Comments on: Navy Wants Lots of Lasers

By: JR

JR — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:53:09 +0000

I like lasers, they are very nice and they are very colorful and they can also be your friend.

By: Anthony Conner

Anthony Conner — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:06:36 +0000

Star Wars was the nickname given to the Reagan era anti-missile defense shield, but the US Navy looks like they will build the REAL STAR DESTROYER. Directed energy weapons have many obstacles to over come to be effective, least of which is range. Light energy weakens as it passes through a medium such as air. The lenses have to kept clean of salt spray, the lasing rods or medium has to be kept cooled (significantly if reused in rapid succession). This is a daunting task for our state of technology. Then there is the danger to the sailors firing the laser for both eye protection and with high power devices, penetration of body parts.
Good Luck Navy

By: cd

cd — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:45:28 +0000

James, I am a worker in a metal shop in Europe,
and we earn 24$/hour.How in hell can you survive on 12$ over there?

By: Jack D. Ripper

Jack D. Ripper — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:33:16 +0000

Ferin, we planned for that on one project I worked on. The plane lands, the dying crew gets off and a replacement crew boards to continue the mission. At that point equipment is more valuable than are people.

By: JH

JH — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:00:41 +0000

There is only one thing they forgot, more cow bell!

By: Ferin

Ferin — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:40:37 +0000

Vstress
“Now as to gamma/neutron flux, that is something that really damages electronics“
Unfortunately, it’s also rather distressingly damaging to the humans nearby. Besides which, generating large neturon or gamma flux as a weapon would be rather difficult on the battlefield, unless you just want to drop some cobalt 60 or something on the targets. Somehow, I doubt you’d see international or civilian approval of such weapons any time soon.

By: JimH

JimH — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:37:11 +0000

Nice summation of the conference — one quibble — ONR is not a “Navy lab” — they fund Navy (actually Naval) labs, academia and industry and set priorities for research but they don’t really “do” research.

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:23:17 +0000

Troll,
The average standard of living today is much much higher than it was in 1960. As much as you wish to idealize that time period, we are better off today. Save your “bleed the rich” philosophy for MoveOn.org.

By: hooded swan

hooded swan — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 08:03:10 +0000

Old Sailor, congrats for staying on topic & for knowing something about it. Air & land based weapons as well as ship based ones will have to work in mist & in precip to be useful. There’s apparently ongoing research in using “blue green” lasers for underwater communication. I know next to nothing about the technology. If there is a wavelength(s) that will get through mist & precip, there’s probably not 1 that will both get through dust & hard kill a target. In other words, brownouts are probably not a solvable problem for laser weapons. FELs are theoretically tunable, but within a limited range. You’re not going to be able to go from thermal IR to X-rays. They may be looking at FELs because of the waste heat problem rather than the potential of tuning the beam.

By: stephen russell

stephen russell — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 02:44:37 +0000

For AEGIS cruisers & CV carriers only?
Biggest ships for Lasers.
& shore stations.
Reuse old Shore Forts for Lasers
No more BBs ready.