Navy of 2030 could bring sci-fi to reality

[unhappycamper]

In the next decades, the Navy will work to develop lasers that can defend ships and battle groups


Navy of 2030 could bring sci-fi to reality
By Andrew Tilghman - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Jan 2, 2010 17:06:25 EST

In the year 2030, sailors may be using laser-based weaponry, flying fighter jets overseas from a computer console in Virginia and spending as much time protecting satellites in space as they will spend guarding strike groups at sea.

Once a far-flung date considered solely by science-fiction writers, the year 2030 is now a potential retirement date for many of the Navy’s youngest sailors. So the Navy’s changes between now and then will affect sailors’ jobs, missions and careers.

~snip~

“We’re going to need to fight at the speed of light, and by 2030, I think the technology will support direct-energy weapons,” said Rear Adm. Nevin Carr, head of the Office of Naval Research.

Specifically, ONR is working on developing a free-electron laser, with applications on land, at sea and in the air. Its speed will be ideal for ballistic missile defense and could revolutionize the Aegis Combat System. Today, naval officers are getting hands-on experience with the FEL at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., which has a prototype of the technology.

Other projects include the unmanned fighter jets that will join the Navy’s future air wings. The Unmanned Combat Air System is scheduled to make its first test flight this year. Navy leaders openly talk about it replacing the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets after 2025.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2010/01/navy_2030_010110w/

[DCKit]

1. Silly. That's eighteen years AFTER the Rapture and eleven past the Tribulations.

Kidding.

However, until the Japanese bring back their Kamikaze fighters, where's the need? Somali pirate boats? The great Al Qaeda canoe invasion?

Between the drug companies creating new diseases to employ the drugs they've already invented and the MIC inventing new weapons for imagined threats, SciFi readers just can't keep up.