Northrop to Sell Laser Shield Bubble for Airports

NeoPrime writes "CNN Money web site has a story about Northrop Grumman forecasting development of a laser shield 'bubble' for airports and other installations in the United States within 18 months. The system will be called Skyguard — a joint venture with Israel and the U.S. Army. It will have the capability to generate a shield five kilometers in radius."

Comments

Re:Failure modes

[Meneguzzi]

On a more serious note, if you are shooting a laser at a device that contains explosives within it, you need much less power to detonate it (or at least seriously damage its detonation mechanism) than to shoot down an airliner. SAM missiles are not built like tanks, especially the shoulder-fired variety, so the idea, in principle, does not sound that dangerous to me.
Nevertheless, the idea another slashdotter has posted about putting countermeasures on the airplanes, sounds much cheaper and safe than the laser thing. As far as I know, the Israelis are already using this in El Al planes, and I heard stories about them actually having to use this (and being successful).