Air Force Looks To Laser-Proof Its Weapons

slugo writes "This wired.com article has probably the coolest laser destruction video you have ever seen. The video shows the Israeli and US Air Force working on laser defense systems. The US Air Force is starting to look for ways to laser-proof its bombs and missiles — with spray-on coatings, no less. They think everyone is going to figure this laser thing out sometime and need a defense against what they are already very good at — shooting things out of the sky with a laser."

Comments

Re:Armour them and spin them.

[Atrox666]

The problem with lasers is that some techies are irresponsible enough to give them to pieces of garbage like the neocons. the world would be a better place if these parasites could only throw rocks.

Re:Best Offense Is a Good Defense

[Doc Ruby]

No, the lasers shooting things down are the essence of Star Wars. Even if you can find lots of pages saying it worked, all it takes is a few saying it doesn't work to show that it's a boondoggle.

Which is also the essence of the Star Wars boondoggle itself. Unless the missile shield is 100.000% effective, the percentage of missiles that will get through will encourage more missile production by the enemy. Which is exactly why Star Wars had any benefit at all when it was originally pursued: it incited the Soviets to make more weapons, to expand the "error rate" into a significant threat of many penetrating missiles. Since the Soviets already had tens of thousands of missiles, the shield started out as penetrable. Even a single missile hitting a US city, or anywhere in the US or Europe, would be an unacceptable catastrophe. But that would be the risk, a risk even greater because Star Wars would encourage such brinksmanship. But Star Wars "worked" by bankrupting the Soviets in the arms race it escalated. Now it's just bankrupting the US.

Of course, that's what you Republicans do best: bankrupt the US by cranking up our national security risks past the maximum.

You Republicans have also kicked the hornets nest and inflamed this Terror War beyond all manageability, too. I know that boom was largely an unexpected windfall for Halliburton and Northrup, a distraction from the Star Wars plan. But we can't even afford your boondoggle Terror War. Stacking Star Wars atop it is like running your SUV on "vacuum power" after you've burned all the fumes in your gas tank. I know you Republicans are working that angle as hard and fast as you can still con the 23% of Americans who can't spell their own name. But the rest of us paying attention know that it's a total failure.

Which is why I'm getting +mods. You've turned yourself out as a standard issue Republican warmonger. You're not going to get a lightsaber with this Star Wars plan, you know. All you're going to get is another $TRILLION boondoggle that endangers us even more. I know you love that, too. But the rest of us are on to you and your tricks.

Keep your Dark Side to yourself. You had your Cheney. Now the rest of us have to pick up the pieces, without more science fiction foreign/defense policy.