to clear that up :)

Re:tape it please

[Smitedogg]

I live in Pueblo, south of Colorado Springs, and saw the laser test. I had no clue what it was, and didn't get a chance to film it. I can say, though, that it was a very bizarre sight. I had no clue what it was until I saw this on /.

Dogg

Re:tape it please

[joggle]

It's going to be cloudy all day today here in Boulder. Once it clears up, I'll keep an eye out for it and try to get some video. Check my journal in a week to see whether or not I was able to get something.

Re:tape it please

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, you're posting this on Monday. The test was Sunday.

Think much?

Re:tape it please

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA. Tests will continue throughout the next couple of weeks, weather permitting. Think much?

Re:tape it please

[bar-agent]

And for goodness sakes, not AVI or Ogg video either! Just use MPEG, like a decent netizen.

laser article

[e_lehman]

The article, a little light on details...

Hehehehehe! Hoo-whee! You guys really crack me up...

A week later....

[insmod_ex]

...sixteen people reported blind by staring at the laser. Theyll be pulling a SCO and suing the United States for making Colorado a state and thus allowing the laser test to go on. Anyone up for a game of laser tag? :D

S. Boom

[soloport]

Wonder what kind of sound effects it will produce. If the beam is as wide as a basketball hoop, and if the intensity heats/displaces the air in the space through which it travels... Could we expect a sonic boom when the thing is suddenly shut off?!

This is, after all, what one hears when a lightning bolt strikes.

Re:S. Boom

[Anonymous Coward]

The article says it's 40,000 times the power of a laser pointer. That's no even close to lightning. I strongly doubt it will ionize anything.

Re:S. Boom

[Dyslexicon]

If the laser was strong enough to ionize anything, the laser wouldn't work! all of the energy would go into the air molecules and the beam would be stopped only after traveling only a small fraction of the earth's atmosphere.

moral of the story: no sonic boom. the wavelength of light is chosen so as to minimize the deposition of energy into the atmosphere.

Re:S. Boom

[Anonymous Coward]

No - air moves. OMG! And, uh, lightning is completely different.

Re:S. Boom

[Anonymous Coward]

What's this? American physics?

Laser's getting ready . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

... to fry Kobe's ass.

Re:Laser's getting ready . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmmmmmm. Nothing as good as CFN: Colorado Fried Negro.

Only land sharks

[Anonymous Coward]

Knock knock...

Re:Only land sharks

[n9hmg]

Candygram!

They thought they could just sneak it by us?

[Anonymous Coward]

What part of "measuring the atmosphere" requires a lazer that huge? THIS IS STARWARS, MAN!

One thing in Colorado's favour...

[WIAKywbfatw]

They have lots of mountains that could be hollowed out to make ideal bad-guy secret lairs.

Re:One thing in Colorado's favour...

[corbettw]

They have lots of mountains that could be hollowed out to make ideal bad-guy secret lairs.

There's already one there.

Re:One thing in Colorado's favour...

[Zeinfeld]

They have lots of mountains that could be hollowed out to make ideal bad-guy secret lairs.

Nah, this is just the latest idea in snow removal.

Says he who spent today clearing two feet of white stuff from the paths by hand today after the rubber band in the damn snowblower broke.

Its a pity they don't have snow down in Texas. Just think Dubya would have woken up thinking 'hey it must be Christmas', then spend the next five minutes looking for his nose spoon until he finaly remembered he had given it up.

Yeah, we need that laser driven snow clearing. Far fewer moving parts.

I think someone needs to persuade the folk doing the 9/11 memorial to look at lasers. At the moment they are proposing designs with 3000 odd lightbulbs. Chances of that being maintainable are zero. A much better way to do the same job is to shine a laser at a holographic plate. That way you could do names and even have different colors for different groups, the ones in the planes, the firefighters etc.

Re:One thing in Colorado's favour...

[Anonymous Coward]

Says he who spent today clearing two feet of white stuff from the paths by hand today after the rubber band in the damn snowblower broke.

You insensitive clod,

I live in Florida.

Re:One thing in Colorado's favour...

[Bombcar]

I wonder if there is a reason that three of NORAD's sites are in Canada.....

Re:One thing in Colorado's favour...

[mr100percent]

Well, the link says "Since 1958, Canadians and Americans have been partners in protecting the airspace of Alaska, Canada, and the contiguous 48 United states."

I guess it's NATO. Canada invented it after all.

Re:One thing in Colorado's favour...

[Zeinfeld]

>Says he who spent today clearing two feet of white stuff from the paths by hand today after the rubber band in the damn snowblower broke.
You insensitive clod, I live in Florida.

Knee deep in chads still eh?

Re:One thing in Colorado's favour...

[flewp]

Canada? You mean America Junior?

Re:One thing in Colorado's favour...

[CaptnMArk]

And they have a FLASH web page. LOL

Re:One thing in Colorado's favour...

[erpbridge]

They do indeed get snow in Texas. I don't live there, but December 1999 I was passing through Amarillo on I-40 and got stuck in a snow squall.

Re:One thing in Colorado's favour...

[Deflagro]

Probably remnants of the USSR missile interception program. Lucky Canada agreed to take the fallout of nuclear weapons if they were intercepted coming over the North Pole. I would image it's just old facilities, and they don't mind people knowing they are there. Talk about Cold War :P

Question... kinda.... star trek reference...

[John Seminal]

Okay a question, not too related to what is happening in Colorado, but it made me wonder. What is the differance between a Laser and Phaser?

Re:Question... kinda.... star trek reference...

[DAldredge]

The one that begins with the letter L is real.

The other is from a fiction TV show.

Re:Question... kinda.... star trek reference...

[EverDense]

Maybe not. This article is fairly old, I wonder how much further along they are:

Phaser

A ray gun that can stop people in their tracks without harming them may sound like science fiction, but some experts believe it could soon be reality.

The gun is designed to zap its victim with an electric current, using a laser to carry the charge along a beam of ultraviolet light.

The light particles, called photons, would create a path through the air that will be capable of conducting electricity up to a distance of about 100 metres (330 feet).

When the current hits someone, it would interfere with the tiny electrical charges that control the victim's muscles, making movement impossible.

Vital organs protected

But vital organs like the heart and diaphram would not be affected because they are protected by a greater thickness of body tissue.

Corinne Podger of BBC Science: "The stuff of science fiction". Weapons that freeze muscles are already on sale in the United States, but in order to work they have to be held against the victim's skin. They also have to be recharged after each use.

Apart from having a considerable range, the new 'freeze ray gun' could in theory be fired around corners if mirrors were used. It could also have a constant power source.

Talks in California

The gun is the brainchild of American inventor, Eric Herr, vice-president of HSV technologies. Scientists from the UK's Defence Evaluation Research Agency have already been to California to discuss it with him.

No details of the discussions have been disclosed, but a spokesman for the UK Ministry of Defence said the weapon's potential uses were being considered.

So far, Mr Herr's ray gun remains just an idea. He has taken out a patent on the device, but has yet to raise the $500,000 needed to build a full working prototype.

'Ideal weapon'

Initially, the 'freeze ray' could be the size of a small suitcase, but might eventually be reduced to something more like a flashlight.

Mr Herr believes it could be an ideal weapon for peace-keeping forces, or police facing violent criminals.

But already the project has its critics. They argue that such a laser would be impractical in many situations, and could easily damage the sight of innocent by-standers.

Link to HSV Tech

Re:Question... kinda.... star trek reference...

[Anonymous Coward]

Real Answer: LASER is a real thing. Phaser is a star trek creation.

Better Answer: Lasers emit light which travels at the speed of light. Phasers can either go faster than the speed of light (when you are shooting at a ship while traveling at warp speed) or slower than the speed of light (like in the Blink of an Eye episode where people drink something in the water which makes them move really fast, fast enough that they can dodge phasers)

Phasers are also cool in that they can heat up rocks when you are in a cave on a cold planet. I hae a pretty beefy laser (30 YLF pumping an 80 femtosecond Ti:Saf amplifier) but I could never do such a thing.

Re:Question... kinda.... star trek reference...

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

When the current hits someone, it would interfere with the tiny electrical charges that control the victim's muscles, making movement impossible.

I think I'm going to sell rubber underwear.

If I had one, I would just have to abuse it. I mean, who could resist using one of these to interfere with some one elses bladder control?

Re:Question... kinda.... star trek reference...

[IM6100]

Umm, you linked to a site that sells(?) trekkie toys.

Original comment about fictitious 'phaser' still stands.

Re:Question... kinda.... star trek reference...

[Alsee]

Laser stands for:
Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.

Maser stands for:
Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.

Phaser stands for:
Plaid Hippopatamus Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Rotund-mammals.

That's why phasers are so powerful, imagine being bombarded with billions and billions of plaid hippopotami!

-

Re:Question... kinda.... star trek reference...

[Captain Segfault]

A laser is a beam of coherent light (to maybe oversimplify a bit)

Phasors are a method of dealing with waves by just dealing with their magnitude and phase (eg, rather than dealing with 100sin(x-pi/2), you look at the phasor "100 with an angle of pi/2", or alternatively the complex numper 100i). If you wanted to find the result of adding two or more waves, you can then add the phasors as vectors and then convert back to waves.

This is useful, say, for doing calculations of laser interference (generally covered in a college physics course)

(okay, okay, you said "phaser" and not "phasor," but I'm not a spelling nazi.)

Re:Question... kinda.... star trek reference...

[Anonymous Coward]

Laser: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.
Maser: Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.
Phaser: Star Trek space Weapon which is more Cool-Sounding than Maser or Laser.

Re:Question... kinda.... star trek reference...

[TPFH]

Plaid Hippopatamus Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Rotund-mammals.

I'm not sure, but google thinks Hippopatamus is spelled Hippopotamus. HTH.

I was half-tempted to enter your definition for PHASER into Acronym Finder's database. Just a mouse-click away in fact.

I wonder how long it will be until the police are bombarding protestors with billions and billions of plaid Hippopotami. At least we wouldn't have to worry about alien invasions anymore. They would steer clear of our planet after our development of Hippopotamus technology.

Now, if I only had some acid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, climb up the Laser to the sky. (Thinks for a moment) No. Cause as soon as I do. You'll shut it off. On using Lasers in War... "It would have been easier to just open the door and drop it on them"

laser beam spread

[prof187]

is it just me, or does the laser beam in the picture in the article spread a *lot* more than what you'd think it should...

Re:laser beam spread

[EmagGeek]

Yes, yes it does...

Re:laser beam spread

[The Spanish Ninja]

I was wondering about that myself...Where the hell is the focus point? Oh wait, I see now. Had to blow up the picture. It looks like they just blasted the beam out of some kind of an amplifier/emitter thing and didn't even bother to focus it through any kind of a lens...Well, either that or that emitter is some kind of convex lens that amplifies the size of the beam at the sacrifice of intensity. Hard to tell with such a crappy picture...

Re:laser beam spread

[mskfisher]

It made me wonder what angle the laser was firing at. If it was fired almost directly away from the camera, you would be seeing laser light from waay in the distance, where the light would've spread to a large radius.
Note the difference in brightness, too.
Or, maybe it has something to do with the optical properties of air near the laser beam (ionization, maybe).

Re:laser beam spread

[redune45]

Ummm, the very defnition of a laser is that the light does not spread.
All the waves are parallel.
Sure the light spreads a little by hitting dust, etc.
But overall the beam will have the same radius thousands of kilometres away.
This is how they are able to bounce laser beams off of the moon.

Re:laser beam spread

[UVaRob]

Maybe (most likely) the laser beam has passed through a system of lenses before exiting the observatory like stucture. Maybe after the laser beam has been shaped it no longer is a collimated beam.
I skimmed over the CALIPSO site linked as well as the nasa site linked from that page but was unable to find a detailed explanation of how the system worked.
The explanations did mention that it is planning on mapping the atmosphere, I would venture a guess that they were doing some processing based on known information about the indices of the different regions of the atmosphere and some gathered information from the laser source that had diffracted through the atmosphere and been sensed. Thus it may make sense that they may want an expanded and/or non-collimated beam.
I don't know much about this project, or very much about optics but I do know that not all lasers systems require a collimated beam.

Re:laser beam spread

[penguinoid]

Ummm, the very defnition of a laser is that the light does not spread.

Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation

Laser light is monochromatic and in phase and polorized, but there is no reason why it should not spread. In fact, I have put a lens in front of my laser and it spreads quite nicely.

PS: did you know that air of different temperatures or pressure has a different diffractive index and could be used as a lens?)

Re:laser beam spread

[Anonymous Coward]

Perspective--the beam is the same size, but the part of the beam at top is close to the camera.

Re:laser beam spread

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello? Ever hear of perspective?

Re:laser beam spread

[redune45]

Yes, a lens would cause a laser to spread, it behaves the same as any other light.

However since the air is so random, the different pressures would only cause slight spreading, Nothing nearly so much as the orignal poster described

Re:laser beam spread

[Mmm_Coco]

it looks to me like the projecting ...thing... (whatever it is) is slanted towards the camera, and the laser might just be getting closer, not spreading.

Re:laser beam spread

[Anonymous Coward]

The "spot" where the laser beam hits the moon is roughly four miles wide. Lasers aren't perfect.

Re:laser beam spread

[crankystib]

..or the graphic artist that composited the picture didn't have a clue about what lasers look like. Looks like a photoshop job to me, and a poor one at that

Re:laser beam spread

[SB9876]

OK people, repeat after me:
1: Lasers are NOT monochromatic. A monochromatic light source would violate Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. The atoms in a lasing medium all have different energies and therefore a laser has a very small but very measurable energy dispersion.My quantum physics is too rusty to recall if a laser cooled to 0K would be monochromatic but I seem to recall that even them there is an energy range.

2: Laser light is NOT parallel. The light is generated by the photons bouncing back and forth in a lasing cavity. Even if you assume that the mirrors are *perfectly* parallel to each other, a photon can easily enter off axis and still be able to bounce several times before running off the mirrors. In a high efficiency lasing medium, this can lead to large amounts of off axis light. Semiconductor lasers regularly have outputs that have 20 degrees of divergence.
Everyone assumes that lasers have no divergence because of the old gas lasers like HeNe and Ar. These have very low lasing efficiency and so a photon has to make many passes through the lasing medium to generate an appreciable amount of lasing light. Furthermore, the lasing medium was commonly a long glass tube. Therefore the divergence angle of the light was very small. For some reason this became - "laser light does not diverge'. On the contrary, the lasers they bounce off the moon get to be something like a km in diameter when they reach the moon.
In fact, when working with lasers, there is a 'waist diameter' where the beam has a miminal diameter (varies on laser optics geometry but usually at the laser output) and then the beam diverges just like any other. Laser pointers and the like use lenses to collimate the beam into a relatively non-diverging beam.
Mind you, lasers are much better than standard light sources like light bulbs since the emitting area can be quite small and therefore you can generate a parallel beam much closer to the theoretical ideal than with something like a big humk of glowing tungsten.

YAY

[Anonymous Coward]

W00T
GIANT LASERS ROCK

Re:YAY

[Anonymous Coward]

Pink Floyd Rules!!!

The Allan Parson's Project, Phase 1

[The Spanish Ninja]

It'd be interesting to see some technical specs on this giant laser, to see how similar it is to the cutting laser I used to work on. I bet that baby takes about 12 hours to warm up. Anyone know what the frequency on the green beam is? C'mon people, get technical! Also, all you people in that area: take pictures!

Re:The Allan Parson's Project, Phase 1

[Anonymous Coward]

It is almost certainly either a frequency doubled YAG at 532 nm (just like a green laser pointer) or a copper vapor laser at 510 nm, or maybe an Argon ion laser at 514. I know that all of the laser guide star astronomy work is done with a copper vapor laser, but I also know that they are a pain to work with, and that they have been trying to get to using a YAG laser because they are much easier and cheaper to run.

Re:The Allan Parson's Project, Phase 1

[bigkahunafish]

well, its green so the wavelength is in the ~500nm range, 532nm is common for green laser pointers, and it from the pic, it looked fairly similar to those, so its probably close to 532nm... Yay! GREEN!

Re:The Allan Parson's Project, Phase 1

[Idarubicin]

From this NASA page, the CALIPSO laser is identified as a Nd:YAG, diode-pumped, Q-switched laser. The repetition rate is 20 Hz, and the operating wavelengths are 1064 nm (infrared) and the frequency-doubled 532 nm (visible, green.)

There's a PDF here that describes the prototype laser as delivering 110 mJ per pulse. At 20 pulses per second, that's about 2 watts average power--but of course the peak power in each (short) pulse will be much higher.

prepare to be scanned

[Doc Ruby]

This test in Colorado points a laser from the ground to the sky. The deployment is a satellite platform to measure the atmosphere. Will the deployed laser be pointed at the surface? Will their autoshutoff radar detectors protect us from the sweep of its beam?

Re:prepare to be scanned

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the deployed laser will be pointed at the surface. There are no radar systems on these spacecraft to shutdown the lasers. Even if the beam is diffraction limited (the best performance possible), its divergence will be 20-50 microradians. At low earth orbit of about 400km, the beam will be about 20 meters in diameter by the time it hits the ground. 400,000meters x 50E-6radians = 20 meters. Once the beam is expanded that large, it is eye safe.
Also, the spacecraft is moving so fast that you can only get one pulse hitting you unless you are in an airplane following the track of the satellite and looking upward at the same time.

See Infrared?

[Hungus]

First the laser isn't going to scatter that much and second it is infrared making it a bit hard to see with the naked eye.

from the post
"If you live in the Colorado/Wyoming area, chances are good that you could see it."

from the data on the sat:
"Part of NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder program, Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO), is a mission dedicated to studying the impact that clouds and aerosols have on the Earth's radiation balance."

Re:See Infrared?

[TheRagingTowel]

RTFA, The mentioned laser is GREEN not INFRARED. And I believe some of it will be reflected from the particles in the atmosphere. Anyway, anyone figured out why are they doing this? What is the purpose of this experiment?

Re:See Infrared?

[Anonymous Coward]

Use a CC camera, they pickup IR.

Re:See Infrared?

[p3tersen]

Actually (from the project info page):

Ball will provide an active sensor that probes the atmosphere with green and infrared laser light

They're using IR (almost certainly 1064 nm) and green (almost certainly 532 nm) beams.

Re:See Infrared?

[Karrots]

Yes the Satellite may have Infared on it but it also has Lidar which is Laser Radar. My local university has a lidar setup (or the green beam as its called around here). See the Utah State University link below.

Its used for atmospheric observations.

Utah State University - This page seems to be down at the moment
University of Western Ontario - Here is another University with one

Re:See Infrared?

[Smitedogg]

Believe it or not, I saw it here in Pueblo, CO

Dogg

Hmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder if this laser can remove basketball hoop sized tatoos?

solar beam test

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe this could also be used to test bethods of beaming power from space (ala SimCity 2000). If the beam hits the target corectly, maybe there might be a case for bulding a device like that.

also the thing reminds me of the ion cannon from command and conquer, though I know that beam won't have the power to zap stuff from space.

Re:solar beam test

[agent dero]

You sir, play too many video games.

When you're comparing real life to games, instead of vice versa, we've got a problem

Boulder

[Jarrik]

I have a friend that lives in boulder, I just called him on the phone and he knows the area it will be shooting out of when I mentioned Ball Aerospace. He said he will try to snap some pics of it. Ill let you know if he was successfull.

LASER ?

[zeux]

Hu ? I though that lasers were invisible because they are made of photons that all goes in the same direction...

That's why you can use powder or smoke (which is composed of tiny piece of material) to actually see them (by reflection of the photons on the particle).

If it's a real laser can someone tell me why we should see it ?

I know that the atmosphere is polluted, but not THAT much, is it ?

Re:LASER ?

[jlaxson]

Moisture (as well as pollutants) in the air. Just like with a keychain laser you can see the beam where there are specs of dust.

Re:LASER ?

[mOoZik]

It's all about wavelength. If it is in the visible spectrum (which it seems it is very close, as someone mentioned infrared, thus, near infrared), chances are you could. Your video camera definately can, though.

Re:LASER ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever played with a laser? It doesn't take much dust to see the beam. Not to mention this one will be a foot thick and hitting cloulds at the speed of light.

Re:LASER ?

[Anonymous Coward]

you ever see a spot light pointed towards the sky?

you can indeed see the "light beam" the atmosphere is full of dust that scatter the light beam

Re:LASER ?

[Dyslexicon]

you're thinking of red lasers. Red light passes through air much better than the higher frequencies (blue, green, yellow, etc). A great example of this is the color of the sky. Light from the sun passing through the atmosphere has its blue components scattered much more readily than the lower freqency components, so you see the sky as being blue. When the sun is rising/setting you see the sky as red because red light isn't scattered well the red light that reaches your eyes is much more intense

so, why are these people using green light that they know will be scattered? Because that's exactly what tells us stuff about the atmosphere!how much was scattered at position x compared to position y? how much was scattered at time t1 as compared to time t2?

The pollution causes more light to be scattered, for sure, but that's not WHY you see the light. Rest easy :)

Re:LASER ?

[bobbozzo]

I know that the atmosphere is polluted, but not THAT much, is it ?

You've never been to Denver, have you?

Re:LASER ?

[zeux]

Thank you for this clear post.

I do have my logical answer now.

Re:LASER ?

[Cuchulainn]

It's even better than that - there will be a significant increase in the light scattered backwards along the beam-path, so by putting your detection apparatus beside the laser you'll get quite good sensitivity!

Re:LASER ?

[Idarubicin]

The photons from a laser source will all carry on in phase and in the same direction (subject to the effects of diffraction) in a vacuum. Once they enter a medium--any medium, even air--they will tend to scatter. In pure, clear air, there is relatively little scattering, though it can still be measured. (It is this Rayleigh scattering to which our blue sky is attributed.) I've worked with powerful pulsed laser systems where scattering in clear, dry air has still been sufficient for the beam to be visible.

Of course in much of our atmosphere, we definitely do not have pure, clear air. There are particulates, there are water droplets, there is all manner of crud. These particles are much more effective scatterers, and they are the primary targets of the instrument being tested. (The instrument name, CALIPSO, stands for Cloud Aerosol LIDAR and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations, after all.)

Re:LASER ?

[Merk]

Dude, get your facts straight.

The Tyndall effect or Raleigh scattering shows that small particles scatter higher frequency (blue) light more than lower frequency (red) light. Both "pass through" air just fine because they're not absorbed, but the lower-frequency light is scattered less easily. At sunrise/sunset, there is much more air (and also more dust) for the sun to go through, so more light is scattered, so more of the red light is scattered, so the sky appears redder.

As for why light is scattered from a (fricken) laser: because there are *lots* of photons there. Green light will scatter more easily than red, but it also has to do with the amount of light they're shining up. Think of a spotlight shining up into the sky. You don't see the light from the spotlight directly, you see it bouncing off things in the atmosphere. Same deal with a laser.

There is nothing special about a laser as compared to a flashlight in how easy it is to see the beam. In a non-dusty environment, you won't see a flashlight beam either. In a dusty environment, you might see a flashlight beam more easily, because it is a wider beam, but you might see the laser beam more easily, because any dust particles will be lit more brightly by the more concentrated beam. The only way in which the in-phase and parallel aspects of the laser contribute to how easy it is to see the beam is that they make the beam narrower.

See it?

[euxneks]

I was always under the impression that a laser beam could not be seen..? Am I wrong here? Is the laser sufficiently powerful enough to actually produce a beam of light in air?

Re:See it?

[p3tersen]

~200 W of green light is far, far more than powerful enough to see the backscattered light with the naked eye. Even in a relatively clean laboratory, a 1 W green beam produces enough light to easily see the beam path, along with bright 'flashes' whenever a largish dust particle drifts through. Remember that green laser light is right in the 'sweet spot' as far as human vision is concerned, which is why green laser pointers look so much brighter for the same power.

Re:See it?

[The Spanish Ninja]

Different types of lasers are visible in different spectrums of light. Most low-intensity beams are invisible because they operate in the infrared spectrum, which encompasses wavelengths ranging 750 nanometers to just under 1 millimeter. This is why these beams are red (750 nanometers is just longer than the color red).

This makes me wonder...the range of green is something like 480-520 nanometers, so since the laser beam is green, wouldn't that mean that that is the approximate wavelength of this beam? If that's the case, this thing is such a low intensity that it is really more of a giant flashlight than a laser. I mean the way the light is produced is enough to qualify as a laser device, of course, but it's wavelength is barely half the length of a microwave.

At any rate, if there's enough power behind the beam pushing it, then yes, youy can produce a beam of concentration high enough to be visible. I've watched the beam of a cutting laser (from behind protective goggles, of course)

Re:See it?

[p3tersen]

This makes me wonder...the range of green is something like 480-520 nanometers, so since the laser beam is green, wouldn't that mean that that is the approximate wavelength of this beam?

Most high-powered green lasers make green light by doubling the 1064 nm light produced by a diode-pumped Nd:YAG laser. So it's probably 532nm - it certainly looks like it. Google confirms that doubled Nd:YAG is indeed a popular laser source for LIDAR applications. The experiment also uses IR light, so you can conveniently use the infrared pump as the source for that part of the experiment. Another group has done something similar, albeit at somewhat lower powers (i estimated in another comment that the Ball system uses about 200 W (average) of green, while the experiment i linked to uses about 10W of green).

Re:See it?

[Anonymous Coward]

This makes me wonder...the range of green is something like 480-520 nanometers, so since the laser beam is green, wouldn't that mean that that is the approximate wavelength of this beam? If that's the case, this thing is such a low intensity that it is really more of a giant flashlight than a laser.

Giant flashlight? Well, I guess you could look at it as a giant flashlight 5000 times brighter than the sun.

You are confusing wavelength of light with intensity. You can have a 0.1 milliwatt green laser (pretty harmless), a 1 milliwatt green laser (dangerous to the eye if you look at it for 1 second) or a 40 watt green laser (like the one in the article that can melt steel).

The reason you can see the path of a laser beam is because the light from the laser beam scattered from atmospheric dust and pollution is still very strong. Moreover, the scattered light for a big laser like the one in the article is strong enough to cause eye damage.

I predict many class-action lawsuits.

Re:See it?

[Iceparr0t]

The WAVELENGTH of the beam is indepedant of it's POWER. The wavelength just measures the period of the light wave, while the power measures the energy delievered per time unit. However, the wavelength of light is also directly proportional to the energy per photon. Shorter wavelength photons carry more energy per photon.

Being able to SEE a laser has nothing to do with it's power, directly. You could make a 100 Watt IR laser, and you'd never be able to see the beam -- but it could burn a hole in your hand -- because your eyes cannot SEE those wavelengths. However, a red laser pointer at 1mW is easily visible, because 632nm is a wavelength that our eyes could see.

The reason that there are many low power devices in the visible is because it happens to be harder to engineer lasing mediums (semiconductors, or doped crystals usually) which are able to lase in the visible regions. That said, it is certainly very possible to make high power green lasers, usually by "frequency doubling" a very high power (say 100W or so) IR laser. Thus two (lower energy) IR photons get converted to one (higher energy Green) photon, which (due to conservation of energy) must have twice the energy of the IR photons.

I would guess that this laser is a frequency doubled Nd:YAG laser, that produces light at 1062nm (IR) and then uses a non-linear crystal to produce light at 532nm (Green), which is half the wavelength, but double the energy per photon. Thus, you'd be able to get both IR and Green from one laser just by pulling the crystal in and out.

The 12:00 News

[The Spanish Ninja]

And our top story this hour, the RIAA has commandeered Aerospace's big laser and has started frying mp3 downloaders. When reached for comment, they told us "The lawsuits just weren't inspiring the right kind of fear."

Re:The 12:00 News

[penguinoid]

A poster calulated the whole laser to be 200 Watts. For some reason, the equivalent of two 100watt lights doesn't scare me.

Re:The 12:00 News

[The Spanish Ninja]

Right, but notice that they say not to look directly into a laser pointer. It's not the wattage produced, but the amount of radiation.
LASER - Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation
So it seems to be more of an optical maser, which is a type of laser that emits visible radiation.

Re:The 12:00 News

[penguinoid]

A 100 watt light turns all 100 watts into radiation (albeit much is infrarred). The bulbs disperse light widely, but so would a laser from orbit. Sunlight can be 1000 watts per square meter, so the laser would have to stay in an area of 0.2 m^2 -- 200 W/0.2 m^2 == 1000 W/m^2 -- to be as powerful as sunlight. Maybe being all one frequency would make a difference, but I doubt it.

Re:The 12:00 News

[The Spanish Ninja]

Hmm, didn't think about it like that. So as long as you don't look directly into the beam, it basically is just a giant flashlight. Thanks.

Re:The 12:00 News

[Anonymous Coward]

A poster calulated the whole laser to be 200 Watts. For some reason, the equivalent of two 100watt lights doesn't scare me.

You don't know much about lasers. Lasers are coherent light, meaning all the photons are in phase and parallel, making it much brighter than a 200 watt light bulb. A 10 milliwatt laser will blind you. A 10 milliwat regular light is nothing.

Re:The 12:00 News

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, didn't think about it like that. So as long as you don't look directly into the beam, it basically is just a giant flashlight.

I guest you can think of it that way, a giant flashlight that is 500 times brighter than the sun. These lasers are so powerful that scattered light from atmospheric dust is strong enough to cause damage to the eye. I predict lots of lawsuits.

Re:The 12:00 News

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

So as long as you don't look directly into the beam, it basically is just a giant flashlight. Thanks.

with industrial lasers (class 3 and up) you shouldn't even look at the light scattered from the target, it's still powerful enough the cause serious eye damage. Don't underestimate these things.

And no, you can't dodge laser fire or deflect them with a light sabre.

Re:The 12:00 News

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

the RIAA has commandeered Aerospace's big laser and has started frying mp3 downloaders

nhahahah, and they thought I was crazy when I placed all those mirrors on the roof...

Re:The 12:00 News

[Anonymous Coward]

A 100 watt light turns all 100 watts into radiation (albeit much is infrarred).

Where did you get that stupid idea? A 100 watt light converts some energy into radiation (and only some of the radiation is visible) and some into heat. Heat is not radiation. Have you looked closely at a fluorescent bulb? They are much cooler, because they convert MORE energy into radiation (light) and less into heat.

The bulbs disperse light widely, but so would a laser from orbit. Sunlight can be 1000 watts per square meter, so the laser would have to stay in an area of 0.2 m^2 -- 200 W/0.2 m^2 == 1000 W/m^2 -- to be as powerful as sunlight.

Do you have any idea what you are talking about? A laser focused onto 0.2 m^2? That's 44 cm x 44 cm. A laser can be easily focused onto 0.5 mm or less. 200 W/0.5 mm^2 = 800,000,000 W/m^2 or 800,000 times more intense than the sun.

And unlike the sun, laser light is coherent, meaning that the photons are in phase with each other, and not causing destructive interference, making it even brighter.

Don't ever work with real lasers, you're likely to go blind or get yourself killed.

Re:The 12:00 News

[pontifier]

Sunlight can be 1000 watts per square meter

Sorry buddy, it's about 100W/square meter.
If it was 1000 watts we wouldn't be here.

Re:The 12:00 News

[Anonymous Coward]

So that would be the IP address seeking laser beam..

Good thing I have kept my IP address seeking ICBM to retaliate with.

Re:The 12:00 News

[terrabit]

He's right. The solar array on our car generates over 1000watts, and its only 8m^2. The sun does put out about 1000 watts/m^2.

Are they giving out safety goggles?

[Anonymous Coward]

While they don't say exactly how powerful this laser is (laser pointers vary, typically 1-5 mW), so it could range from 40-200 watts. That's a lot of laser power. Scatter from dust particles is enough to be hazardous to the eyes when you're dealing with that much laser power.

Re:Are they giving out safety goggles?

[gandalf_grey]

(Obligatory Simpsons) My eyes! The goggles do nothing!

LASER Tag Anyone

[BhAaD]

Now they just need 49 more of those and the USA can have a nation-wide game of LASER tag.

Yes, you can see it

[BanjoBob]

The light cannot be seen nor can the air that it passes through but the air is NOT clean. So, the beam of light will reflect off of the millions of miniscule particles that float in the air (moisture, smog, dust, etc.). What one will see will be the reflection of the light -- not the light itself.

I'll be looking north tonight.

Re:Yes, you can see it

[negacao]

That would be true if it weren't using INFRARED light.

Re:Yes, you can see it

[BanjoBob]

There is a green laser also and we can see it from our home in the mountains south of Denver. Its on for a few minutes then off for a longer time. True they're using IR but they also have radar and visible light mixed in.

Those damn scientific standards...

[michiel.h]

A basketballhoop? That's what? (1/15)*Volkswagen Beetle?

I'm Dutch. We play soccer, not basketball.
Insensitive clods.

Re:Those damn scientific standards...

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't play basketball in my country either. I think the hoops they're talking about are about a breadbox-and-a-half in diameter.

If you laid American pennies end-to-end around the circumference of the laser beam... ...well, you'd be an idiot, really.

Re:Those damn scientific standards...

[Clay Pigeon -TPF-VS-]

It is 1/100000 of the square root of a Library of Congress iirc.

Re:Those damn scientific standards...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought you play "futbol"? make up your god damn minds already...

Re:Those damn scientific standards...

[The Spanish Ninja]

I'm American, but I don't play sports, so I looked it up. A basketball hoop is about 46cm in diameter. (That's 18 inches for those of you who don't understand metric)

Re:Those damn scientific standards...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm an American Spanish Ninja?

Re:Those damn scientific standards...

[weeboo0104]

I'm Dutch. We play soccer, not basketball.


That's about the diameter of a wheel of cheese.

Re:That'll make a lot of popcorn

[jfmiller]

Real Genus is definatily something every geek shoud have in his or her collection!

JFMILLER

Too bad I misread that

[Sebby]

because of the 'CO' at the end, I thought it was another SCO story, and I read it as:

"Laser System to be Tested on SCO'

... and immediately thought WooHoo!!!

Re:Ozone Layer???

[penguinoid]

Ozone is created by ionizing radiation from the sun, IIRC. I doubt that the laser will harm it.

if ( new(technology) )
printf("%s", enviromental_concern(enviromentalist, technology));

No more Austin Powers jokes!

[Raynach]

I mean, come on, you guys need to work a little harder, here. The Austin Powers association was WAY too easy. *shakes his head in shame*

Re:No more Austin Powers jokes!

[Crypto Gnome]

The Austin Powers association was WAY too easy.

The Austin Powers Association(tm) has always been way too easy. In fact, I believe that's the whole point.

Shagadelic, baby!

Re:No more Austin Powers jokes!

[The Spanish Ninja]

Since when is Austin Powers Association a trademark? Oh no! Amazon got another one!

40000 times more powerful than a laser pointer...

[Anonymous Coward]

So what, about 50W? Doesn't sound *that* impressive really...

Specs

[Anonymous Coward]

It's really just 157 pocket-lazers tied togeather with duct tape and flipped on at once.

Re:Specs

[The Spanish Ninja]

Ahh, duct tape...physical emodiment of the Force...how would we live without it?

Re:Specs

[AllUsernamesAreGone]

So now we know what lazed-dazed did with those 120 laser pointers....

Obligatory LOTR-RoK analogy

[Maskirovka]

I wonder if it'll look anything like the Nagul King's beacon in the Return of the King trailer?

Muhahaha

[WavyGravy-R5]

I want to see something fly into that beam so bad. Come on, what's more interesting, collecting information about the atmosphere, or watching a huge green lazer vaporize a passenger jet? Muhahaha.

Re:Muhahaha

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh Likes!

In Kassel already in 1977 ...

[foobsr]

namely at the Documenta 6, developped by Baumann and to be seen here .

Another occasion when art was faster than science ? Well, not really.

CC.

Don't be too proud of this technological terror

[Anonymous Coward]

you've created. The power to destroy file-share'ers is nothing compared to the power of the tort.

Just great

[YoungBonzi]

I better not see one of these popping up in movie theater screens.

Got extra mod points?

[Anonymous Coward]

And dont know where to use them?
Then vote me offtopic, quick, before they run out!

Too many scifi movies

[SuperBanana]

This is, after all, what one hears when a lightning bolt strikes.

The "common laser pointer" they talk about is one milliwatt(mW). That means their laser is 40W, common in industrial laser applications.

A lightning bolt contains roughly enough power to light an entire city for a second or two; it's about a million volts, and about 10,000 amps on average. That's a -trillion- watts. We're talking a MINOR difference in scale here, my friend. A lightning bolt makes a noise because it turns the air around it into superhot plasma, along with any moisture(which expands thousands of times its original volume when vaporized).

If the satellite were to receive that much energy, it'd explode instantaneously, and no, you -wouldn't- hear it, it's in SPACE, there's no AIR, so there's no SOUND- just wanted to get that straightened out, since you seem to have slept through most of your high school and college science classes.

I cannot -believe- the parent got modded up...

Re:Too many scifi movies

[Anonymous Coward]

You were sounding polite & intelligent up to the last bit ABOUT space and SOUND. You had no need to be such AN ass - the PARENT asks a legitimate question. You provide a great answer. But then you, FOR whatever reason, DECIDED to morph into a snotty jerk.

Re:Too many scifi movies

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think the parent was sounding like a jerk. He's certainly justified in telling an ignorant fool to sod off.

Re:Too many scifi movies

[Anonymous Coward]

If the satellite were to receive that much energy, it'd explode instantaneously, and no, you -wouldn't- hear it, it's in SPACE, there's no AIR, so there's no SOUND- just wanted to get that straightened out, since you seem to have slept through most of your high school and college science classes.

I think the parent was referring to the part of the laser that is in the atmosphere would be making noise. Your other points make sense, and your comment would be ok if you hadn't felt the need to flame someone.

Re:Too many scifi movies

[soloport]

So this must be pure science fiction? And this research is also fiction, then? If not, then laser energy can superheat air and cause sound problems. Why would it be so ridiculous for me to think a laser the size of a basketball hoop might not have the same effect? (Of course, if I had RTFA more carefully, I might have seen the energy reference -- you're right, it's small-scale.)

Why does air have to be turned into "superhot plasma" to make a sonic boom? A supersonic jet doesn't superheat air, per se, it displaces it. A nighthawk doesn't superheat the air, but produces a sonic boom with its tailfeathers.

And since when did anyone say anything about outer space? The event is happening in Colorado. (Not far from outer space, actually, but...)

And you don't have to be a jerk about how incredibly knowledgeable you are -- we get it without the barbs.

Re:Too many scifi movies

[Anonymous Coward]

ObPedant: 1 million volts times 10,000 amps is only 10 billion watts. 1 trillion isn't right even if you're English. Two orders of magnitude is a MINOR difference in scale, my friend.

Re:Too many scifi movies

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would it be so ridiculous for me to think a laser the size of a basketball hoop might not have the same effect?

because the light is not being focused.

Why does air have to be turned into "superhot plasma" to make a sonic boom? A supersonic jet doesn't superheat air, per se, it displaces it.

However the supersonic jet does move faster than the speed of sound, creating a pileup of sound waves creating the boom. The parent post never said lightning created a sonic boom btw, just that it created noise. You seem to miss everything about what a sonic boom really is. It's not just a 'loud noise'.

And you don't have to be a jerk about how incredibly knowledgeable you are -- we get it without the barbs.

I thought he let you off pretty easy :) Regardless, it is absolutely amazing your post was modded up to +5. On the other hand, I commend your proper spelling of 'ridiculous'.

Re:Too many scifi movies

[Jeff DeMaagd]

You are right on the chances of problems being nil, but I wonder why they would have to take such precautions to protect airplanes and birds if the beam really was 40W spread around a basketball hoop sized cross section? Daylight is more powerful than this.

Re:Too many scifi movies

[Spunk]

Surely a bolt of lightning has the power of 1.21 GW.

Re:Too many scifi movies

[jelle]

"it'd explode instantaneously, and no, you -wouldn't- hear it, it's in SPACE, there's no AIR, so there's no SOUND-"

Actually, if you would be looking at the satellite in space and see it explode, you would very much hear it. While it is true that the near absence of air means that a person would not hear any sound from a shockware that travels through the air, but from the explosion that person would very well hear the many high-velocity particles ticking, and thunking against his/her vessel. If you have experienced any explosions of significance, or have enough imagination, you will know what kind of rain of particles I'm talking about. Just a week ago, astronauts were shaken up by a sound that probably was produced by such a space particle. So you would hear the explosion in space, just differently than on earth.

Now about the no air - no sound thing: Things like "there is no sound in space" that they teach kids in high school are ususally oversimplified or just plain wrong. Did you know that black holes actually emit sounds?

Re:Too many scifi movies

[Anonymous Coward]

ITYM 1.21 JW. HTH, HAND.

Re:Too many scifi movies

[Anonymous Coward]

40W is the average power. Lidar systems like this use pulsed lasers. There are generally 40-400 pulses per second. Each pulse lasts only a few nanoseconds, usually less than 10 nanoseconds. At 100Hz repetition rate and 10nanosecond pulse width, the laser operates for 100*10*E-9 = 1E-6 seconds to deliver that 40W. So, the average power is quite low. But the energy delivered in each pulse is delivered over a very short period of time.

If the laser could run continuously at these levels, it would put out 1million times that 40W for its average power!

Re:Too many scifi movies

[Anonymous Coward]

Your own citations contradict what you are saying. They are references to lasers many orders of magnitude more powerful than this one, concentrated into an area much smaller than a basketball hoop.

Your second citation gives a threshold of 10^11 W/cm^2 to get air to breakdown, requiring a tightly focused 150MW laser. The big green light is probably close to ONE TRILLION TIMES less powerful!

It's one thing to not RTFA, it's another to not read your own links.

aQazaQa

Re:Too many scifi movies

[Spunk]

Nope. It's just an alternate pronunciation of giga.

giga-: /jiga/, /giga/

Re:Too many scifi movies

[merlin_jim]

Why does air have to be turned into "superhot plasma" to make a sonic boom? A supersonic jet doesn't superheat air, per se, it displaces it. A nighthawk doesn't superheat the air, but produces a sonic boom with its tailfeathers.

And photons cannot displace air molecules other than through heating. A concussive sound requires concussive heating. Concussive heating without a huge instaneous power rating requires a threshold condition. The only threshold condition available in a gas as it heats is the transition to plasma, which acts as a blackbody with respect to light...

Re:Too many scifi movies

[Anonymous Coward]

I should refrain from commenting on something that someone else said, but I believe he was talking about the actual explosion itself, or shockwave (as open space doesn't have a thick enough medium to transmit a "normal" shockwave), and not just the hail of particles.

Unless you had some pretty sophisticated equipment, any reasonably sized explosion wouldn't be audible to the human ear. Again, of course, unless you were getting showered with debris. That would probably sting too...

Re:Too many scifi movies

[jelle]

"as open space doesn't have a thick enough medium to transmit a "normal" shockwave"

Yes it does, read the article about black holes that make sounds.

"any reasonably sized explosion wouldn't be audible to the human ear"

My point is that 1) it would be audible because you would hear the debree hitting you, which is very much part of the explosion and 2) it doesn't matter whether or not you hear is, because he said that you wouldn't hear it because there is no air in space, hence no sound. Which is just wrong, sounds can be transmitted by any gas, not just the mixture we all air, and there definitely is gas in space. And I gave links to articles that explain it all.

Nope.

[Trejkaz]

I think they're planning to carve a Coca Cola logo on the face of the moon.

Holy shit.

[Trejkaz]

They must be planning to make the world's biggest DVD burner.

Re:Holy shit.

[MinutiaeMan]

Well, the Earth does spin... though I'd hate to imagine the amount of time it would take to attach a giant DVD to the planet... not to mention the severe deceleration of rotational energy as the radius gets radically increased!

Arrr my eyes!

[sonoluminescence]

If you happen to be on the space station viewing is not advised.

Re:Arrr my eyes!

[Trillian_1138]

Because, of course, the space station is inhabited mainly by pirates who traipse around and say 'Arr' a lot. As well as 'Shiver me timbers.

-Trillian

Re:RTFA

[dpbsmith]

"The laser system is equipped with radar that will shut down the system in the event that an object is about to enter the laser beam."

How does it work? Does it work? I don't know, but those are the precautions they say they've taken.

I saw one of these

[memmel2]

I was at Utah State and walked out of the Chemistry lab late at night to see someone had painted a line strait line across the sky. It's pretty freaky. But everyone else seemed to be acting normal so I went along with. Move along .. Just don't look up ... Just don't look up... act normal ... Your in for a treat.

ACK!

[mog007]

When this thing hits the moon and destroys it, don't say I didn't warn everybody!

Or the sun! It could cause it to go nova!

I need to upgrade my tin foil hat... it isn't strong enough to resist "lasers" yet.

Re:ACK!

[Anonymous Coward]

I need to upgrade my tin foil hat... it isn't strong enough to resist "lasers" yet.

Just turn it inside-out.

Oooh.

[Anonymous Coward]

So inflamitory. When was the last time a white guy even tried to blow up a passenger jet? 1988? Thanks for playing, ass. Any more mod points you feel like throwing away in a futile effort to pimp you idiology? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Re:Oooh.

[Anonymous Coward]

We must punish the Wahabists, but I don't think a 200watt laser will really work for that task. Making old satellites that have nearly run out of consumables crash dive into mecca would be a better answer.

Re:Oooh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, don't underestimate the significance of a bright light that descends from the heavens to strike everyone in Mecca blind. That's one hell of a practical joke.

Re:Oooh.

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

That's one hell of a practical joke

rather not. Each time someone pulls of such a joke, we end up with another religion.

Man this lasers sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

It isnt even being used to kill anyone or blow something up, or at least test killing someone or blowing something up.

I think slashdot editors should only allow death ray news on the front page.

2 cool lasers...

[jpellino]

...I remember were (1) the excimer laser that was tested in the first star wars attempts, reagan era - they rolled a clip on the CBS evening news that showed a Titan II boilerplate launch vehicle on a pad, they fire the excimer at it, the middle third of this (100 ft tall, 10 ft diam) sucker disappears and the top 3rd of the Titan falls down on the bottom third.

Gulp.

Then there's (2) the shuttle-based LIDAR, which actually shoots a laser from the open shuttle bay to the ground, and ranges the distance to the ground, to sub-meter accuracy / 1-10 cm precision. This means a pretty darn bright laser is shot at the ground and typically ranges the tallest thing it finds - they hope for canopy for land cover work, but in an open area, it might be you. NASA usually told people it was "like radar" which it is in its methods...

but it uses laser light.

So somewhere tucked into the mission materials for the shuttle flights that contained it is a cute little disclaimer telling you that yes, it is a laser and yes, it could conceivably pass right over you and yes, if you looked up right into the path of the lidar you could get hurt - so FER CHRISSAKE DO NOT LOOK DIRECTLY INTO THE SHUTTLE BAY LASER AS IT PASSES DIRECTLY OVERHEAD or words to that effect. But they put them somewhere where it was legally required, buit they did not pass out press materials that said a giant space laser might be shot at your house sometime in the next two weeks... they traded full disclosure for widespread panic.

That plus the innumerable people who would JUST HAFTA go outside armed with jpass and JUST HAFTA look right up the barrel... like looking in the garden hose to find out why the water ain't coming out. Here's your sign.

Re:2 cool lasers...

[Wes Janson]

The odds of actually being beamed by it as it went by are astronomically small. In fact, it's probably more likely that you would be struck by lightning while staring up in hopes of being blinded.

Re:2 cool lasers...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Reagan Star Wars laser wasn't an excimer (ultraviolet) laser. It was a mid-IR chemical laser that used deuterium and fluorine to produce output arount 5 microns or so. It put out about a megawatt CW of IR light, along with an exhaust of DF (the deuterium analog of HF, or hydrogen fluoride, a fantastically corrosive and toxic gas). This is why the current boost-phase airborne killer laser is an oxygen-iodine chemical system (COIL). It's built into a 747 airframe. They will probably convert to diode-pumped solid state lasers as soon as they get tired of breathing iodine fumes at 45,000 feet....

Re:2 cool lasers...

[grwufwuf]

It encourages people to not look up to the skies unless you are sure the shuttle or any craft or satellites isn't flying over.

Oh great, now to add a pair of sunglasses to go with that tinfoil hat.

Re:2 cool lasers...

[jafuser]

Excuse my ignorance, but how do you keep from blinding everything in a mile radius from even just the reflections created from a megawatt laser?

NOT a phaser

[Galvatron]

If you actually read that article, you notice that the only time they use the word "phaser" is in the headline. It is also variously referred to as a "freeze gun" and a "ray gun." In actual point of fact, all it is is a taser gun, but instead of shooting darts attached to wires, it uses a laser to make an ionized pathway in the air.

There is still no such thing as a phaser, the word has no definition, beyond that found in Star Trek. This device may mimic one of the effects of the fictional weapon, but that is all.

Re:NOT a phaser

[Anonymous Coward]

One wonders how the hell they can create a UV laser powerful enough to ionize the air it passes through, and the kind of mad sunburn this would leave on any unfortunate victim.

Re:NOT a phaser

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC, that's just the 'definition' of 'phaser' used by Star Trek.

The phaser *is* a particle weapon. This is why it can be blunted by electromagnetic shields. This is how it auto-aims (laser points, particles follow). This is why you can *dodge* some phasers some of the time.

This is pretty much the definition of phaser in the Star Trek universe.

Re:NOT a phaser

[JudgeFurious]

Well, if they get it to work and then get it small enough to be marketable, and then finally bring the thing to market using the term "Phaser" then I guess that's all it would take right?

And of course a large wad of cash to defend their choice of names from the army of Paramount lawyers who would soon descend on them....

Re:NOT a phaser

[Anonymous Coward]

It's likely to have the problems of a taser as well - a current powerful enough to stop a big person is also powerful enough to permanently injure a small person.

Re:RTFA

[dontbgay]

I'm no expert on the situation, but in the Navy, when they're making flight-ops plans, they make sure they go around large flocks. The weather radars will give a reflection for large flocks, and the aerography guys know what's fowl and what's weather. Keeps the navy from F.O.D.ing the engines out with animal parts. It's the single birds they gotta worry about. Damn Turkey Buzzards ;\

One Moderator who hasn't seen _The_Saint_

[Anonymous Coward]

Check.

In other news...

[BSDKaffee]

UFO sightings have shot up by 50% in the Colorado/Wyoming area.

Seriously, I wonder how many people will claim to have been abducted by what we know to be a laser beam.

Or is the laser a cover-up for a known alien landing?

the first laser test failed

[the_REAL_sam]

here, you can see how the laser glanced off its target, without a scratch:

first laser test

Not seeing anything yet...

[thelittlestbuddy]

I live in Boulder and I've got a great view of the city from my house. If I see the laser tonight I'll take some pictures and post them so my school's server can get /.ed.

It's not visible.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in Boulder, Colorado. I just got back inside a few minutes ago, having been outside on-and-off since it got dark.

Speculation: They may or may not have turned it on, it may or may not be visible if they do.

Fact: It's 7:13pm now and I've not seen anything yet.

SCO?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any chance they can aim the beam at neighboring Lindon, Utah to take out Darl & Co.?

Sharks?

[Araxen]

Are they going to attach it to a shark's head eventually?

Obligitory Kobe Bryant Reference

[syberanarchy]

Insert here.

One thing I'd like to know is.....

[Anonymous Coward]

What if several people pointed their 1 milliwatt lasers nearby into the stream, would it distrupit in any manner?

News from Colorado

[MythoBeast]

Just in case anyone is curious, I'm in Denver, it's 8:22pm, and we can't see anything. Either the thing isn't on yet, it's too misty here to see it at this distance, or it's not a visible light laser. Bummer, I was looking forward to the lights show.

Re:News from Colorado

[Kaimelar]

Just in case anyone is curious, I'm in Denver, it's 8:22pm, and we can't see anything. Either the thing isn't on yet, it's too misty here to see it at this distance, or it's not a visible light laser. Bummer, I was looking forward to the lights show.

I live in Boulder, and was interested in seeing this as well. Unfortunately, according to the Daily Camera (local Boulder newspaper) the test time was moved 4 pm MST, meaning we've already missed seeing it.

From the paper: "They originally planned to turn it on tonight but have changed the test time to 4 p.m. Sunday, Ball spokeswoman Emilia Reed said."

Re:News from Colorado

[scum-o]

I'm in Longmont and I've been searching the night skies all night. I'm bummed that it happened at 4pm. Does BALL have any footage online of the test?

Re:News from Colorado

[WindBourne]

I have been watching from auroa, and nothing here.

Re:News from Colorado

[phrogeeb]

Watching from downtown Denver, but i guess we missed it? That bites a big one.

Didnt know there were so many CO slashdotters - we should all get together.

Cuz im sure we're all really really cool people. Slashdot readers are always cool. No losers here. Nu-uh.

LAZERS ----=*

[Anonymous Coward]

HI, I am going to get a little technical on you and try to answer a couple of questions.

Ok first off

Q: "Wonder what kind of sound effects it will produce?
A: None. It requires substantially more power than they are using to ionize or break down air.

Q: "is it just me, or does the laser beam in the picture in the article spread a *lot* more than what you'd think it should..."
A: All LASERS spread or "diverge", the beam from the actual laser is probably ~8 mm or so and will get bigger as it travels. When you play with a laser pointer you notice that far away the beam gets bigger. Imagine this same effect over hundreds of miles. They are taking that small beam that is getting bigger with distance and making it big and focusing it at a predetermined point in space, or collimating it so they can control the divergence and keep it basketball sized for hundreds of miles.

C: "it is infrared making it a bit hard to see with the naked eye"
A: Actually it probably isn't, if it were IR then we would never even know about the test. The media blitz is so us folk in Denver don't go running for the hills shouting 'THE ALIENS ARE COMING! - THE ALIENS ARE COMING!'
If it is green they are probably using Frequency doubling or second harmonic generation (SHG) this is a technique used to produce a wavelength that is one-half of the fundamental wavelength of a laser. For the 1.06-um ( infrared ) fundamental of Nd:YAG, the second harmonic wavelength is 533nm (visible green, by the way this is right around the peak of the color perception of the human eye that is why 5milliwatts of green look several times "brighter" then the same power of a red 632-670nm laser).
In English: Start out with something that is easy to get high power with, IR then put it through a crystal that relases at green.

Q:" Hu ? I though that lasers were invisible because they are made of photons that all goes in the same direction...
A: Photons do travel in a straight path, more or less ;-) and they are invisible unless it reflects off of something and enters our eye. Smoke, pollutants, water vapor and dust provide the particulate that the photons can reflect off of.

Q: "I know that the atmosphere is polluted, but not THAT much, is it ?"
A: YES, if you have enough light energy present, (not in a vacuum) , think search lights.

Q:" Are they going to attach it to a shark's head eventually?"
A: Not for the foreseeable future. A couple of problems:
First: water is great at absorbing light particularly in the longer wavelength (red side of the spectrum) this would severely limit the useful range. And if you did have enough optical power to do any serious damage to anything it would be IR ~100,000 watt range, and water would absorb most of the energy resulting in a large steam explosion at the laser output window on the sharks' head.
Second: POWER. Most lasers are horribly energy inefficient. A typical ION laser consumes roughly 16,000 watts of electricity to produce ~5 watts of optical power (laser light).
Given this, to get roughly 100kw output power on a sharks head the device would have to consume roughly 320,000,000 watts worth of power probably in the form of a chemical reaction.
All things being equal and ideal this apparatus would roughly be the size of a size of a large van, attached to a sharks head... ;-P

_Chad ~ Lazer guy....

Re:LAZERS ----=*

[Anonymous Coward]

Yo dawgs,
This freaky white boy don't know what he is talkin' about.
Me and my homies have a herd of dope sharks with LASER beams on they heads, and they be fryin' up the bizeach down at the lower eastside every day, yo.

And the the aliens are coming, G.
The laser they be using in Boulder be an alien signaling 3mw green HeNe. Truth,yo.

copycats!

[Anonymous Coward]

This seems vaguely familiar...


http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2003/1 0/ 18/news/02weirdlightsbzbigs.txt

Calipso

[coyotedata]

Notice: Calipso has No and I say No defence applications!!!

Can't be seen from Fort Collins, CO

[ikewillis]

...which is some 50 miles north of Boulder. Although there's supposedly a snowstorm coming night, right now there are no clouds in the sky whatsoever. Regardless, at present the beam is not visible, and I have heard the same thing from some Denver residents as well.

Re:RTFA

[flewp]

and the aerography guys know what's fowl and what's weather

But what about..... FOWL WEATHER??!!!

Sorry. It *had* to be said. Whether it needed to be said out loud, well, that's another story.

Might not be a problem

[atrader42]

If it's in a geostationary orbit, you don't need to worry about a giant laser cutting you in half. Flight paths can be redirected. Not so sure about ducks, though.

10:00 PM in Boulder and nothing

[atrader42]

I was unfortunate enough to just catch this article at about 10:00 boulder time. I ran out to my porch which looks over most of boulder and can't seem to see anything. It is an extremely clear night, though. Perhaps the giant laser isn't visible if there's nothing for it to bounce off of?

BURN HIPPIES BURN!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, baby. The fricking liberals in boulder will finally be wiped off the face of the earth! How appropriate that they should die at the hands of MILITARY equipment, the very stuff they uselessly protested against their whole miserable lives! YEAH BABY!

Bell Labs Differences...

[TWX]

What's the difference between Bell Labs and the Boy Scouts of America?








The Boy Scouts have adult supervision...

Can I get one

[wifitek]

Shrink it down to fit on my key chain so I can melt holes in peoples forheads.That would be sooo fucking kewl!

Relax

[Adam.Steinbaugh]

Relax -- it's supposed to happen for the next five days to the next three weeks. Someone should ring up Ball tomorrow and see if they have any updated info as to when they'll fire the bugger next.

WARNING, PARENT LINKS TO ARTICLE

[Maggot75]

Parent post is actually a link to the article! Do not click on it, or you'll be unable to post your wild speculations, untainted by what the government wants you to 'know' on the subject. When I clicked that link, my tinfoil hat started humming and heating up. Luckily, I was wearing it, or my brain would have been LAZORED and rewritten to suit the Council of Earth Management.
What is wrong with people, trying to lure innocent /.'ers to RTFA! The article is ALWAYS WRONG. The voices in your head are ALWAYS RIGHT. Because they say so.

PLEASE!

[Craig3010]

Not "birds", "domestic terrorists."

Phasers do exist!!!

[HRH King Lerxst]

In the form of guitar effect boxes...they mimic the sound (well good ones do) of a Leslie speaker cabinet!!!

Green laser from Greenwich, London

[baker_tony]

Hi, in Greenwich, London (UK) the observatory has had a green laser coming out of it every so often over the last few months. Anyone know what that's all about?

Re:Green laser from Greenwich, London

[baker_tony]

Don't worry, answered my own question:

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/site/request/setTemplate:sing lecontent/contentTypeA/conWebDoc/contentId/969/nav Id/00500400e

It lights up the Meridian Line across the sky.

the video clip was a ground test of an excimer...

[jpellino]

... trooped out to let us know that they had some traction on using lasers to beat up missiles.

newspaper story about first night of test

[boulderbobo]

http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/city_news/article/0 ,1713,BDC_2422_2486360,00.html

Re:Ozone Layer???

[Anonymous Coward]

A more likely scenario would be the laser creating the poisonous O3.....
I hope they take precautions against that!

Top Secret! OT

[nlaporte]

Top Secret is the movie you're thinking of. Very funny.

Re:Top Secret! OT

[tgd]

No, Real Genius.

Re:Top Secret! OT

[nlaporte]

Real Genius (Val Kilmer's second Hollywood movie) is the movie referred to by the top parent post (with the flying laser and the popcorn and whatnot). Top Secret, Kilmer's first, is the one where he parodies the Beach Boys and the NRA, along with WWII spy flicks. Both very good movies, much better than anything he's done recently.

LaserTech

[MountainLogic]

LaserTech also sold NASA a few hand held rangefinding LIDAR units for docking with objects in orbit. They are simple time-of-flight low power pulse units much like the units they sell for surveying or traffic enforcement.

Sun-synchronous polar orbit

[OmniGeek]

Meaning it comes by twice per day, at 13:30 and 01:30 (time for crossing the equator, I think). 'Twill be moving rather fast, and atmospheric attenuation will mean it's harmless in any case at the altitudes where birds fly. Well, mostly harmless (So long, Douglas, and thanks for all the Babelfish ;-)

Uh kind of a poorly worded article

[Anonymous Coward]

It's often said that in space, you can't hear yourself scream. True enough, more or less, but rather misleading.

Misleading?! Hardly... Check just a couple paragraphs lower:

"We wouldn't be able to hear the sound because our ears aren't sensitive enough,"

OK Einstein, so it's 100% true. You can't hear yourself scream. What's misleading about that, dumbass?

Re:Uh kind of a poorly worded article

[jelle]

Great, another Anonymous Coward calling people dumbass on /. after posting a response that very clearly shows that the posted didn't read very well what was written.

I didn't say that you could hear yourself scream, neither did the post that I responded to say that you couldn't hear yourself scream. The post said that you wouldn't hear the explosion and that there is no air and no sound in space.

Most probably, you were trying to call Mr Robert Roy Britt who wrote the article on space.com a 'dumbass'. Well, besides that there is a reason why you are posting anonymously on /., and he is a senior science writer making his living writing articles, he is not a dumbass at all. If you read the article carefully, then the sentence 'we wouldn't be able to hear the sound' describes 'we' hearing the sound of shouting by the 'brave and clever astronaut' mentioned right before that. Nowhere does it say that the brave and clever astronaut wouldn't hear her own voice. In fact, knowing how sounds are produced and perceived by humans, I'm pretty sure that during the first and only shout possible by the brave astronaut using her last breath of air would be heard by her, due to the fact that the soundwaves are carried through inside her own head. Ever wonder wby many people think they sound strange when they hear their own voice from a recording for the first time? It's because people hear their own voice over the air plus through their heads.

D.I.Y.

[popo]

"The laser beam is about 40,000 times more powerful than a common laser pointer pen...."

Anyone up for building a just-as-powerful homemade array?

That's a whole lot of AAA batteries...

Laser System to be Tested on McBride, SCO

[BugZRevengE]

I saw this as the heading .. guess i'd better get my eyes tested soon...

low power = signal

[Doc Ruby]

How about I wear my tinfoil hat to protect me from the scanning beam correlating my position and genome signature, as its "low power" beam rasters across the Earth's surface?