Boeing's Enormous Navy Laser Cannon

An anonymous reader writes "Boeing is working to build a huge, incredibly powerful, soon-to-be-seafaring laser for the US Navy. This free electron laser can produce light of any wavelength (ie, color) directly from an electron beam, and gets an energy boost from a superconducting particle accelerator. Once it's onboard ships, the laser could be used to shoot down cruise missiles and artillery shells."

Comments

The laser

[geekoid]

will become the ultimate defence weapon.

Imagine have LASER mounted along your border. They will shoot down anything, instantly.

Image roof top boxes in cities that can shoot stff down a mile away. Bombing Baghdad would have been impossible,.

Interesting times.

Re:The laser

[WrongSizeGlass]

will become the ultimate defence weapon.

And I'm sure the human race will find many unthinkable ways to use it on each other, animals and the landscape of the Earth.

Interesting times.

Indeed.

Re:The laser

[nicolastheadept]

Tbh, lasers like this are incredibly impractical for anything other than missile defense. For attacking, there are a million better ways. Such as missiles!

Re:The laser

[camperslo]

But can it do something useful for business, like burn corporate logos into the surface of the moon?

As for patrolling borders, it might be viable as a game. Add web interfaces to the cameras and lasers and people would PAY to patrol the borders.

Making conflict of any kind profitable is a slippery slope. Next thing you know we'd have politicians advocating slavery, even sex slaves.
That isn't possible, is it???

http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/middle-east/men-should-have-sex-slaves-says-female-kuwaiti-politician

Re:The laser

[Luckyo]

We've been there already, many many times. This weapons is a future technology demonstrator for space wars. It has little to no room on planet surface with all the impurities of the air, nasty atmospheric conditions, and generally sucking in comparison to chemical propulsion mass drivers also known as firearms.

This was done to death even on slashdot.

Re:The laser

[Chaymus]

Standard arms race tactic says the new ultimate defense is a mirror.

Re:The laser

[volcan0]

Unless the other guy also has laser missile defense.....

Re:The laser

[maxwell demon]

No, the ultimate defense is a retroreflector. That way, the laser beam will target exactly its source.

Re:The laser

[DerekLyons]

The laser will become the ultimate defence weapon.

Weapons of this nature are only useful in proportion to their sensors and command-and-control systems.
 

Image roof top boxes in cities that can shoot stff down a mile away. Bombing Baghdad would have been impossible

The aircraft then just fly five miles up and saturate your defenses with carpet bombing. Or use stealth aircraft. Or use electronic warfare. Or use saturation level artillery from five miles away... Or any combination thereof.
 
All this is assuming that a (pretty expensive and sophisticated) sensor and command and control network is in place though - a network that's vulnerable in it's own right.

Re:The laser

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, right. Ultimate defence. Unless you overstress the laser (needs to dissipate heat for x% of operating time or whatever). Or just exhaust the power source (chemical laser with 70 shots in the bag, yay! Uh, sir, there are 71 missiles inbound to this position. Boo).

Or.. you could breech a laser defence by overwhelming its targeting capability with sheer numbers of live ordnance. Or by screening your live ordnance with decoys (perhaps armored so it takes longer for the laser to bring it down). Or redesigning the missile bodies for reduced radar signatures the tracking system won't recognize as ordnance.

Or, if you read some sci-fi, use really, really reflective paint.

Re:The laser

[Dunbal]

Imagine an airborne laser that can shoot stuff on rooftops from 2 miles away. Oh dear, Baghdad gets bombed again.

Re:The laser

[Dunbal]

Add web interfaces to the cameras and lasers and people would PAY to patrol the borders.

The ultimate spawn camping game...

Re:The laser

[WindBourne]

And yet, that has been disproved. Lasers CAN fire for long distance in many conditions. More importantly, if it can fire RAPIDLY and uses ship power, this may be very useful.

Re:The laser

[DarkTempes]

I would like to see a laser shoot down a rail gun projectile ^__^

Re:The laser

[19thNervousBreakdown]

No, that's at the hospital.

Re:The laser

[chemicaldave]

Bombing Baghdad would have been impossible,.

Interesting times.

Assuming the bombs are detectable. I imagine stealth munitions would be the next logical goal.

Re:The laser

[Anonymous Coward]

To shoot it down, first you have to see it!
Warfare is all about the unexpected.

Good luck with your laser, against a stealth Zar bomb on a stealth plane. And even if you do shoot it down, you're still fucked. Big time.

Although Iâ(TM)m never for what is just professional mass-murder for personal profit under another name.

Re:The laser

[artfulshrapnel]

Worth pointing out: Even in space lasers aren't significantly better than projectiles. Projectiles use less fuel (hard to get in space), create less heat output (difficult to vent when you're floating in a vacuum) and come in a variety of different configurations for different purposes. Add the fact that in space projectiles fly in perfectly straight lines and don't slow down... There are the obvious issues of speed and distance (lasers travel really fast, so they are good for hitting a maneuvering ship several thousand miles away) but guided projectiles solve this problem pretty easily. I predict that the weapon of choice for space conflict will be guided missiles that carry a payload of several hundred depleted uranium flechettes, fired when the missile reaches an appropriate distance from the target.

Re:The laser

[couchslug]

"Bombing Baghdad would have been impossible,."

No, just more difficult. Lasers merely shoot, but they require radar to find targets.
A barrage of EMP weapons and anti-radiation missiles and small UAVs with transponders to mimic aircraft attack radar come to mind as ways to get a foot in the door. Very small UAVs could hide and "hedge hop" in ground clutter.

Re:The laser

[TheCouchPotatoFamine]

mirrors only reflect specific frequencies! this laser can produce ANY wavelength, did you catch that? It means they dial-a-hole in what ever they'd like (it's why they even mentioned the ability!)

Re:The laser

[Rhinobird]

Hey! And the Navy is working on those, too.

Re:The laser

[TheCouchPotatoFamine]

you're wrong on all counts AC.
1) missiles aren't cheap
2) ordinance moves very slow compared to lasers, even given recharge
3) reflective surfaces are only reflective for a given RANGE of wavelength, definitely NOT all of them. That's why they mentioned it can fire at any wavelength, duh.

Re:The laser

[icebike]

Fire rapidly is key here. Time to first shot is pretty important, but time to second shot is even more important.

Too often in the prior generations of this device the time to subsequent shots was way too long. Because nobody attacks with only ONE anti-ship missile, and even gunnery sends more rounds down range than can be hit with a slow resetting laser. The power needed for this is enormous, it needs to be instantaneous and repeatable for long periods of time, especially if you intend to make good on your promise of shooting down artillery shells.

With a dispersed battery of HAND LOADED field artillery you can send down range on average 1.5 rounds per minute per gun or better. With 5 to 8 pieces to contend with, you better be prepared to absorb some hits while you skedaddle out of range.

Luckily, no navy has gun boats like those in the past:

From James Grace's "The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal", the Helena is described during its initial firing that night.
"Officially the Helena's fifteen six-inch guns fired at a rate of ten rounds per minute at rapid continuous fire, but the ship had reached seventeen. To Lieutenant Luehman, the shooting resembled fifteen fireflies converging on the same spot, or fifteen streams of liquid fire."

Re:The laser

[Nefarious Wheel]

Yup. Strategy will usually trump tactics.

Re:The laser

[Luckyo]

I predict that the weapon of choice for space conflict will be guided missiles that carry a payload of several hundred depleted uranium flechettes, fired when the missile reaches an appropriate distance from the target.

That's how modern anti-air missiles work (except for cheaper shrapnel material). Most people don't seem to realise it, instead thinking that movie-esque missiles that ram planes down are the reality.

Re:The laser

[h4rr4r]

Go google "Rods From God". Know you know that bombing Baghdad would not be impossibly at all, just a lot worse for Baghdad.

Re:The laser

[Luckyo]

Erm. Both your claims cannot have been made by anyone who has had any real contact with ship based weapons. First, in measure of rapid fire, kinetic guns absolutely destroy everything else. One of the main advantages of the anti air gatling CIWS is that it puts up a wall of small projectiles, which can be tracked by radar, which can auto-correct direction of the stream based on target's relative location to the stream. Which can then retarget near-instantly as kinetic gun turret is also light.

Energy is another huge problem on modern ships. Zumwalt-class was long considered for a nuke to power it because gas-turbines are simple not powerful enough to feed a modern AEGIS destroyer/cruiser anymore. Modern fire control radar going on full power trying to burn through interference generated by the target consumes several tens of percent of total ship power output nowadays - this is something you can find on navy's own website (.mil), sourced to their generals. I linked one such source when this topic came on slashdot before. Energy is in EXTREMELY short supply on a non-nuclear powered ship in a combat situation.

And sure, laser can fire for long distance in many conditions. It just won't hit anything meaningful in heavy rain or fog, or even if it does, it will cause minor burns to biological unshielded targets at worst. Good thing it never rains and is never foggy above large masses or water. Even better that there are never large temperature changes over the ocean surfaces causing various optical distortions. Nosiree!

Re:The laser

[Ethanol-fueled]

Yes, I'm glad that defence contractors and the military are still pumping tons of money and research into these ridiculously expensive, fragile, and unwieldy toys while American families are increasingly going homeless and dying from third-world diseases because they can't get healthcare.

Re:The laser

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh wow, you're totally right. I'm wrong on all counts.

Except that.. 1) the expense of missiles is really irrelevant. In part because lasers and their power sources aren't cheap either. But mostly because militaries are waaaaay more concerned with completing the mission than pinching pennies. A man-portable shoulder fired G t A missile is way cheaper than the aircraft it shoots down. But the "X isn't cheap" argument hasn't taken aircraft off the battlefield.

2) Ordinance moves very slowly compared to lasers because ordinance is produced by bureaucracy. Ordnance on the other hand moves slower than the speed of light, generally speaking, but lasers have the nasty downside of losing efficacy with range. There only needs to be enough ordnance in the air simultaneously to get one missile across the missile froster's effective range. Then even if you don't destroy the point defence outright, you do damage to the system that makes penetrating the defence easier the next time.

3) you don't need to reflect over all wavelengths. Quite a few wavelengths are sub-optimal either because they're more difficult to focus (meaning its harder to deliver a given amount of energy per surface area) or because it attenuates in atmospheres (reducing the range at which you can deliver the kill shot) so if you can force the laser into using less effective wavelengths, you've reduced the effective range of the laser (or the kills per time of the laser which is a similar metric) and, as I pointed out above, you only need enough missiles to cover the effective range of the laser. Less effective range = less kill time = less missiles needed. AND you need not cover every missile with the same reflective material. Force the defenders to guess at a useful wavelength for each projectile.

You're not too bright, are you? Especially because you've asserted I'm wrong on all counts, but haven't even attempted to point out how I've failed on all counts. The fact that none of your counterarguments are at all valid is just a delicious bonus.

Re:The laser

[Ihmhi]

Then we do the Zerg rush equivalent of bombing. One 200 lb. bomb doesn't cut it? Oh well, throw ten 20 lb. bombs at them and hope for the best. Isn't that the basic idea behind the MIRV?

Re:The laser

[Anonymous Coward]

Rule of the internet says that any article involving "lasers" must be have its first comment as: "PEW PEW PEW!!"

Re:The laser

[WindBourne]

While a rail gun has physical limits on the barrel, the lasers do not. The issue as you say, is the amount of energy INSTANTLY and prolonged available to it. For example, if a 5 second shot drains all energy and it will take 5 minutes to come back up, well, this would be worthless. OTH, if you have multiple ultra-caps capable of being charged and can take multiple shots while these are charging with say 1 second downtime, then you are in pretty good shape.
Part of the reason why I support this is that it will require the ships to have loads of ultra-caps. That will mean that they will buy LOADS of them and drive the tech. In doing that, it will lower the prices for cars. Basically, I see this as a win-win all around.

Oddly, I have been writing my congress man pushing for us to do x-prizes for beaming and storing energy. The idea is that we can beam it into Afghanistan (or other bases), but also can help a ship that is in a prolonged battle. In fact, one idea would be to have an Aircraft Carrier able to beam energy to nearby destroyers so that they can quickly fire. Win-win-destroy all around :)

Re:The laser

[Flyerman]

Corporations are holding out for ability to cause stars to go supernova. There's nothing like seeing "COKE ADDS LIFE" when you look to the night sky.

Re:The laser

[WindBourne]

I asked on an earlier posting how far and under what conditions can a laser fire in. And yeah, my issue is that most battles are planned in heavy weather (surprise). My understanding is that FEL can fire in rain with little issues.In addition, according to Navy officials, the FEL laser can perform at different wavelengths, meaning it can operate at lower and more powerful levels so that it can be used for different applications, which other laser technology cannot. It is also not vulnerable to atmospheric conditions, as solid-state lasers are, making them wane in power depending on the weather.

Energy is the key. And more importantly, the ability to deliver instant and prolonged energy or in multiple burst is important. I was suprised that we are not making DDX nuke powered. It seemed like it was the smart thing to do. However, I have suggested many times and have written my senators multiple times to suggest that we create an X-prize on beaming and storing energy. That would solve a lot of issues.

Re:The laser

[Luckyo]

Foxnews sourced claim contradicts laws of physics. Laser is essentially a homogenous stream of photons fired at certain wavelength. As with all light, it's extremely vulnerable to conditions that either absorb light or refract/reflect light.

I suspect reporter messed something up when sourcing it. Perhaps folks at NAVY were trying to say that FEL laser doesn't lose power OUTPUT in bad weather (due to lens issues and diode issues in high humidity conditions?)

Re:The laser

[SniperJoe]

I'm sorry, but Sim City has caused me to harbor an irrational fear of "beaming" energy.

Re:The laser

[lgw]

An old-school rail-fed guided missile cruiser can launch around 5 missiles per second until the magazine runs dry (you can find videos of Chinese missile cruisers showing off). The modern vertical-launch missiles are presumably faster. The Navy builds missile defense plans around groups of such cruisers launching in parallel, which is why the Aegis system needs to be able too track hundreds of targets and so on. As you point out, this is a tall order for any electrically powered device to be used for missile defense: as much power as these lasers must use, just preventing the power busbars from melting would be impressive.

Currently we seem to like using missiles to shoot down missiles. That makes sense to me: we ought to be able to launch in defense at least as fast as in offense (the defensive missiles are about 1/4 the footprint as the offensive).

Re:The laser

[ArcherB]

Yes, I'm glad that defence contractors and the military are still pumping tons of money and research into these ridiculously expensive, fragile, and unwieldy toys while American families are increasingly going homeless and dying from third-world diseases because they can't get healthcare.

Well, I guess they'll be dying from third world diseases in jail because they'll HAVE to get health care by law under Obamacare.

Re:The laser

[lgw]

Perhaps you've heard of the Aegis defense system the Navy uses? It's pretty neat. And in naval warfare these days, it's not expected that surface opponents will ever be within line of sight of one another - the battle should be over before they get that close.

Re:The laser

[lgw]

The radar system that will track the incoming missiles isn't new here: your decoys and radar signature ideas are presumably already being done to whatever extenbt they work, and current defense systems would be affected by them the same as laser defenses.

Laser power source again just needs to offer as many kills as current systems: racks of defensive missiles on deck, or the quite sustained limited firing time the gun-nased CIWS has. Solid state lasers should offer a much higher limit, if they can run off ship power without charging beteen shots. The old DDX designs had many MW of power available for this, but IIRC that design was abandonded a couple years ago, so I'm not sure how this would work. Perhaps on the nuclear ships, but you really want your missile defenses on the screening DDGs, not just the target. Dissipating system heat is trivial for a ship, though component heat is a real engineering challange I'm sure.

Making the incoming missile reflective just isn't practical - as the energy densities we're talking about there, the only surface the laser interacts with is exploding plasma.

Re:The laser

[flyingsquid]

Hm, so what enemies would the Navy be facing that would be able to rapidly adapt to the laser, requiring the ability to quickly alter the frequency of their weapon's beam? Dear god... that must be it. They're preparing for a Borg invasion.

Re:The laser

[wagnerrp]

Incorrect. The marvel of the electron laser is that it does not require any gain medium, and thus it is not fixed to any specific frequency. Electrons are fed in from a particle beam, and run through an electromagnetic conduit called an undulator or 'wriggler', where the electrons bounce side to side. In this process, the electrons give off syncrotron radiation, the frequency of which is infinitely variable, based off the magnetic field strength in the undulator. Since the electron path is parallel to the emitted light, the photons remain in phase.

Re:The laser

[wagnerrp]

Behind Enemy Lines actually got that right, sort of. They went with the flechette model, because a hundred projectiles being fired out a hundred individual tubes like a shotgun, followed by the rest of the missile body following through the aircraft, looks cooler than just the front half exploding. Of course that's where reality ended. The entire rest of the missile behavior was flat wrong.

Re:The laser

[Aighearach]

Now they just need to give the ship a shark mouth paint job

Re:The laser

[wagnerrp]

Strategy trumps tactics, what are you talking about? They are two different concepts. Strategy applies over the entire theater of combat, multiple battles in multiple areas over multiple times. Tactics apply to a specific battle or skirmish.

Re:The laser

[wagnerrp]

The basic idea behind the MIRV is that nuclear weapons got small and light, while rocketry works on economies of scale. Why destroy one city with a lethal radius of 20 miles, when you can use the same rocket to take out a dozen cities with a lethal radius of 5 miles?

Re:The laser

[Luckyo]

It's also worth noting that this isn't really a new invention. Delivery method is the only innovation. Flak guns used to shoot down planes in WW2 were based on the very same principle - shell was filled with small shrapnel and gunner only had to hit close enough to score a kill.

Re:The laser

[garyebickford]

Retroreflector is only going to be 'good enough' in a limited range of frequencies. FEL laser can be tuned to frequencies where the reflectance is poor. (this does make it very useful to know in advance what the reflector(s) are made of)

Re:The laser

[Luckyo]

Hold on here. The problem with using laser as a naval weapon lies in the beam being affected by reflection/refraction/absorption/distortion by water particles/droplets and atmospheric impurities in the air it travels through.

In what way does FEL defeat this problem? I understand that you can widely change frequency of emitted photon stream due to the nature of the free-electron laser, but the beam it outputs is still just as vulnerable once it leaves the device as that of a typical fixed-frequency laser.

In other worlds, I'm right, as in FEL defeats some weather-related issues with the actual emission process. It doesn't defeat the problems that affect the resultant beam. Or am I understanding something wrong here?

Re:The laser

[garyebickford]

Agreed. Also, approximately the biggest logistic hassle for the Navy is getting sufficient ammunition, missiles, etc. delivered to a combat ship. The FEL laser, combined with a nuke power plant, essentially provides a nearly unlimited 'ammunition' quantity - and (just like in Star Trek) the nuke power can be divided easily between motive power and fire power, as needed (up to some limit). The logistics is really the big factor. IIRC a big Tomahawk destroyer only carries less than 100 missiles. When those are gone, the destroyer is a lot closer to defenseless than any captain would want to be.

Re:The laser

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem here is context. See, you're arguing points that a laser defence would be at least as good as a conventional defence system. I don't care. For one, I'm not asserting an opposed position. For two, I wouldn't be surprised either way. Laser may be a total piece of shit technology for point defence or it may be much better than what we've got. My original post was a response to an assertion that lasers are the ultimate point defence system and that if Baghdad had such a system, it would've been impossible to bomb. Which is not the case at all, unless the laser can't be overstressed by heat, power source, or target count and that the system can't be bypassed by difficult to detect ordnance.

So, with that in mind I will be (sort of) brief in addressing what you have said.

I'm aware that at the current time the tracking systems would basically be what are on conventional systems. But I would doubt that decoys and redesigned missiles are currently in widespread use. Mostly because conventional defence systems are better than nothing, but they still have significant failure rates in engagements. So halving your firepower to attach decoys to hardpoints is less sensible with conventional defences. Ditto spending money on redesigned hulls and guidance systems. In the advent of a laser defence system with a better success rate, those options become more viable. Even though the tracking system may be the same tech.

As far as power sources go, no it does not need to just offer as many kills as current systems. Space is precious resource about a ship, so a power source that offers as many kills but occupies more space may not be viable.

And as far as reflective missiles go, I did say "if you read sci-fi" for a reason. But as far as practicality goes.. it probably won't ever be. But then, lasers as a defence system still aren't, so there isn't much need for someone to find a way to make a missile reflective. And if they bother and succeed, it won't have to be perfect to be viable. It just needs to be good enough to reduce the size of the missile swarm necessary to overwhelm the defender.

Re:The laser

[garyebickford]

I haven't kept up, but from my previous reading a while back, the big FEL lasers are intended for the nuke aircraft carriers. But I could see them being built into a new nuke-powered task force escort destroyer. Put one or two of those on each side of the carrier, and you'd have a pretty strong defensive posture. This would leave the carrier open to send out ground attack and counterforce flights, and the missile destroyers could concentrate on shipping Tomahawks to their delivery point.

The interesting thing for a naval confrontation would be that since lasers are line-of-sight, two such equipped forces could not easily use the lasers directly against each other, at least until one or both sides have used or lost all their planes and missiles (and maybe supercavitating torpedoes), so their opponent could close in for the final burn. So the initial part of an actual naval engagement would still be more-or-less old school projectile warfare.

Re:The laser

[afidel]

This isn't primary defense (at least not in the Navy's eyes) it's point defense for whatever makes it through the rest of the fleet defense curtain. It's to make sure a rogue Exocet or two doesn't take out your multibillion dollar one of eleven carrier.

Re:The laser

[Anonymous Coward]

Simply disagreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to mark it down.
--CmdrTaco

How about someone posting snide uninformed bullshit. Is that a valid reason?
Shut your little anushole of a mouth you dumb cockwhore, you make no sense and are 100% fucking annoying.

Re:The laser

[wagnerrp]

Different atmospheric conditions will affect different frequency light in different ways. Certain frequencies might cause cause excessive dispersion or thermal blooming, while other frequencies will operate in a window of relatively little interference. While a traditional laser would perform just as well as an FEL were it in the proper window, the fact that the FEL is tunable means you can hit that window regardless of the conditions.

Re:The laser

[dwarfsoft]

A simple laser is no good for this. We all know that the Nova 5 (owned by The Coca-Cola Company) was sent on a mission to induce the supernova of 128 supergiant stars in order to create a five-week-long message in the sky visible even in daylight, reading "COKE ADDS LIFE!".

Re:The laser

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut your little anushole of a mouth you dumb cockwhore, you make no sense and are 100% fucking annoying.

Among progressives, this is what is known as "tolerance" and "respectful disagreement". Write those terms down in your notebook, you will see them again.

Re:The laser

[Man On Pink Corner]

Why would that be a problem?

Re:The laser

[Anonymous Coward]

American families are increasingly going homeless and dying from third-world diseases

[citation needed]

Re:The laser

[MareLooke]

This reminds me of this Mass Effect 2 bit.

Re:The laser

[RivenAleem]

Superheated, Supersonic Projectiles, what could go wrong!

Re:The laser

[blarghmaster]

im sorry... you said "america" ... i stopped caring...

Re:The laser

[FhnuZoag]

Thinking about this... Aren't there inherent disadvantages to laser tech? However advanced your weapon, you will never be able to fire over the horizon, and though you can detonate explosive shells, a hot piece of metal heading your way is going to do just as much damage as a cold one. Also, does the navy have any defences planned against torpedos?

Re:The laser

[FhnuZoag]

What if the other side uses a mix of two types of retroreflectors? Then this laser will be frying itself half the time, which is pretty good because retroreflectors are a crapload less expensive than this laser.

Re:The laser

[Anonymous Coward]

I just wish someone would give me a shark mouth paintjob...

Oh wait. That's not what I think it is, is it? :(

Re:The laser

[Luckyo]

How the heck do you tune laser to weather conditions that are constantly changing (moving droplets in the air)? Also what wave length can actually defeat a fog?

Re:The laser

[shilly]

"in space projectiles fly in perfectly straight lines"
eh? gravity doesn't exist in space, then?
only a *continuously powered* object can travel in a straight line in space.

don't people read hard SF any more?

Re:The laser

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

Actually, from the article(crazy I know)"the Obama administration nixed plans to develop the experiment into a battle-ready weapon.", that same funding bill also cut funding for the rail gun project as well. But hey ADM's still getting those ethanol subsidies so all well that ends well.

Re:The laser

[jo_ham]

Who says it has to be visible light? Water droplets are no opaque in all regions of the spectrum.

The benefits of a tunable laser mean you can reduce the absorption and dispersion effects, but obviously not eliminate them.

Re:The laser

[Techie_79]

Don't worry, nothing is so bad that humans can't make it worse. That's why the movie Sphere was so sadly true.

Re:The laser

[Luckyo]

I never said it had to be "visible" frequency. Not a single time.

The point is that if you cannot (nearly fully) eliminate them, you have world's most expensive floodlight. Laser needs a few seconds of FOCUSED fire on target to cause damage. Even minor distortion on the way destroys its ability to focus on target, which is the entire point of it being useless a few meters above surface of the ocean, where such distortions are norm.

Re:The laser

[black soap]

Just uncheck "disasters" until you get bored with the game.

Re:The laser

[black soap]

the ultimate defence weapon.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:The laser

[DarkTempes]

Railgun projectiles don't need explosives or propulsion systems. They're just shaped pieces of (conductive?) mass that have extremely high velocity and thus really high kinetic energy.

From my understanding these lasers tend to work by heating up and weakening the thin metal around missile/artillery shells and causing failure or detonation. Assuming the laser could even track the much faster rail gun projectile the most I think it could do would be to score the outside and throw off the aerodynamics some.

Though it does look like the Senate Armed Services Committee cut funding for both of these technologies a few days ago so we'll have to see how that pans out on the Senate floor later and in the years to come. Hopefully they're more informed and maybe they're right that the techs aren't currently feasible given the costs.

Re:The laser

[TheCouchPotatoFamine]

Light moves faster then sound. That's why some AC's seem informed until you hear them speak. Down boy!

Re:The laser

[lgw]

It seems unlikely that any weapon requiring line-of-sight will ever be used directly in surface action (excepting asymmetric threats). The battle would be long over, with one or both sides destroyed, before the fleets ever got that close.

Realistically, I doubt we'd see a fleet-vs-fleet aciton in my lifetime - someone would start throwing nukes first (using nukes against fleets on the open ocean won't carry nearly the same sort of reprocussions that accompany land targets - no civilians, no fallout), and it's quite hard to defend against a large nuke coming down from orbit and targeting random ocean 5-10 miles away from your carrier.

Re:The laser

[lgw]

On the power source, a laser defense weapon would only be interesting if it used ship power - as you point out. chemical lasers are just too bulky.

Just a note on reflective missiles, since someone seems to bring that up on every laser thread. That whole apporach just can't work (at least, not in the atmosphere). The laser turns the air next to the missile surface into exploding plasma, which means even if the missile surface were magically perfectly reflective, that surface is destroyed almost instantly.

Re:The laser

[Coren22]

Among conservatives too...

Re:The laser

[overlordofmu]

American families are increasingly going homeless and dying from third-world diseases

[citation needed]

[citation needed] (for your citation needed)

Re:The laser

[drsmithy]

Yes, I'm glad that defence contractors and the military are still pumping tons of money and research into these ridiculously expensive, fragile, and unwieldy toys while American families are increasingly going homeless and dying from third-world diseases because they can't get healthcare.

Well, it's their own fault. If they just worked harder and got a job with a defense contractor, they'd have excellent healthcare !

Re:The laser

[Man On Pink Corner]

I'd assume that if a laser is being used to defend against railgun projectiles, the projectiles are coming directly towards it and wouldn't be hard to track with the sort of fancy adaptive optics that any atmospheric laser weapon is probably going to have to include. If the projectile is coming at you so fast that you can't track it with mm-wave radar and keep the beam locked on it, you may have bigger problems, such as an enemy who has figured out a way around c.

But yeah, a laser designed to defend against railgun projectiles would probably have to do substantially different things than one that was meant to take out cruise missiles. Lasers are actually pretty crappy weapons in the best of conditions.

Re:The laser

[Anonymous Coward]

Oooh.. So clever. Too bad you had to steal it in order to seem witty. And even stealing material can't make you seem intelligent.

Re:The laser

[jamesjonah]

I'm thinking what if they will build a laser mounted on an orbiting satellite. That's an instant ION Cannon from Space that can fire any target around the Globe.

didn't this...

[Anonymous Coward]

just get cancelled?

Does it make

[markian]

Does it make "pew pew pew" noises?

Re:Does it make

[Anonymous Coward]

Boeing can add that, but it's a $4b option. The Pentagon is still considering it.

Re:Does it make

[AmiMoJo]

A laser that powerful would make quite a bit of noise just by super-heating particles in the air.

Wow!

[lennier1]

Imagine the size of those sharks required for such huge laser weapons.

Re:Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

With genetic engineering, you don't have to!

Re:Wow!

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Imagine the size of those sharks required for such huge laser weapons.

That joke is now 14 years, 1 month, and 19 days old.

Re:Wow!

[ackthpt]

Imagine the size of those sharks required for such huge laser weapons.

And you thought Jurassic Park was only fiction and the DoD didn't have special secret black ops program for bringing these back.

gotcha!

Re:Wow!

[sxltrex]

And still just as fresh as the day it was first memed.

Re:Wow!

[rednip]

Maybe to you, but I think that Slashdot should have a '-1 tired old meme' that would work like 'funny' (i.e. no karma affect).

Re:Wow!

[cloudmaster]

That's right - the only humorous posts which should be allowed on my Slashdot are humorous posts that absolutely everyone finds unanimously humorous. That should be a moderation queue for any attempt at humor - subtle, obvious, sarcastic, or unintentional, and the post should not be allowed on the main page until everyone has viewed it and agreed that it is, in fact, amusing enough for public consumption. There's no room here for any sort of disagreement in what is and isn't funny, as this discussion of random news is serious business.

Re:Wow!

[Lanteran]

As long as it also had +1 tired old meme.

Re:Wow!

[Darinbob]

To some Slashdot readers, any meme older than a day is not cool enough.

Re:Wow!

[PNutts]

MobileTatsu-NJG: Sucking the fun out of this thread for 4 hours and 26 minutes.

Re:Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our laser-wielding shark overlords

Re:Wow!

[dudpixel]

Maybe to you, but I think that Slashdot should have a '-1 tired old meme' that would work like 'funny' (i.e. no karma affect).

I agree with the "-1 tired old" but it should be applied to people who make comments like yours.

Its slashdot. If you're tired of it...well...remember to close the door on your way out...

Re:Wow!

[roman_mir]

The problem is that with the giant laser on its head, the shark just can't manage to jump over itself.

Re:Wow!

[RivenAleem]

Well that due to the many rows of wit that keep refreshing themselves as older ones fall out.

Re:Wow!

[Kielistic]

In that case we better get rid of the Troll mod. Some people seem to find trolling funny. I'm led to believe that's why they do it. There are some people here that do get sick of these old memes and feel that they harm the discussion. How many times, for instance, have sharks been mentioned in this thread? Perhaps that might have been a cute joke but not after already having to glaze over twelve other shark jokes. Although I think perhaps the "Overrated" mod option kind of covers this phenomenon.

Re:Wow!

[black soap]

but if it is that new, is it really a meme yet?

Re:Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is like 4chan, except all of the memes are 15 years old.

Re:Wow!

[cloudmaster]

"Overrated" does work. And seriously - in an article about someone deploying seafaring weaponized lasers, how do a few people *not* make a reference to one of the most memorable scenes from a pretty popular movie? I'll bet there's be a lot less griping if someone designed a cyborg suit / implant / whatever and people started making reference to Jean-Luke saying "I am Locutus" and a bazillion "resistance is futile" notes, even though that's *at least* as tired.

The difference with trolling, at the risk of feeding an ironic troll, is that trolls are intentionally trying to drive the topic off in the weeds or get a negative reaction in as much volume as possible. The above shark/frikkin' laser reference is pretty clearly just someone making a joke that they probably legitimately felt was funny. Lots of people just aren't as funny as they think they are, but they're not intentionally being dicks. More than likely, they just didn't read all the other comments - which is a separate problem in and of itself. A "duplicate comment" mod would perhaps be worthwhile, but that would require much more work on the part of people with mod points - and I can guarantee that I don't work that hard when I get them. :)

Re:Wow!

[Kielistic]

Resistance is futile jokes happen far less than sharks with lasers. That joke is made several times a day on this site (probably because lasers are more common than cyborgs). The fact that I notice that really admits that I read far too many comments on this site but I do notice a downward trend of useful comments. When ~10 year old memes make up 10%-20% of commenting material then people who have been coming here for discussion will tend to get fed up. They will want to discourage it, or at least have a way to moderate it out of their view. The -1 with no karma effect actually isn't that bad of an idea. It doesn't punish people who are just, as you said, having light fun but also doesn't subject others who know they don't want to see it.

Of course this annoying slashcode is far more harmful to discussion than memes ever could be. Why the hell does my browser window have to jump around every time I click this textbox?

Re:Wow!

[cloudmaster]

I know! OMG I was about to just go nuts a moment ago, replying to a couple of comments. Click in box, magic scroll text box off screen. Scroll back down, click in box, magic scroll off screen. Grrr.

I thought it was a new thing because, again somewhat ironically, I read and reply to comments way less than I used to. :) And I've browsed with my threshold set to 1 (or, sometimes, 2) for years now, so maybe I don't notice the frequency because of the combination of those two things (read less, set threshold high)...

I call a vote

[Anonymous Coward]

Boeing's Enormous Navy Laser Cannon

Best headline of the year! CmdrTaco, can we please put up a yearly vote? Call it a new tradition, starting with this entry.

To be attached to giant sharks...

[Deaths Proxy]

I think I have just thought of a plot for a new Jaws movie.

Why Navy?

[Ian_Bailey]

Why not, say, Forest Green, or Taupe?

Re:Why Navy?

[teslafreak]

*golf clap* Well played sir.

Re:Why Navy?

[SilverHatHacker]

RTFS. It works in any color.

Re:Why Navy?

[robot256]

Actually, I would kinda like to know what wavelength they are using, but that might be top secret information...

Re:Why Navy?

[A nonymous Coward]

Apparently your humor doesn't.

Re:Why Navy?

[maxwell demon]

The summary claims it could emit light at any wavelength, but I'd bet they can't get even close to Planck length. :-)

Re:Why Navy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I would kinda like to know what wavelength they are using, but that might be top secret information...

the fact that it can be in "any color" of laser beam would mean that the wavelength is variable and controlable.

Re:Why Navy?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Apparently yours doesn't as the parent was playing into the grandparent's joke

Re:Why Navy?

[dziban303]

They're using longwave IR, but as the summary noted, as a FEL it can produce light at pretty much whatever wavelength they want.

Re:Why Navy?

[cloudmaster]

No one that stupid has ever created a /. account. I'm pretty sure someone created Jon Katz's account for him., BTW.

Re:Why Navy?

[Darinbob]

You must have been that guy who kept sleeping in the back row of my remedial humor class.

Re:Why Navy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, a FEL can use pretty much whatever wavelength it damn feels like.

Re:didn't this... something did

[schwit1]

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/06/power-down-senate-zaps-navys-superlaser-railgun/

The Senate just drove a stake into the Navy’s high-tech heart. The directed energy and electromagnetic weapons intended to protect the surface ships of the future? Terminated.

The Free Electron Laser and the Electromagnetic Rail Gun are experimental weapons that the Navy hope will one day burn missiles careening toward their ships out of the sky and fire bullets at hypersonic speeds at targets thousands of miles away. Neither will be ready until at least the 2020s, the Navy estimates. But the Senate Armed Services Committee has a better delivery date in mind: never.

The committee approved its version of the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill on Friday, priced to move at $664.5 billion, some $6.4 billion less than what the Obama administration wanted. The bill “terminates” the Free Electron Laser and the rail gun, a summary released by the committee gleefully reports.

“The determination was that the Free Electron Laser has the highest technical risk in terms of being ultimately able to field on a ship, so we thought the Navy could better concentrate on other laser programs,” explains Rick DeBobes, the chief of staff for the committee. “With the Electromagnetic Rail Gun, the committee felt the technical challenges to developing and fielding the weapon would be daunting, particularly [related to] the power required and the barrel of the gun having limited life.”

Aircraft carriers

[afidel]

This is why the Gerald R. Ford-class carriers were designed with way more generation and distribution capacity then they currently need, the Navy knew that directed energy weapons were the future of point defense systems. It may be free electron lasers or perhaps some kind of rail gun, or perhaps something else, but it seems unlikely that the chemical powder based system at the heart of CIWS will still be in use in 60+ years when the Ford is retired.

Re:Aircraft carriers

[garyebickford]

Indeed. The Navy does not like the logistical hassles involved in delivering munitions to the ships in the middle of a war. It makes everything more expensive. FEL and rail guns can use the excess power, and suddenly the only things that need to be delivered to the ship are food and operational supplies - no more bullets, missiles, torpedoes(maybe), etc. Suddenly a task force has a much longer time on the battle line without needing resupply.

Get your terminology right!

[techno-vampire]

The article says, among other things, that there's lots of work to do "before they put it on a boat." Are there really people out there that are so brain-dead that they don't know that the word is "ship," not "boat?" Come on, people, get a clue!

Re:Get your terminology right!

[mr1911]

They are often referred to as boats, especially by the military.

Come on, people, get a clue!

Indeed.

Re:Get your terminology right!

[A nonymous Coward]

When I called my ship a boat, as in going back to the boat, that was acceptable because I was talking to my shipmates. You, a landlubber, are not the proper audience for that slang. The only boats in the navy are what any landlubber would buy, size-wise, and submarines.

Clueless landlubber. Go away. Take a short walk on a long pier, you'll stay dry that way.

Re:Get your terminology right!

[jpapon]

No, submarines are boats, large surface going vessels are ships. You could *maybe* refer to a frigate as a boat, but that would only be to piss off those stationed on a frigate. Nobody in the Navy would refer to a destroyer, cruiser, or carrier as a boat, at least not in serious conversation.

Re:Get your terminology right!

[A nonymous Coward]

Friends had a father on tankers, and one day, driving him to the ship for his next trip, their small son asked if they were going back to grandpa's boat. No, *ship* said grandpa. *Shit* said the kid. *Ship* said grandpa. *Shit* said the kid. *Boat* said grandpa.

No one else gets to call them boats, unless they enjoy being outed as ignorant arrogant landlubbers.

Re:Get your terminology right!

[Libertarian001]

You should leave the talk to the adults who served. We NEVER called the "Big E" a ship. She was always a boat.

CVN-65 U.S.S. Enterprise (1996-2000)

Re:Get your terminology right!

[amicusNYCL]

No, submarines are boats

All modern US hull classifications for submarines include "SS", which stands for "submersible ship".

Re:Get your terminology right!

[Dunbal]

If you've been around the Horn in a 30' sloop, you can call it whatever the fuck you want.

Re:Get your terminology right!

[A nonymous Coward]

The owner of a boat, or ship, or personal watercraft, or life vest, can call it whatever the owner wants. The crew can call it whatever they want. Landlubbers can call it whatever they want.

Fuckin' free speech, how does that work?

Re:Get your terminology right!

[techno-vampire]

Not by those of us in the Navy, they aren't! Granted, my experience in the Navy is several decades old, but I can assure you, that's not changed.

Re:Get your terminology right!

[techno-vampire]

And I was on the USS Ouellet, DE 1077, back in '72 and we always called her a ship.

Re:Get your terminology right!

[jpapon]

Oh please, I served too, and always called subs boats and surface vessels ships. You could call your own ship a boat if you wanted to, but if a visitor came on board your Enterprise and called her a 'boat', I'm pretty damn sure they would be corrected.

Strategic Defense Initiative?

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't we try this once before? I can't imagine mounting this thing on the high seas will be any more any more effective than from space.

Meanwhile, across the US thousands of teachers are being laid off.

Re:didn't this... something did

[MightyMartian]

No worries. I'm sure the Chinese will be willing to buy/steal it.

aim

[Anonymous Coward]

Being able to "shoot down cruise missiles and artillery shells" assumes that they can aim. We know from the Regan administration and their StarWars program that aiming is often the hardest part.

Re:aim

[MaWeiTao]

I'm pretty sure technology has advanced to the point that aiming is no longer an issue.

Re:aim

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who got his M.S. in aerospace engineering working on directed-energy stuff, I can assure you that aiming is very much an unsolved issue for the airborne case -- mostly due to the turbulent airflow at 100s of knots. We are making some pretty good progress, though.

Whether it's a solved issue or not for naval lasers, I can't say. But it's definitely a big issue that has to be gotten right.

Re:aim

[garyebickford]

It was at least 20 years ago that researchers had systems that could track flies around a room and zap them out of the air (without hurting anything else). Sorry, don't recall where I learned that - it was a long time ago.

Re:aim

[Neil Boekend]

This TED talk is about shooting Malaria mosquito's (with a DVD burner laser: CHEAP). Is that what you were looking for?

Re:aim

[black soap]

Wow, 20 years went by fast. What will the next 20 bring?

Old equipment never dies. It just gets reused:

[Hartree]

If you look closely at the upper left in the 10th photo in the linked article, the one of the control room:

Is that a nixie tube display in the top slot of the third rack from the right?

Re:Old equipment never dies. It just gets reused:

[marcmcn]

It really does look like Nixie tubes; maybe it is an old power supply. It could also be a very bright segmented LED display, circa 1970's. Anyway, it's kind of nice to see gear not tossed due to bogus obsolescence.

Re:Old equipment never dies. It just gets reused:

[Anonymous Coward]

The other day, I saw a hack-a-day article on using crimpers to build a cyclotron. If you look closely enough, you can see that, in the same picture, there is a container, on the right, filled with blue and yellow crimpers.

It's 3AM and I haven't slept in days; so, that was basically a needlessly retarded way of saying that just because (all, maybe. Not certain) nixie tubes emit an orange glow, it isn't reasonable to state that all growing orange things are nixie tubes.

Re:Old equipment never dies. It just gets reused:

[wagnerrp]

We had some old nixie digital readouts lying in storage at my university, but I don't think anyone had used them in decades.

Re:Old equipment never dies. It just gets reused:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... they do that for FOX News...

thanks... thanks... i visit here not as frequent as i visit 4chan.. but that's okay..

Re:Old equipment never dies. It just gets reused:

[Anonymous Coward]

could be red LED or incadescent filament display too. Given the location, I'd say it's displaying timecode with 7 segment numbers.

Re:Old equipment never dies. It just gets reused:

[Hartree]

I fix lab equipment at a university and I do a lot of resurrecting older gear that's been in a closet for decades. I've still got some spare nixie tubes in a drawer.

Often the old gear will work just as well for many things, but it's not "the hot setup".

For some things, you need the capabilities of newer equipment, though.

Re:Old equipment never dies. It just gets reused:

[Sqweegee]

Hard to tell but it sure looks like the old HP frequency counter we got rid of a couple of years ago which had nixie tubes... In fact, everything in that rack looks like the out dated equipment we recently sold off.

Re:Old equipment never dies. It just gets reused:

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid brevity words. Thought you were talking about SLQ-25 instead at first. Anyway, it's tough to tell at this resolution, but nixie tubes are still in common use in the navy so there's a good possibility that is what they are.

Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites?

[Marrow]

Could you bounce the beam off a satellite and back down to earth targets? Or to air and space targets that are over the horizon? Could you do it with something flying lower, like a mirror mounted on a aircraft?

"wiggler"

[interkin3tic]

Looks impressive, and though it may be a technical term or what the thing is universally called, lets rename the "wiggler" part. Doesn't exactly inspire fear.

President: "Look, North Korea, either you turn the giant kim-il-jong robot around, or we deploy the electron beam laser with wiggler attachment"
Clone of Kim-il Jong: "Bwahahah! We are not afraid of your wiggly little laser! KIMBOT! DEPLOY THE MIRROR SHIELD!"

Re:"wiggler"

[jpapon]

And then Kimbot proceeds to drink high price cognac and starve his people, for though we may wish it, we can never escape the genes of our father.

Re:"wiggler"

[imsabbel]

Well, I think thats a bit of a mislabeling, anyway.

An FEL needs inter-bunch coherence in the insertion device.
Therfore, a K factor smaller than one would be required for efficient emission.

This would make the ID an Undulator, and not a Wiggler.

Open targetscope...

[JockTroll]

Prepare to fire Wave Motion Gun.

Stock opportunity

[Anonymous Coward]

What coporation(s) manufacture the largest amount of light reflective materials (a.k.a mirrors)?

Re:Stock opportunity

[c0lo]

What coporation(s) manufacture the largest amount of light reflective materials (a.k.a mirrors)?

I don't think there exist a mirror able to reflect (without being destroyed) in all the wave-lengths the wiggler is able to generate.

Re:Stock opportunity

[PPH]

Microsoft. But I don't think they sell them unbundled from the smoke.

(Ducking and running from the inevitable Troll mods.)

Re:Stock opportunity

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I don't think there exist a mirror able to reflect (without being destroyed) in all the wave-lengths the wiggler is able to generate.

Indeed, that's part of the point of using a free-electron (and thus continuously tunable) laser., Anything but a diffraction coating will have that tiny bit of loss that will cause it to vaporize, and the vapor be blasted away, long before the laser is done firing. And a diffraction coating only works at a set of very narrow frequency spikes.

Retune the laser a couple percent off the magic frequency and BANG! goes the mirror.

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[JockTroll]

That was the Reflex Gun on Pluto, but it was the Gamilons' thing.

Don't look into that laser!

[Sla$hPot]

This would awesome for presentations. Burning down the whole f"#€ building :O
Except for burning down incoming ordinance, what else could it do?

Could it burn holes on the surface of the moon? or astroids?
If so we could check for Helium 3 on the moon with out sending probes = cheap.

How about mining, burning holes for termal energy wells?

Reminds me of

[Luniz]

Real Genius http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089886/

Popcorn?

[www.sorehands.com]

But does it do popcorn from orbit?

StarBlazers:

[Hartree]

"Fire the wiggle motion gun!"

Re:StarBlazers:

[gtall]

Shortly thereafter, the kimbot starts doing the macarena to the amusement of both sides in the dispute. But then the N. Koreans realize their manhood has been threatened and proceed to sling the Village People Bobble Head dolls at the running pig-dog Americans.

Congress just cut all funding

[bricko]

Unless Boeing is going to belly up with their own money....Congress just cut ALL funding for the entire program.

Re:didn't this... something did

[Luckyo]

Chinese prefer battle tested, actually functioning systems, meaning kinetic weapons. Not massively unreliable, energy hungry weapons designed mainly for application in vacuum and optimal for distances where kinetic weapons cease to be viable.

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[jpapon]

I've gotten wooshed several times lately, so I'm going to assume you're joking.

We're going to need a bigger shark!

[Anonymous Coward]

see subject

Bob and Tom join the Navy:

[Hartree]

I take a look at my enormous laser
And my troubles start a-meltin' away (ba-doom bop bop)
I take a look at my enormous laser
And the happy times are comin' to stay (be-doo)

Re:Bob and Tom join the Navy:

[gtall]

Too bad Da Vinci's Notebook has split up.

Didnt they just cancel funding?

[MeatoBurrito]

Too bad they aren't working on it anymore! http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/06/power-down-senate-zaps-navys-superlaser-railgun/ "The Senate just drove a stake into the Navy’s high-tech heart. The directed energy and electromagnetic weapons intended to protect the surface ships of the future? Terminated. The Free Electron Laser and the Electromagnetic Rail Gun are experimental weapons that the Navy hope will one day burn missiles careening toward their ships out of the sky and fire bullets at hypersonic speeds at targets thousands of miles away. Neither will be ready until at least the 2020s, the Navy estimates. But the Senate Armed Services Committee has a better delivery date in mind: never. The committee approved its version of the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill on Friday, priced to move at $664.5 billion, some $6.4 billion less than what the Obama administration wanted. The bill “terminates” the Free Electron Laser and the rail gun, a summary released by the committee gleefully reports."

Re:Didnt they just cancel funding?

[kelarius]

Way to be up-to-date TFA...

Re:Didnt they just cancel funding?

[FhnuZoag]

Good. Cool tech, but waste of money anyway.

Cancelled

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually as a part of the official budget the Senate has cancelled both this and the more famous Railgun project. Mwa-mwuuuuuu. :C

"The determination was that the Free Electron Laser has the highest technical risk in terms of being ultimately able to field on a ship, so we thought the Navy could better concentrate on other laser programs," explains Rick DeBobes, the chief of staff for the committee. "With the Electromagnetic Railgun, the committee felt the technical challenges to developing and fielding the weapon would be daunting, particularly [related to] the power required and the barrel of the gun having limited life."

http://dvice.com/archives/2011/06/senate-cancels.php

Ah'm A-Chargin' Mah Laser!!

[Anonymous Coward]

And just think of the extreme charging time required

what a huge waste of money

[Dan667]

what terrorist has a cruise missile or even a boat?

Re:what a huge waste of money

[byteherder]

Have you not heard of Samali pirates?

They have boats and we now have a huge laser cannon to deal with them. *evil grin*

Re:what a huge waste of money

[jklovanc]

China does.

Re:what a huge waste of money

[the linux geek]

The assumption that the only enemy the US will be fighting until the end of time are "terrorists" is asinine. You may have heard of these "nation-state" things...

Re:what a huge waste of money

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, because it makes sense to assume that the kind of enemy you're fighting right now is the only kind of enemy you'll ever fight, and develop weapons accordingly.

Or you're an idiot. One of the two.

Re:what a huge waste of money

[Anonymous Coward]

yes because a conventional war will never be fought again ever.

Re:what a huge waste of money

[Anonymous Coward]

short memory? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing

Re:what a huge waste of money

[gtall]

No, actually. I have heard of the Somali pirates. Maybe you have too?

Re:what a huge waste of money

[FhnuZoag]

You don't need to fight them until the end of time. Just up to the inevitable obsolescence of this tech, or the appearance of countermeasures is enough.

Re:what a huge waste of money

[FhnuZoag]

So I guess when you play Starcraft, you always research the high level anti-air tech, because who knows, the other side might build air units eventually, even though all your scouts are showing that they are sending hordes of zerglings your way?

There is absolutely no advantage in being first to whatever technology, if that technology isn't being used. The faster the US Navy develops this technology, the longer the time any future enemy will have to develop countermeasures to it, the cheaper it is for them to copy it, and the costlier it's going to be maintaining this capability over the decades and decades it will be entirely useless. Given that history suggests that technologies can be developed pretty quickly in time of military need, keeping superiority in certain set fields and hoping that foes blunder into your entirely obvious traps is a fool's game.

History is full of examples of nations pioneering certain military technology in peacetime, only to see it used against them with much greater effectiveness when the war eventually comes. (Aircraft carriers is the prime example) Unless there's gonna be a war tomorrow, maintaining technological parity, instead of superiority, is the smart choice.

Re:what a huge waste of money

[Dan667]

and a giant laser would stop that how?

Re:what a huge waste of money

[Dan667]

have you actually seen actual Somali Pirates? You don't need a giant laser to stop them.

Hey Girls...

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone interested in seeing my Enormous Navy Laser Cannon?

De-funded

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, isn't this the same ship-based free-electron laser cannon project that was just killed in the new defense spending bill?

Isn't this what they just defunded?

[Rinikusu]

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/06/power-down-senate-zaps-navys-superlaser-railgun/

Cool concept, but looks like it had a lot of issues...

umm... reflection

[0x537461746943]

And what if missiles start using mirrored surfaces that reflect the light back at the source? Doh!

Re:umm... reflection

[Anonymous Coward]

I shouldn't even dignify this with a comment.

Mirrors are only useful while the coating remains intact. High power lasers such as this one will burn through most thin mirror coatings quite rapidly. Therefore, mirroring your missile will only marginally increase the time needed to destroy said missile.

Re:umm... reflection

[0x537461746943]

So are you saying there is no possibility to reflect said laser beam without destroying the missile? Materials are certainly available that can take the heat while reflecting a good percentage of the beam reducing the amount of heat on the missile itself. Some high power lasers actually reflect the beam internally to help get to a high power level.

Re:umm... reflection

[Hartree]

It's difficult to make a reflective coating that reflects well enough at a broad range of frequencies. The mirrors in the laser usually only work that well at one frequency, and they have cooling systems built into them. They also aren't moving, don't have weight limitations and don't have to deal with weathering and dirt.

It's also hard to make a reflective coating that reflects well enough in all directions that the laser can hit from. Your missile has to be able to home in some way. If you have IR windows for a seeker, that's an area that isn't very reflective.

You just have to get a tiny area burnt through and then the energy from the laser will heat what's behind it so much that it'll blow the rest of the coating off or mechanically disrupt whatever the coating is on.

It can help. A little. And it adds weight and problems to the missile. It's been looked at for some time and found not to be a cure all by any means. It sounds like a good idea, but turns out to not be terribly practical.

Same for the old idea of spinning an incoming missile to distribute the energy. That one is about like pirouetting in front of a shotgun. The energy comes in way faster than a mechanical movement.

Re:umm... reflection

[PPH]

You could apply an ablative coating to the warhead. Of course, that means extra weight.

You could cool the warhead's reflective coating. That means extra weight as well. But if the coolant absorbs the laser's energy and is subsequently expelled through a properly designed nozzle at the rear, you could add that as kinetic energy to the warhead. In fact, if you were really smart and you divided the face of the warhead into segments (no longer mirrors?) and directed each segments' coolant through an appropriately directed nozzle, asymmetrical beam absorption could be used to steer the warhead along the laser beam.

An anti laser kinetic kill mode powered by the laser itself.

Re:umm... reflection

[0x537461746943]

Or just make sure the path of the warhead stays in a path which would cause damage to something the group sending the laser owned if the beam went through the missile. You would then blow the missile up right as soon as it detected a laser beam first touching it. Then the laser beam would continue on to a friendly target with nothing to dissipate it until then.

Re:umm... reflection

[Anonymous Coward]

Or send hundreds of cheap dummy missiles with only 1 carrying the payload so that the laser wouldn't know which one to concentrate on.

Re:umm... reflection

[PPH]

That works outside of the atmosphere. But not once the warhead and dummies close in on the target. With no atmospheric drag, a cheap and lightweight warhead is difficult to differentiate from the real thing. But once acted upon by drag, a light object will slow down rapidly, making it easy to differentiate from the real (heavy) warhead. OTOH, if you make the decoys as heavy as the warhead, you've got to expend fuel to launch all of them.

The laser defense has an advantage over ballistic antimissiles in that it can postpone decisions about targets much longer than a slow missile. That gives the acquisition system more time to sort out the decoys.

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[avandesande]

The illustration in TFA shows the beam bouncing off something- I would guess it was a plane or satellite.

Star Wars - don't hold your breath

[Anonymous Coward]

Star Wars type protection has been looked at, test, examined, etc for 30 years. The closest the defense department has ever come is a partial hit on an incoming missile which they had attached a homing beacon so the laser could locate it.

Re:Star Wars - don't hold your breath

[Hartree]

Let's see. That was in 2001. And it wasn't a laser.

Or maybe you're talking about the one way back in 1984 that convinced the Soviets we were much closer to a working capability than we were? That also wasn't a laser.

I seem to remember several full up tests that worked. (Admittedly not all of them.) Of course they were hit to kill vehicles.

If what you say is true, it's funny that the Navy also was able to hit a malfunctioning satellite last year with a ship launched missile from an Aegis ship.

They were also able to target a small boat at several miles with a laser earlier this year. (It was linked here on slashdot). Not a big blow up and boom, but still interesting.

Could it be that you just really don't know what you're talking about?

No, it won't shoot anything.

[Anonymous Coward]

Its been canceled.
http://importedadage39.blogspot.com/2011/06/senate-denies-navy-missile-destroying.html
or
http://dvice.com/archives/2011/06/senate-cancels.php
or from the WSJ, as eloquent as ever:
http://onespot.wsj.com/gadgets/2011/06/17/cef2f/senate-cancels-navys-free-electron-laser

descoped?

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't the funding for the free electron laser as well as the railgun just get cut from the budget?

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[0x537461746943]

If you can bounce the beam then missiles would just need that same ability to divert the laser energy back at the source rendering the laser worse than useless because it could destroy the source of the beam.

Military Industrial Complex wins again!

[Anonymous Coward]

Boeing still gets a $163M contract while the DOE's FEL in Newport News gets cut?

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/06/power-down-senate-zaps-navys-superlaser-railgun/

So much for science ...

PEW PEW PEW!

[commisaro]

Pew! Pew Pew! Pew Pew Pew Pew! ...sorry.

It is a great idea, but....

[WindBourne]

How will it handle rain, cloudy conditions, etc? Generally, battles are started during increment weather. The reason is to make it harder for an enemy to know what you are up to. Of course, with radar, etc. that is less of an issue. However, a laser should still be impacted by the amount of rain that it has to go through in a typical ocean storm.

In addition, it brings up the question of, how often can it fire? If it can do multiple shots than it might not be as useful as regular bullets. However, if it has the ability to go multiple rounds quickly, then combine that with the coming railgun and of course, something like a phalynx and you have a much better chance of protection.

The final question is, how soon can we expect to see this on Chinese equipment?

Re:It is a great idea, but....

[blacksmith_tb]

Increment weather? I prefer to write that weather++ myself.

Re:It is a great idea, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

the point is to replace the phalanx, which fires thousands of 20mm rounds per minute out of six barrels, with something that doesn't require you to carry explosives on your warship. This is another of the navy's plans to electrify everything: on the ford-class carriers, there are going to be linear motors replacing steam catapults. they have plenty of electricity on their ships, thanks to nuclear reactors, so now they're coming up with ways to use that power.

Re:It is a great idea, but....

[fnj]

Generally, battles are started during increment weather. The reason is to make it harder for an enemy to know what you are up to.

I hear there are also these things called infrared imaging devices. It's been a LONG time since darkness, fog, and smoke were any hindrance to a properly equipped force. Pearl Harbor? Fine weather. The Invasion of Europe? They sweated out one day of foul weather in order to get to the next day of reasonably good weather so they could launch it. And so on.

Perhaps in the time of Napoleon or the Civil War skulking around in fog could give a significant advantage.

Re:It is a great idea, but....

[sifi]

++weather might be better - it's pretty expensive to copy.

Re:It is a great idea, but....

[Neil Boekend]

Nuclear reactors produce steam. The ship converts this to electricity, so I am assuming they are not replacing steam catapults because they have electricity lying around. They must have some other reason for it (reset time? Maintainability? Total weight? Size?).
IANAEOTS

Re:It is a great idea, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure how closely you follow today's military tech, but the subject of weather has been tamed over a decade ago; the methods of weather control are honed quite close to perfection today.

It is hard to say how often it can fire without better specs-- it depends on if it is a burst-weapon or a continuous-beam-weapon. The article portrays it as the latter.

And it shouldn't take long to see these on Chinese equipment, as it is the technology is not magic-- it is quite easy to comprehend and manufacture if you've got the resources. All this was envisioned, blue-printed and patented a century ago, you know.

Re:It is a great idea, but....

[KillaBeave]

Increment weather? I prefer to write that weather++ myself.

To be honest I thought he did that as a joke.

Chinese Admiral: "Attack during increment weather. They're razers will be useress!!!"

... ok back to my coffee.

Re:It is a great idea, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you can't use the live steam from the nuclear reactor in the launching catapults.

The old way was that the reactor heat would use a heat exchanger boil up another source of water to use in the steam catapults. But that water needs to be desalinated first, which is time-consuming and expensive, or else salt will ruin your boiler and catapult and everything.

Taking up less space is a nice bonus.

Re:didn't this... something did

[Dunbal]

I'm sure they already have.

Funding Cut

[Satis]

The funding for this and the rail gun was recently cut by the Senate Armed Services committe.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/8157653/senate_armed_services_votes_to_kill.html

Hopefully this sees the light of day... some day... but I don't think it'll be under the current project. Too bad too. The FEL and rail gun are probably the coolest weapons projects out there.

WHOA THERE!

[Thud457]

I'm pretty sure technology has advanced to the point that aiming is no longer an issue.

Hey! We haven't quite manged to piss off the whole rest of the world yet.

I bet it's pretty adept at

[Anonymous Coward]

draining taxpayers of money on the hurry.

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[imsabbel]

I would not want to be the guy flying the giant-mirror-for-the-superlaser aircraft

Aiming?

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you aim something like this? You don't turn the ship, I hope, or rotate the entire assembly. Is it all done with (smoke and) mirrors?

History littered with "ultimate" weapon ...

[perpenso]

The laser will become the ultimate defence weapon. Imagine have LASER mounted along your border. They will shoot down anything, instantly. Image roof top boxes in cities that can shoot stff down a mile away. Bombing Baghdad would have been impossible,.

Imagine an enemy with a better laser than can knock out the defensive lasers from beyond their effective range. Imagine an enemy with a technology that can interfere with the defensive lasers target acquisition and aiming. Imagine an enemy with a delivery system (drone ?) that can use nap of the earth flight to avoid being targeted. Imagine more bombs/decoys coming into range than the defensive laser can track, target, fire on and repeat quickly enough.

Interesting times.

Actually more of the same most likely, same human decisions and actions, just different tools.

Re:History littered with "ultimate" weapon ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine an aircraft with a laser thats longer range/ faster firing than a land-based installation. Oh, wait...

Re:History littered with "ultimate" weapon ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine an aircraft with a laser thats longer range/ faster firing than a land-based installation. Oh, wait...

Imagine more than one aircraft, especially those that fly under radar and behind terrain to get close to their target. Oh, wait ... check out a reference from a decade or more ago.

Imagine the side with the aircraft being a generation or two ahead of the side with the land-based installation. Oh, wait ... just turn on TV.

a related project in danger

[Thud457]

Sometimes I doubt Congress' commitment to project Sparkle Motion.

Conversely, the can use laseron us too.

[Anonymous Coward]

You never thought of THAT, eh? All they have to is use lasers on OUR lasers, then simply march in. You Pollyanna view assumes they won't have lasers, and only we will. Every new weapon has been touted as being the ultimate defense, only to be matched equally. Come back when you finally take a history class.

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[Nidi62]

Could you do it with something flying lower, like a mirror mounted on a aircraft?

Think how much popcorn we could make with something like that!

Military pyromaniacs

[NetFusion]

An offensive use of space based focused solar energy or powerful earth based lasers could also be to cause chaos in an enemy country by starting fires in cities and drought affected regions.

Re:Military pyromaniacs

[RobinH]

Maybe someone's already aiming on seasonally at California? ;)

de-fencing

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds like an expensive way to de-fence. hell, a good white-wash is all it really needs anyway.

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[zamboni1138]

Perhaps you could convert old school drive-in movie theater screens into reflectors.

Or better yet, adapt them into some kind of capacitor to store the laser energy until needed.

But you would need to be very careful with your targeting. I seem to remember an experiment in the mid '80s using similar, albeit much less advanced, technology that caused untold damage to at least one network's television relay satellite. The same incident reportedly destroyed or severely damaged several consumer televisions throughout North America.

Re:didn't this... something did

[WindBourne]

Do not sweat it. That will be returned by the house. More importantly, Gates, and I have heard Panneta, back this. So far, the only directed energy weapons that gates had issues with was the ALTB.

For those worried about the money, don't.

[WindBourne]

That was just the senate committee. The house will add it in, and then both will have to agree on this. It is all but certain that this money will be restored. Too much good science in this.

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[auLucifer]

If you feel you're going to be wooshed just click on the score and see if the mods have picked it up. I don't see too many funny posts marked as insightful these days

Boing build a giant naval laser, but...

[Dahamma]

...THAT IMAGE is the best they can do depicting it? It looks like it was photoshopped by a 12 year old.

Misses

[c0lo]

Being able to "shoot down cruise missiles and artillery shells" assumes that they can aim. We know from the Regan administration and their StarWars program that aiming is often the hardest part.

What can go wrong, would the laser shot miss it target?

Re:Misses

[wagnerrp]

You accidentally hit MTV's broadcast satellite, and viewers everywhere rejoice.

Questionable Applications

[Anonymous Coward]

"Once it's onboard ships, the laser could be used to shoot down cruise missiles"

But in a more (cost-)effective manner than a point-defense machinegun?

"and artillery shells."

This gives us the old Armageddon/Deep Impact problem: Ballistic flight paths means that, while you may hit it with your laser and make it really really hot and set it on fire, you've simply changed the nature of hot, flaming death falling on people rather than preventing it from falling to begin with.

Maybe prematurely detonating shells is effective for small caliber shells, but then what's the upper limit? Will we be blowing the dust off of the Iowa class yet again?

At the end of the day, all this money and Buck Rogers gadgetry for a weapon system that, by definition, can't fire over the horizon. If they've got all this power to begin with, wouldn't they be better off with Gauss/rail weaponry?

Or, better yet, develop weapon systems for fighting an enemy that doesn't have any fucking cruise missiles or artillery instead of pissing away money on defense contractor porn.

Re:Questionable Applications

[Hartree]

At this point, it's still a research and development project.

On the other hand, CIWS and the like are pretty effective. I'm guessing they are looking for something that doesn't have the flight time delay and can engage more targets in a given time. (Of course, just putting more CIWS and ammunition for them on the ship mitigates that last.)

I'm not sure the horizon limitation really matters for defending against incoming threats.

"Will we be blowing the dust off of the Iowa class yet again?"

Actually, that'd be kinda cool. The big problem is they were very expensive ships to maintain and man.

Re:Sharks

[TaoPhoenix]

Veni Sharks Vici.
Came for the Sharks. Left satisfied.

Re:didn't this... something did

[mSparks43]

Does this mean there is still no answer to the Sunbeam/Brahmos?

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[heypete]

Nice reference. That took me way, way back...

Re:didn't this... something did

[Alsee]

the barrel of the gun having limited life

I suspect the railgun barrel will have quite a long life, at least compared to whatever it's pointed at.

-

What about vs. inertial bombs?

[Tanman]

Do lasers have any effectiveness vs inertial bombs? there are no combustibles to detonate.

Re:What about vs. inertial bombs?

[Unequivocal]

Are there any inertial bombs out there that can cause serious damage to large naval vessels? Seems like the real danger is a harpoon-type exploding missile or a 15" shell with an armor piercing head and explosive body? Apparently both of which can be affected by a laser of this type. I saw an impressive Israeli video a couple years ago where they were shooting down *mortar and artillery rounds* in flight with a laser - which makes a lot of sense if you're Israel..

Take away the explosive body and can a 15" shell sink a large ship? I really don't know - so that's a real question. I'm sure it can cause a lot of damage, but if opfor can only fire dead weight at you and you're sending explosives the other direction.. Also maybe a laser like this can fragment an inertial projectile to further reduce it's damage potential?

The unfunded one?

[Wyatt Earp]

This lost funding on Friday 6-17-11

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/06/20/railgun-laser-weapon-lose-senate-funding-face-uncertain-future/

Too bad ...

[PPH]

... about all the program cancellations. The FEL is an interesting technology in search of a suitable application.

So far, the only thing it manages to burn through reliably is funds.

Re:The laser - all funding cut

[bricko]

Unless Boeing pays its own money....Congress just cut ALL funding for the entire program.

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether it's intended as a whoosh or not, it's a valid idea.
The energy source required to power the laser would not lend itself well to space travel or flight. But using a flying reflector would be an interesting solution for targets outside your line-of-sight.

I'm not sure how well a reflector in the atmosphere would work though - any dirt on the reflector would be a BAD THING(TM) for the person flying the plane.

Mirrors.

[Slutticus]

Fucking mirrors. I win for pennies on the dollar.

Shooting down a...

[Anonymous Coward]

cruise missile

  These are often subsonic, don't see a problem here. Although could use a regular SAM missile I imagine. Shooting down a cruise missile is easier than hitting a supersonic fighter jet if you can locate it (need to locate it for either the laser or missile option to work anyway)

artillery shell

Smaller and supersonic, good luck with that.

ICBM

Not mentioned in article, but very high velocity in final stages, need more than good luck with that.

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[phliar]

High power lasers are hard to reflect (or refract). For example if your mirror/lens is 99.9% efficient (much higher than real-world optics), it absorbs a thousandth of the beam's energy. In other words if you want to reflect a megawatt laser beam, the mirror has to dissipate a kilowatt.

Can your mirror change wavelength?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your fixed wavelength mirror against my variable wavelength laser. You lose.

GAME OVER.

Re:didn't this... something did

[Anonymous Coward]

The railgun barrel is projected to have a lifespan of one shot. The target is projected to have a lifespan of one shot, plus projectile flight time.

Funding cut

[Anonymous Coward]

Congress is planning on cutting funding for this:

See page 21:

http://armed-services.senate.gov/press/NDAA%20FY12%20Markup%20Press%20Release.pdf

As well as the railgun research. The original article is from Fox News, but here's an Indian alternative to avoid funding Murdoch:

http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/226324

Pretty sad considering that both of these have been in development since Reagan's Star Wars program and are starting to show some real gains now. Also sad considering that they have plenty of non-military uses. Free electron lasers are tunable. The same laser can produce blue, green, whatever frequency of laser light you want. Having a one laser fits all device would not only eventually bring down costs, but enable the creation of all kinds of devices we can't even imagine.

The railgun research will lead to a new way to put things into orbit, possibly new means of transport (literally bullet trains), etc.

I literally shed a tear when I read this. I know cuts have to be made, but this is not a good place. I'd rather Grandma got a smaller social security check, quite honestly. She just spends it on QVC crap anyway.

Space Battleship Yamato

[killfixx]

'Nuff said!

Re:didn't this... something did

[garyebickford]

The barrel has a lifetime of one shot _now_. That is expected to change, in contrast to the target lifespan. :)

I was just thinking - what if the surface of the barrel was actually a liquid of sorts? Obviously there are issues with keeping it in place for any shot that isn't dead level, but there might be a way - like using a thixotropic material that is viscous until moved (like mayonnaise). Then it could be reformed quickly, or new material might just flow down from a series of spray nozzles. Like that stuff with the iron particles in it, that can be held in place magnetically (which raises other issues, but it's just a hypothetical example).

Laser weapons are grossly over-ratted

[Pirulo]

And do have a serious flaw nobody seems to address.
They are totally ineffective against a target with a mirrored surface.

Re:Laser weapons are grossly over-ratted

[seven of five]

Nope. No mirror is perfectly reflective. The few percent of energy it absorbs is enough to melt, severely warp or shatter a mirror. Or... they can tune it to a frequency where the mirror becomes transparent.

This makes a hell of a lot of sense..

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't we just tell everyone about what ~AUGHT~ to be Military TOP SECRET and hope our enemies don't strike us before any such laser has been built, let alone successively tested. GEEZ, this is a FAIL, isn't it?

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[Anonymous Coward]

Not low enough. Wombats might work.

Re:didn't this... something did

[djtachyon]

Well these aren't the only projects of this type. What about BAE System's Railgun?

With a prototype delivered to the Navy back in 2009.

It's free??

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll take two. Does it come with a bike mount?

Kinetic Kill Weapons

[Phoenix666]

Seemed like an easier and cheaper system to build. Accelerate a large enough mass fast enough and it will travel as far and a conventional warhead or farther, and the shells themselves are dirt cheap, being nothing but shaped hunks of metal.

Re:Kinetic Kill Weapons

[Arlet]

I guess the tricky part is to make sure you hit the incoming shell with yours. They are both small, and traveling extremely fast, while you suffer from inaccurate sensors, atmospheric interference, changing delays, and imperfect control. By firing a laser at the speed of light, you can simplify a couple of things.

Here is another idea :

[Anonymous Coward]

Make the missile cheaper with lighter material, carry 3 instead of 1 , and overwhelm the laser with sheer number. Navy missile laser : hundred (?) of million of dollar. Cheaper, lighter missile in numerous number : hundred of thousands.

Re:Here is another idea :

[Hartree]

Or, make really cheap decoys in large numbers and mix your real missiles in with them.

It's a standard way of defeating defenses, and it applies to all other systems like CIWS (AKA Phalanx) or missile based systems as well.

Send in targets faster than the system can respond to them, or send in so many that it runs out of ammunition.

The funding was cancelled

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice pictures, but the program funding was killed just before this was published.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/06/power-down-senate-zaps-navys-superlaser-railgun/

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. They're working on that, too: http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2006/q3/060807a_nr.html

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that only works with telezero beams.

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[AmiMoJo]

How about bouncing it off incoming missiles? Now instead of painting they grey everyone will be chrome plating and polishing their warheads.

Re:Sharks

[RivenAleem]

I came sharks on Vici

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, it seemed to work out well for a crypto geek and his idiot friend.

Mmmm Vanessa Angel.

Re:didn't this... something did

[AP31R0N]

The directed energy and electromagnetic weapons intended to protect the surface ships of the future:
Terminated.

The directed energy and electromagnetic weapons intended to protect the surface ships of the future is Terminated.

Or ideally:

The Senate terminated the the directed energy...

No passive voice, no misused question mark. Much better.

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[AP31R0N]

It's hard enough to deliver a beam with enough power to do something once, doing it twice in one shot would be very tough. It would be easier to strap a laser on a plane. Easier still to send a missile or bomb to the target.

Reflective surfaces

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always wondered with the concept of laser weapons as to how well they'd function against highly reflective surfaces... I assume some energy will be absorbed regardless but would enough be reflected to essentially make a laser useless? Or at least, not quite powerful enough to destroy the missile in the time it takes for it to hit from being first fired upon.

I mean, I can't imagine covering your troops or tanks in mirrors but it doesn't seem that outlandish to use it on missiles and possibly the undersides of aircraft.

I don't care if you can mount it on a boat.

[Maxo-Texas]

Can you mount it on a sea bass?

Color is not wavelength

[Anonymous Coward]

Color is not the same thing as wavelength. See Maxwell, Schrodinger, Weyl and Feynman.

Re:didn't this... something did

[arisvega]

You sound almost sad for not seeing the green light on new ways of killing people.

Note to Pirates:

[drainbramage]

Do not look at laser cannon with remaining eye!

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[QuantumFlux]

Is this serious or a subtle Real Genius joke?

Why? Whats the need for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are our boats being hit often by cruise missiles or artillery?

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[Anonymous Coward]

How about bouncing it off incoming missiles? Now instead of painting they grey everyone will be chrome plating and polishing their warheads.

I looked for this response figuring someone else would be thinking the same thing as me. Now you'll be able to spot the planes/projectiles from miles away from the glare but you'll need to resort to conventional weapons to shoot it down.

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it is feasible to bounce a laser off a satellite. Three reasons:

1. Aiming. We are talking about hitting a moving target so small you need a telescope to see it. And you have to hit a small reflexive area on the satellite. You don't want to hit its solar panels.

2. You have to get through the atmosphere. It not only absorbes part of the light, you also have to deal with effects like diffraction and schlieren. Both depend on the weather (humidity, pressure, temperature). That in turn makes aiming even harder. There is a reason why our best telescope is in space.

3. Beam divergence. Even the best laser has some divergence. If it can put a hole into a cruise missile at 5km, you can probably use it to heat up your car at 400km. Disclaimer: I just pulled these numbers out of my ass. I don't feel like doing the math right now. One straight number, though: If your sattelite is as high as the ISS (you probably want to put it higher to increase its life-time without refueling), your laser beam has to make a trip of around 700 km to get up and down.

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you attach a direct-able mirror (to reflect the beam in the right direction back towards the source) to a missile without ruining its aerodynamics?

Re:Is it feasible to bounce the beam off satelites

[Anonymous Coward]

If it is, then it would be trivial to build countermeasures...