Airborne laser brings Star Wars one step closer

[Archaic]

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsA...Z_01_EIC465206_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-LASER-DC.XML

ONDON (Reuters) - A U.S. Pentagon invention could make air combat resemble a battle scene from Star Wars, with a laser so small it can fit on a fighter jet, yet powerful enough to knock down an enemy missile in flight.

The High Energy Laser Area Defense System (HELLADS), being designed by the Pentagon's central research and development agency, will weigh just 750 kg (1,650 lb) and measures the size of a large fridge.

To date, such lasers have been so bulky because of the need for huge cooling systems to stop them overheating, that they had to be fitted to large aircraft such as jumbo jets, New Scientist magazine reported on Wednesday.

But the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency reckons it has solved the problem by merging liquid and solid state lasers to cut the size and weight by "an order of magnitude," according to its Web site.

Liquid lasers can fire a continuous beam but need large cooling systems, while solid state laser beams are more intense but have to be fired in pulses to stop them overheating.

"We've combined the high energy density of the solid state laser with the thermal management of the liquid laser," New Scientist quoted project manager Don Woodbury as saying.

Dubbed the "HEL weapon" by its developers, a prototype capable of firing a mild one kilowatt (kW) beam has already been produced and there are plans to build a stronger 15-kW version by the end of the year.

If everything goes according to plan, an even more powerful weapon producing a 150-kW beam and capable of knocking down a missile will be ready by 2007 for fitting onto aircraft.

 

[GrnMarvl14]

Well HEL yeah.

Now if we could only develop some equivacol to the repulsor technology. Then the X-Wings would only be one step away.

 

[TK n Happy Ness]

That's good and all, but where are our fucking lightsabers?!

 

[evkl]

Lightsabers will probably never be feasable in the Star Wars sense.

 

[Kadabra]

This is good news. As most of you probably do not know, it is virtually impossible to use Missile Defence systems such as the Patriot, for example, to shoot down incoming ICBM warheads. Why? Because:
1) Warheads could use countermeasures to prevent the friendly missile from hitting the correct target (jamming, fake warheads, etc), and;
2) Actually hitting the incoming warhead is impossible anyway, since it is approaching at around 10,000 MPH, IIRC.

There are two possible solutions:
1) Shoot down ICBMs from space, and;
2) Use airborne laser systems.

But again, both aren't feasible, because current space technology isn't advanced enough to efficiently (and quickly) deploy a space-based defence system -- and the airborne laser isn't (or maybe wasn't until now) effective either because the planes would have to shoot down the missile very shortly from the time it first launched. This means that you'd have to keep jumbo jets in the air 24/7, very close to (or possibly inside) enemy airspace, which, obviously, isn't quite easy for many reasons. If they do not shoot down the ICBM quickly, it will accelerate to such high velocity that targeting it, again, will become impossible.

Mounting it on jetfighters could be an effective solution, as you can keep carriers in international waters, with fighters ready to quickly respond to ICBM launches. However, don't let this give you a false sense of security. It simply has a greater chance of working, compared to the idiotic "interceptor missile" systems the government was pouring so much money into. This is merely a (very) small step in the right direction.


PS. Lightsabres are retarded weapons anyway, if you look at them from an objective point of view.

 

[NX-01]

what about phased array emitters? besides that, will the space shuttle have that source of technology?

 

[evkl]

The Space Shuttle is getting phased out.

On the note of Patriots not being able to intercept ICBMs, they're not designed to. That's not their mission purpose, they're SAMs--Surface to Air, anti-air weapons.

Mounting weapons in space goes against about twelve different international treaties. Although all of those treaties will become invalid anyway when we hit the Second Space Race. But beyond that, yeah, lasers are terribly inefficient weapons to use in the sense of actually killing something efficiently. If you can do it properly, even in space, a bullet is much, much more efficient (for now). THe problem is, of course, aiming it, and dealing with recoil. Until lasers can efficiently cut through more than just a thin sheetmetal skin, they won't be used as offensive weapons in space. Assuming spaceships get armor. Which will in and of itself be interesting, as that adds a significant amount of weight to the ship...