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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."
will some kind person in Colorado video tape this event and put up a torrent for it.
:)
Please
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.
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!
"I like you, but I wouldn't want to see you working with subatomic particles."
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?
--
make install -not war
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.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
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."
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
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.
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.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
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
http://jesus.everdense.com/
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).
...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.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
"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?
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.