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| Science & Technology |
| How It Works: The Airborne Laser Cannon |
| 2008-03-14 |
| Last December, Boeing, under contract from the Department of Defense, installed a $200-million prototype of the laser into a C-130 at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico in preparation for test flights this year. From there it will go to the Air Force for more testing, and it could be in battle within five years. Precise control over the beamÂ’s aim allows it to hit a moving target a few inches wide and confine the damage to that space. The Pentagon hopes such precision will translate into less collateral damage than even todayÂ’s most accurate missiles. Future versions using different types of lasers could be mounted on smaller vehicles, such as fighter jets, helicopters and trucks. A death ray! This must be the twenty-first century! |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #12 Actually I still like "transmorphigizer" better. AND I like the visual of one of those perverts suddenly exploding all over his mud hut....and just think of the secondary damage. All of those bone fragments flying everywhere. |
| Posted by: Grand Proconsul Sock Puppet 2008-03-14 21:57 |
| #11 Sounds more like the opening scenes from Real Genius! One exploding dictator coming up! |
| Posted by: AlmostAnonymous 2008-03-14 17:51 |
| #10 Let us call it... Pork Sword. You will appreciate the double entendre. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2008-03-14 17:10 |
| #9 Bright Pebbles: I've long suggested that we should use black bag operations to administer poisons and grotesque diseases to radical Imams and Mullahs. Start a small rumor about them being cursed by Allah, then they get disfiguring skin welts and lesions, their hair falls out, and they just generally look like hell before they die in agony. The hardest part would be crafting the rumor to make it clear *why* Allah despised the pig boinkers. They are so superstitious that they will fill in the blanks. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2008-03-14 14:27 |
| #8 bigjim-ky: Why don't we test it in Waziristan? That's as good a place as any. Could we call it the "Zionist Death Ray", that just sounds scarier to me. Wouldn't that blow their minds if the murderer sitting next to them suddenly burst into flames and splattered all over the hut like a frog in a microwave! Jim I appreciate your instincts, but they are my second choice. I was hoping for a Full On test in Washington DC this Fall, right after Congress is in. |
| Posted by: RD 2008-03-14 13:58 |
| #7 It might be better if it was a maser, and it did cook them, and they die "mysteriously" a few days later. Use the cursed of Al Queda as a weapon. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2008-03-14 13:36 |
| #6 We could call it the Porky Pig death ray, that would make the local turbins really happy. Do they explode when the ray hits? Is it kind of like a long range microwave oven? Can you pop popcorn at distances up to 100 clicks? |
| Posted by: Imperial Grand Sock Puppet 2008-03-14 13:13 |
| #5 There are some interesting twists and turns to airborne lasers. 1) A primary function is as an air superiority weapon, in that it can take out enemy rockets, air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles. 2) Ground attack is less important, because damage can be mitigated and limited in many ways. In addition, there is a tacit ban on the use of airborne lasers to blind ground troops. 3) However, anti-aircraft ground based lasers are the obvious counter to aircraft based lasers, which drastically limits aircraft based lasers to the "over the horizon" angle. That is, the air laser can prevent the use of enemy aircraft, but cannot itself enter enemy airspace. But this, in turn, means that cruise missiles have to be used against enemy ground based lasers. The cruise missiles are guided by satellite--so satellites become a major target for enemy missiles and ground based lasers. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2008-03-14 09:56 |
| #4 can we mount a higher power version of this on an orbiting platform (with no obvious vents near the reactor) |
| Posted by: mhw 2008-03-14 09:30 |
| #3 Let's feed conspiracy-monger fears even more. Let's call it the "AIDS-spewing, civilian-targeting, Zionist Death Ray" |
| Posted by: PlanetDan 2008-03-14 09:13 |
| #2 Why don't we test it in Waziristan? That's as good a place as any. Could we call it the "Zionist Death Ray", that just sounds scarier to me. Wouldn't that blow their minds if the murderer sitting next to them suddenly burst into flames and splattered all over the hut like a frog in a microwave! |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-03-14 08:22 |
| #1 "mini-me stop humping the laser!" |
| Posted by: TomAnon 2008-03-14 08:16 |