Big stakes for lab to build battle laser

[Robb]

General says he'll come up with $150 million if scientists produce mobile device within 18 months

A two-star Army general threw down a challenge last week to Lawrence Livermore scientists: He will beat the bushes for more than $150 million if scientists can build the world's first mobile battle laser for test firing in 18 months.

(snip)

The general then strode into a convention room and told 640 top U.S. directed-energy experts that Livermore's laser -- today, a profusion of wires, crystals and diodes on a tabletop -- was ready to be shoehorned into a Humvee and prove its mettle as a tactical weapon.

(snip)

Ultra-high power diodes like the ones in CD players and supermarket scanners have propelled solid-state lasers into an arms race with giant, chemical-powered lasers. The Army's Tactical High Energy Laser, pumped by combusting chemicals, already have shot Katyusha rockets and artillery shells out of the sky.

Those shootdowns ushered high-energy lasers out of Buck Rogers science fiction and into military reality. But for years to come, chemical lasers are likely to remain bulky and needful of fresh chemical supplies at a time when the Army wants high mobility and less reliance on supply lines. Solid-state lasers are electric. They can run off a Humvee's diesel-hybrid engine or perhaps a jet fighter's turbine.

(more)

[number six]

1. Yeah, I heard Auric Goldfinger and Scaramanga

were in the bidding for this one. Not to mention Vandelay Industries.

[GregW]

6. I think they're using Dale Brown as a consultant

:eyes:

[bif]

2. Aren't there better things to spend money on?

We waste so much money on war toys, it's just pathetic

[Pliny The Younger]

3. On Terrific!!

Just what we need...another weapon to kill more people more efficiently. Such people...on BOTH sides of the political spectrum...must be kept from positions of power at all costs.

[frylock]

4. the general should just relax..

with a glass of grain alcohol and a rainwater chaser.

[Xithras]

5. I disagree with all of you...this is a GOOD thing.

Face it, war is not going away in our lifetimes. We can try to resolve our differences peacefully whenever possible, but there will always be some tinpot dictator somewhere who refuses to negotiate and insists on fighting to resolve whatevers bugging him. For those instances, we NEED to have good weaponry.

Battle Lasers are good for two reasons 1) They will obsolete modern tanks and artillery, bringing an end to depleted uranium weaponry and the environmental problems that go along with it. 2) They will virtually eliminate civilian incidental casualties. A beam of light cannot go off course, it can't fail to detonate, and its destructive area is only as wide as its beam. This is a dramatic improvement over our current "bomb them flat" mentality.

Yes, the goal SHOULD be to eliminate war, but until we figure out a way to do that, I'll take ANY research that will give us safer weapons to protect innocent civilians in warzones.

[On the Road]

7. I Have to Second that Opinion

With the $150 BILLION for Iraq this year, $150 million is not a lot for something like this.