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US Navy Breaks Laser Record

Posted by Soulskill on from the it's-nice-to-see-val-kilmer-finding-work dept.

ectotherm writes "The US Navy has broken the existing record for the power of a laser. Their new free-electron laser can burn through 20 feet of steel per second. 'Next up for the tech: additional weaponization. The Navy just awarded Boeing a contract worth up to $163 million to take that technology and package it as a 100 kW weapons system, one that the Navy hopes to use not only to destroy things but for on-ship communications, tracking and detection, too — using a fraction of the energy such applications use now, plus with more accuracy.' Now all we need to do is upgrade the sharks..."

2 of 294 comments (clear)

  1. 20 feet of steel? by Chelloveck · · Score: 3, Funny

    What's that expressed as houses of popcorn?

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    Chelloveck
    I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
  2. Re:20, not 200 by Posting=!Working · · Score: 1, Funny

    Yes, it covers both major branches of science: war and religion.

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    This sentence no verb.