Can't.Wait.For.It. But I'm afraid it will die the death of a thousand cuts... budget cuts, that is. The amount of money that NASA wants to fund that thing wouldn't pass any Congress since 1969. It's a shame, I'd volunteer for that mission in a heartbeat. I have training on reactors, I could do it...

and the Army has had several successful field tests of a truck mounted laser to shoot down battlefield missles and even artillery shells. If they actually make this work, air forces will disappear until they can figure out shields. Of course, David Drake described all of this in his Hammer's Slammers series in 1975.

Hard sf: the 20 year product development proposal...

Hammers Slammers? Thank God I'm not the only guy who read Drake. Did you ever read Joe Halderman's The Forever War?

Haldeman wrote some great stuff - The Forever War was good but my favortie was There Is No Darkness. Your troll should read it - It has some great quotes, such as "There is no darkness but ignorance," and "the universe is not interested in fair play - the universe is interested in survival."

If they ever get that airborne laser working, they should hump 'em right into production before the rest of the world figures them out.

BTW, do you think you could melt a hippy from orbit with one of those things?

Would a hippy melt, or burst into patchoulli scented flame?

There's only one way to find out - who's first?

You've seen a laser dot bounce on it's target? Being hit by one of these with a beam diameter of maybe 6in. will result I should think in a rather.......Well, let's just say gravity will cause the severed bits to just drop, there may not be blood as the beam would cauterize, and there would be a cloud of steam from the body fluids being vaporized. Clothing would burn, ammunition would cook off.

Messy, but a good inducement to surrender for the others.

You wouldn't even be able to scream.

Eh. Cauterize, you say? Let's go back to basic physics class and ask ourselves this simple question: What happens to a closed system when the liquids within that system are near instantaneously heated past their vaporization points?

Bang.

I never took physics, but a question to ponder. You're suggesting a steam explosion like an over heated boiler. Certainly possible, maybe likely. But the key word is "sealed", if the steam can escape via a rupture in the container(say a large burned out chunk) that removes the possiblity of "bang" and results in something more like a hiss. Would it not?

While the effects of a large diameter high energy laser on flesh may be speculation, the effect of medical lasers is not. That's the effect they have, vaporize, cauterize and sear, with wisps of steam. The effect you suggest would be more likely to occur from microwave weapons, like the EMP bomb they've been working on.

I don't know, puggs. The medical lasers you're talking about aren't delivering all that much energy to the body. The energy is highly concentrated, but really the surrounding tissues and air don't have any trouble absorbing the excess thermal energy and carrying it away.
With a large laser beam delivering megajoules all at once, there's no way the body could absorb and distribute that amount of energy that quickly. I have a feeling that the "bang" theory might be more accurate, but it's been so long since physics that I couldn't prove it to you.

Interesting, but as I said, I never took physics, I wonder a couple of things at this point. We know that the big lasers are functional now, it's targeting and finding the best way to maximize damage that are the main issues. Are there any sites that show hard data on laser tests on various materials? Or would it all be classified? Now I'm curious so I'll have to look around.

I've seen a documentary on lasers where they discuss the problems of deep penetration. It seems that a beam burns in so far then builds an area of super heated plasma that blocks further progress. They suggested that the solution was to pulse the beam, creating a hammer like effect which would break up the plasma. Of course they were shooting it at a hardened steel plate.

I said what I said before going from all the SF I've read, but if you two gentlemen are correct, that works too. We need some field tests, anyone up for an airborne laser test in N. Korea?

What kinda beer you guys like anyway? Losin arguement buys........

Yep, they know, but they aren't sharing the data.

Bastards......

https://www.wsmr.army.mil/paopage/Pages/OHELST.htm

Man... they keep all the coolest stuff secret... but I guess not everyone is just a sci-fi geek who likes to know about nifty stuff just for the sake of knowing it, so they can't be too careful... dammit.