Air Force completes successful test firing on airborne laser

[Passions]

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/laser-02b.html

ZAPPPPPPPPPPPP TERRORIST!! ZAPPPPPPPP TERRORIST!! Need to roll out and implement this new laser on terrorists ASAP. It's supposed to shoot down missiles, but a human will fry just as easily as metal.

 

[maddogchen]

Star Wars here we come

 

[EagleKeeper]

Now comes solving the problem of how fast it can recycle the firing sequence and link/orient to the target tracking system.

 

[kage69]

Now comes solving the problem of how fast it can recycle the firing sequence and link/orient to the target tracking system.

..to say nothing of having it airborne and ready to fire in the area where a missile would be launched. And protecting it from fighters and long range AA fire. Still, I hope the possibility of having a missile's payload fall right back on top of the sender will give Kim Il Jong something to think about. Oh wait, he doesn't give a rat's ass about his people and has more bunkers than Tito. Nevermind.

 

[maluckey]

This system operates at distances of well over 100 Km away. In 1996, the system succesfully targeted and tracked an object from 50 km distance, traveling at 1000 meters per second. Technology since 1996 has vastly improved. The projected effective range is now listed as "hundreds of Kilometers". From that distance enemy aircraft are not a concern.

The laser in question is a chemical, oxygen-iodine laser, and recharge times are said to be short.

Bad news for nuclear powers word-wide.

 

[cricky]

Major Carnagle: Where's the laser?
Professor Hathaway: It's coming.
Major Carnagle: It's coming? It's not even breathing hard.

Real Genius was a classic...

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: maluckey
This system operates at distances of well over 100 Km away. In 1996, the system succesfully targeted and tracked an object from 50 km distance, traveling at 1000 meters per second. Technology since 1996 has vastly improved. The projected effective range is now listed as "hundreds of Kilometers". From that distance enemy aircraft are not a concern.

The laser in question is a chemical, oxygen-iodine laser, and recharge times are said to be short.

Bad news for nuclear powers word-wide.

Many of the tests in the 90's were preplanned to show the proof of concept.

Tracking via radar vs aiming and hitting an object is a different beast.
They have had hard times doing this from fixed ground stations, let alone a moving platform.

Also as kage69 stated, the platforms will have to be pre-positioned. 100km is not a large distance.
Project values are good for propaganda and budget requests. Accurracy must increase logrithmically (sp) based on distance from the target.

If it has taken 10-20 years to get the laser to work, then it will take at least another 10 years to have something deployable.

 

[jagec]

a BASKETBALL-sized spot of light that can burn through missile skins? That's a crapload of power.

next on the news: Kim Jong orders North Koreans to donate bathroom mirrors for attachment to missiles...

 

[zephyrprime]

..to say nothing of having it airborne and ready to fire in the area where a missile would be launched. And protecting it from fighters and long range AA fire.

It's range is so great that I don't think AA is a problem.

 

[SuperTool]

How effective are these things really? Can't you put a reflective coating on the missiles?

 

[maluckey]

Tests have also been done in the "80's", using 1970's technology that sucessfully downed an AIM-9B missle from 10 Km away.

There have been multiple sucessful ground based tests of the COIL (Chemical Iodine-Oxygen Laser) performed. There have been no difficulties in years as far as ground based tests are concerned. The current state-of-the-art has even shrunk the newer, improved system to the size needed to fire around 40 shots of 3-5 second pulses from the 747 platform.

As far as power, they are able to generate megawatt class power from these units. Also effective range is not 100 km, rather "hundreds of kilometers.

The platforms are not "pre-postioned", and are ground/air/satellite linked with streaming data to interpret the battlefield scenario. They can change environments, or operations on-the-fly, just like the B-2, and F-22.

 

[Spencer278]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime

..to say nothing of having it airborne and ready to fire in the area where a missile would be launched. And protecting it from fighters and long range AA fire.

It's range is so great that I don't think AA is a problem.

Well it depends on how far up in the sky they can take out a missle. If they need to kill the missle close to ground then AA could be a valid concren if they people launching the missle might have the missle in land so it would be very difficult to kill with out getting near the countrys cost.

 

[Steeplerot]

Nice to know our money is bneing spent on more cold war garbage.

 

[eigen]

Originally posted by: steeplerot
Nice to know our money is bneing spent on more cold war garbage.

Tell that to the people of Seoul and Tokyo, but since you are so worried about how are money is being spent then envision this MR. SmartyPants. We lease the aircraft to patrol the Korean Peninsula and Japanase archipelago.I don't think 30 million dollars a day is to much for a missile shield.

 

[Steeplerot]

30 million a day? To what? Make sure if someone was going to nuke us they delivered it some other way? like a briefcase? Or painted the missles with a deflective paint?
More money to piss away while this country turns third world?
Try some money to policy makers to give them the brain cells to make not want people to nuke us.
(It is not in any countrys best interest to nuke us who would have the money to have a long range missle anyhow.)
MAD baby.
It's what has kept us alive this long.
If someone is going to nuke us it WILL be a dirty bomb or something snuck in but by that time who cares if you nuke a country of homeless uneducated people that the world despises.

 

[Passions]

Originally posted by: steeplerot
30 million a day? To what? Make sure if someone was going to nuke us they delivered it some other way? like a briefcase? Or painted the missles with a deflective paint?
More money to piss away while this country turns third world?
Try some money to policy makers to give them the brain cells to make not want people to nuke us.
(It is not in any countrys best interest to nuke us who would have the money to have a long range missle anyhow.)
MAD baby.
It's what has kept us alive this long.
If someone is going to nuke us it WILL be a dirty bomb or something snuck in but by that time who cares if you nuke a country of homeless uneducated people that the world despises.

Why are you so angry? Relax my brother man.

 

[Steeplerot]

MAD = Mutally Assured Destruction -not angry.
I don't know if I just got trolled or you did not know ..whatever Passions.
Resume trolling operations nothing to see here dude

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: steeplerot
30 million a day? To what? Make sure if someone was going to nuke us they delivered it some other way? like a briefcase? Or painted the missles with a deflective paint?
More money to piss away while this country turns third world?
Try some money to policy makers to give them the brain cells to make not want people to nuke us.
(It is not in any countrys best interest to nuke us who would have the money to have a long range missle anyhow.)
MAD baby.
It's what has kept us alive this long.
If someone is going to nuke us it WILL be a dirty bomb or something snuck in but by that time who cares if you nuke a country of homeless uneducated people that the world despises.

The world despises us until they need us to play CYA for them or want our $$$$.

 

[TheBoyBlunder]

Originally posted by: eigen

Originally posted by: steeplerot
Nice to know our money is bneing spent on more cold war garbage.

Tell that to the people of Seoul and Tokyo, but since you are so worried about how are money is being spent then envision this MR. SmartyPants. We lease the aircraft to patrol the Korean Peninsula and Japanase archipelago.I don't think 30 million dollars a day is to much for a missile shield.

What good would this do for the people of Seoul? It's not like it can take out a standard artillery round, just a big, lumbering ballistic missile.

 

[Zephyr106]

Originally posted by: TheBoyBlunder

Originally posted by: eigen

Originally posted by: steeplerot
Nice to know our money is bneing spent on more cold war garbage.

Tell that to the people of Seoul and Tokyo, but since you are so worried about how are money is being spent then envision this MR. SmartyPants. We lease the aircraft to patrol the Korean Peninsula and Japanase archipelago.I don't think 30 million dollars a day is to much for a missile shield.

What good would this do for the people of Seoul? It's not like it can take out a standard artillery round, just a big, lumbering ballistic missile.

What??!! It can't shoot down artillery shells or briefcases? Well then we'll need to make two new laser systems to shoot just those two things.

Zephyr

 

[CanOWorms]

Good to see some high-tech research and development occuring.

 

[CaptnKirk]

Ever been around a launch facility ? You have about a thirty second time span during the boost phase that is the window of opportunity for damaging the missle enough to force a structutal failure.

In the late '70's I saw the Chlorine-Florine laser predassesors to todays chemical laser systems -
it was capable of vaporizing a 14" diameter hole in 2" steel plate on a test range from 1 mile away.
Took over a week to rebuild the system for each test firing, turn-around time would be much less now.

Still, we're going to send a plane the size of a 747 to within targeting distance of a foriegn countries missle launch center and expect it to no be chalenged ? Whats the maximum altitude of the 747,
maybe 12 miles ? Solid propellant missles launch harder and climb out faster than our space 'heavy' launch stuff does, the MX is over 30 miles altitude and 15 down range at T plus 30, first stage separation is at 60 seconds approximatelt 75 high & 100 down range - the 747 will be out of range at 15 seconds.