Something I posted over at the dynaverse, a trek site where I hang most the time:
Dynaverse Link What do u guys think of this?
I read where the US military is about to field small fighter size lasers able to destroy enemy aircraft in the blink of an eye:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/ne...020-laser1.htm
But does size matter? Lets go to the other end of the spectrum... How big can you make one? Granted, the above laser is chemical, as is the one Boeing is mounting on their 747's to shoot down ICBM's called The Airborne Laser:
Airborne Laser but to go really LARGE you'd probably need to go with an energy based device like the laser at the National Ignition Facility:
http://www.llnl.gov/nif/project/index.html Animation:
http://www.llnl.gov/nif/project/anim_beamline_lg.html
But that, I think, is an energy based laser. So how big (powerful in terms of terawatts and length of time the beam can operate) and how far can they shoot? Is energy consumption an issue? If you built a nuclear power plant and sat it next to a laser built larger than something say, the Giant Megellan Telescope:
http://www.gmto.org/ would it be possible to use it to shoot down an ICBM and or multiple rentry warheads if tracking them and keeping them in the crosshairs isnt an issue?
And my last question would be what happens if you take a powerful laser and bounce it off a mirror in outerspace? Will a powerful laser beam even bounce off a mirror? Or will it vaporize the mirror? I can imagine, if it can be bounced and the beam remain powerful enough, a laser beam can be shot from one side of the planet and vaporize a target on the other side of the globe in under a second...
So who knows lasers?
OT: Upper limit on Lasers, range and power....
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