Calling Buck Rogers…
Are laser weapons ready for duty?
By the end of this year, the Air Force plans to conduct a first, fully loaded test flight of its Airborne Laser, a jumbo jet packed with gear designed to shoot down enemy missiles half a world away, at the speed of light. The ABL also packs a megawatt-class punch–it’s not exactly your garden-variety laser pointer.
For ground troops and embassy guards, meanwhile, a Humvee-mountable device with the nondescript name of Active Denial System is being put through its paces. The ADS would provide a nonlethal form of crowd control, using millimeter waves (a cousin of microwaves) to cause an intense–but noninjurious–burning sensation meant to encourage people to flee.
This is both good and bad. I’m glad there are weapons potentially capable of shooting missiles and shells out of the sky. I like the idea that there are alternative non-lethal ways of crowd control. I just hate thinking of how you could abuse this stuff.
What they really mean by the Airborne Laser is not the 747 that carries it, but the entire weapons system, that is the COIL laser–COIL stands for chemical oxygen iodine laser–the modified 747, as well as all the associated lasers that are on board. There are several other lasers that are onboard the Airborne Laser besides the weapons-class laser. There is a tracking laser, a laser that actually acquires the target, tracks the target. There is another laser that is there for the purpose of what is known as adaptive optics.
This thing is going to need fast processors to function properly.
I’d hate to have the ADS used against any protest I attended.
From the article:
Q: So, in effect this works, to use science fiction terminologies, as a force field?
Beason: In fact, the joke was “phasers on stun”–you don’t really stun people with this, but you can use a sweeping motion if you want to push people away as if you had a virtual force field there.
Wow.
Well, up until I read this, it had been a nice day here in rural Indiana. With Bush in the White House, not giving a poop about all the scandals, I am afraid. Very afraid.
Anytime you have weapons like this it’s scary. Even the non-lethal ADS is scary.
Dosen’t matter who’s in the White House.
But, my age shows with this comment……* wayyyyyyyy cool!!!!!!*
¿ Remember the tasers used on small children and the elderly in the USA recently ?
This will be just more of the same – PhD (piled higher and deeper).
Allen McDonald, El Galloviejo®
LEt me say it this way…
It wont work that FAR…
IT CANT…
they found something out awhile back, about ASTMOSPHERE…
we cant shoot to the moon because of all the CRAP in the air, disperses the beam..
The more powerful the beam, the MORE it Heats the air, and is interrupted by pollution, dust and debris, in the air.
UNLESs you want something like THIS, to sound like a CRACK of lightning or a GIANT sonic boom…It isnt going to range that far..
They mean it will operate half a world away. http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/abl/
as a certain john would say, hope you like popcorn!
Let me see, a sea of sculls and a burning sensation.. yeah Im sure thats a nice way of putting it.
Just remember….
If you are a loyal citizen, you will have nothing to worry about from this technology. This is only meant for those ratbags that protest everytime the Government does something that they don’t like.
As for the airborne laser…Osama can just point his overclocked green laser pointer at the pilot and watch it drop out of the sky….no worries..
Golly, just when the evil dictator gets really cool weapons technology he finds out that he drank up all the money to buy them.
I feel good knowing George has this in his hoster ;>(
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=961371
Although highly accurate, the measurement technique is very challenging. Due to the gravitational pull of the Earth, the Sun, the planets and even some asteroids, the reflectors appear as moving targets. Also, the reflectors are too small to observe directly from Earth. Compare this to rifle shooting at a moving dime, two miles away. Another complication is the divergence of the laser beam; on the Moon’s surface, the laser beam is approximately one mile wide. The laser beam further diverges on its way back to Earth. Hence, the reflected signal is very weak; on the order of one photon per second.
90% of the problem is dispersion and refraction from the molicules in the air, polution among them makes it worse. defeating something like this would be as easy as creating a FOG/CLOUD bank..The water drops would defuse any light coming thru, no matter HOW strong.
Cool. All weapons are cool. Weapons use technology, and that’s cool. The only thing cooler will be seeing these in actual use.
This sounds good, but I heard the students who worked on this project found out what it was being used for and ended up filling up their professor’s house with a large jiffy-pop type device.
Then, they went and redirected the test beam into his house and made popcorn for the whole neighborhood and everyone laughed at the destruction of his house.
It was really cool. Wow.
MITSYFORESTDOTCOM :
I remember that corny movie from the 80’s what was the title again?
I would like to SEE where they have tested this in a Long range attitude..
Still think they will have problems in atmosphere…
Atmosphere from the earth to the moon is only 7-10 miles deep..And that REALLY wouldnt be a good test… Shooting it threw 1000-5000 miles of atmosphere is going to be REALLY detrimental to the BEAM and if it colapses the air as Lightning does, its going to make a BIG BANG..
Then try doing multiple shots with it… The concussion alone could rip the airplane out of the air.
pete: the movie was called “Real Genius” and starred Val Kilmer and William Atherton. Great show.
ECA,
IT OPERATES NEAR THE TARGET!