Administration Conducting Research Into Laser Weapon

[Rose Siding]

The Bush administration is seeking to develop a powerful ground-based laser weapon that would use beams of concentrated light to destroy enemy satellites in orbit.

The largely secret project, parts of which have been made public through Air Force budget documents submitted to Congress in February, is part of a wide-ranging effort to develop space weapons, both defensive and offensive. No treaty or law forbids such work.

The laser research was described by federal officials who would speak only on the condition of anonymity because of the topic's political sensitivity. The White House has recently sought to play down the issue of space arms, fearing it could become an election-year liability.

Indeed, last week Republicans and Democrats on a House Armed Services subcommittee moved unanimously to cut research money for the project in the administration's budget for the 2007 fiscal year. While Republicans on the panel would not discuss their reasons for the action, Congressional aides said it reflected a bipartisan consensus for moving cautiously on space weaponry, a potentially controversial issue that has yet to be much debated.

The full committee is expected to take up the budget issue today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/washington/03laser.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1146628800&en=531013569c4ed7dc&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin

[Theres-a]

1. Why do I have this image of

The 2 bush presidents as Dr.evil and Minime all of a sudden.

[wtmusic]

2. deja vu

Wasn't this proposal given serious consideration under Reagan's "Star Wars" and considered not viable?

[Karmakaze]

8. Star Wars II

That was what gave "Star Wars" its name in the first place - it was a system of lasers meant to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles. The problem they encourtered was called "Thermal Blooming". Basically any laser powerful enough to damage a missile heats up the air it is travelling through. The more powerful the laser, the hotter the air gets. This causes massive turbulence in the air the beam is travelling through, which defocuses the laser beam and thus reduces its hitting power.

What they found was increasing the beam power actually decreased the hitting power as the blooming was worse, so there was a maximum limit to how powerful and how far through the air the beam could travel. This was where they hit the limits enforced by physics. They simply could not overcome this loss of power due to thermal blooming, making the whole syetem non-viable.

The question is, how could they have overcome this problem? Remember simply making the lasers more powerful wouldnt work, as all that did was make the blooming even worse. Unless they could find some way to refocus the beam in flight as it were (not just at the source but actually along its path) then blooming will always defocus the beam.

It seems to me that this is nothing more that what Star Wars itself actually was - corporate welfare. Back then the scientists KNEW it wouldnt work, yet the money kept flowing so they kept on making a system destined to fail.

[daleo]

10. That's fascinating

And somewhat reassuring. As you say, it will burn through lots of money for the military contractors, though.

[saigon68]

3. They will "Eliminate Dissent" with mini versions of this tool

Ass-Clowns

[Ezlivin]

4. Guess who's going to hire all those unemployed optical physicists?

It sure ain't the private sector.

I love the smell of the military-industrial complex in the morning. It smells like taxpayer money.

[DUHandle]

If these people read Science Fiction

they find various weapons powered with small nuclear bombs.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Leave it to Republican administrations to commit crimes of horrendous

impact long before the human population has the vision to try to stop them. They are truly groundbreakers.

[Kablooie]

6. Hope they don't aim it at enemy troops. It could improve their vision.

[Amonester]

7. Me wonders who's face is gonna appologize for being zapped...

by "accident" next...

[Sgent]

9. I think GWB

just watched Real Genius for the first time...