There`s IBM trying to create an artificial brain, then there`s the military trying to create robots that walk like man. now we have a 100kw laser weapon. all we need now is ARV`s that can hover and we`ve come that bit closer to judgement day.. HKs anyone!

Don't start praying to Connor yet. "Preliminary design" means "show me what you can do on the drawing board." Looks like the army project is different type of laser. Who knows when if ever either project will produce practical field applications, but this should produce interesting results in the field of "high energetics" (at least I think that's the name of the field) as well as optics, etc.

Well, this is an improvement. Back in the late eighties and early nineties when FEL's were being designed with hopes of using them in SDL they were the size of warehouses.

Do you think they could work along with the similar project that the Army's working on? Nah... that might actually save tax-payer dollars.

After the ironically-named "Stimulus" package Obama crammed down our throats creating trillions in debt I doubt a few hundred million matters.

@Scorpius....Easy now Scorpy...We don't want him to kill our lasers now. This might actually keep NK from nuking Alaska someday. You are right about the irony of the "Stimulus". Lasers are all about stimulus as it is an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. I also find Lasers stimulating but I digress.

"Fee Electron Laser"? I wonder if they will take credit cards.

Didn't the Air Force just scuttle an airborne laser fying inside a modified 747? I thought that one actually worked with the capability of shooting down multiple missiles? I was surprised to hear it bit the dust. I thought they had solved all the inherent problems. Unless, of course, they only want us to THINK they killed the program. Hopefully they got them flying over N Korea right now because the ways things are going, we might just need them.

I wonder if they have Val Kilmer and a group of nerd geniuses working on this.

Pew pew pew pew

Random, everyboyd wants to rule the world, but not everyone wants their house filled with popcorn.

Mr. Gumsandals, it's not needed anymore. The new strategy is to apologize to them and be nicer. We'll see how that works out.

I hate to point out that a free electron laser and "the similar project that the Army's working on" make energy in completely different ways, so aren't that similar at all.

FEL's make photons by accelerating electrons through magnetic fields, kind of like a linear synchrotron.

Yay science!

Flynn will be much better equipped if that nasty MCP tries anything again.

Execellent point, Slingshot. The good volk out there should know that FELs in a combat enviroment would use a frightful amount of power-hence the Navy putting extra generation capability into the DX class of ships that will most likely be the first platform for this weapon. The Army weapon-if the lads get it to work- will require a more compact, land mobile power source/transporter.

And I wouldn't be too concerned about the HKs just yet, mcborge. We humans are quite good enough at terminating each other-with or without particle weapons. Peace

Execellent point, Slingshot. The good volk out there should know that FELs in a combat enviroment will use a frightful amount of power-hence the Navy putting extra generation capability into the DX class of ships that will most likely be the first platform for this weapon. The Army weapon-if the lads get it to work- will require a more compact, land mobile power source/transporter.

And I wouldn't be too concerned about the HKs just yet, mcborge. We humans are quite good enough at terminating each other-with or without particle weapons. Peace

ahhh an FEL if built right can be tuned from IR to X-Ray and above its just a matter of how fast you can make the electrons move and who knows maybe in a few years a coherent free positron laser will be possible

"how fast you can make the electrons move(Vibrate)"

Great!!! Another weopon to blast the invading aliens from outer space. OOOPS!!! guess that was a sci-fi flick.... Go planetary defence grid!!!!

As I told the Congressional aid, the Navy, and the hot shot PhD's in 2000, FEL's are not sustainable aboard any existing warship. One would have to build the laser and then build the ship around it, including enough electrical generation to run a mid size, modern city. So much for a "mere" $150M, it will end up in the $15B bracket and still no guarantee it will do the job.

Ozman, isnt the DDG and possible DDX class warship going to have multiple or larger reactors and have the ship designed around the ultrahigh power hardpoints that can be used for railgun or FEL applications?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt_class_destroyer

all i gotta say, is how soon can a "mad cat" be built.!!

That's TIMBERWOLF lesslee43.

How large of an emitter are they talking about anyhow? And with the litoral warship scrapped what kind of application are they going to have for this thing anyhow? Point defense weapon, fine. But I don't see this turning the crew of a capital ship into popcorn.

They've been trying to do this since the seventies, when they stuck one on top of an LVT, above a *huge* generator that took up almost the entire interior of the vehicle.

But it'll be a long time until they can develop a backpack laser for the troups. The human body has too much water and while it could wound, it wouldn't necessarily kill. Anti-laser devices would counter any strength the laser had.

Anyone who thinks that one of these could clear a ridge of troops - *poof* *poof* *poof* - is going to have to wait another few decades.

Right now we could disable tanks by blinding the gunners with a relatively lower powered laser. However, there are international treaties that tell us otherwise. Oh, they're referred to as the 'optical system' of the tank. :{

I believe after filming "Ghostbusters" that Bill Murray made the comment that his mother probably wanted him to be a doctor–and he had to tell her he was making a living by strapping a nuclear reactor to his back. Maybe those WERE the prototypes. ;-)

spending all this money on lasers, and we cant even teach kids to spell

really guys, spellchecker is just a button click away
(for the article and the comments)

spending all this money on lasers, and we cant even teach kids to spell

really guys, spellchecker is just a button click away
(for the article and the comments)

Hmmm....... i cant see this happeming in all reality due to the power convergence facters even with our current solid state power converters ...... as far as the "pop corn" effect
whenever you cloalese photons you ulitim.. change there gravitional axis and realese higher forms of radition with pin piont accuracy this is how a commen base co2 laser works for the fabrication industry it isnt the light per se but the radiation itself which in turns piereces the object in question ...light nomatter how compact will never be able to "pop corn" a said individual from 100 plus meters away due to the dispersal of its own gravitational feild

"it takes a madman to understand the mind of god and a lunitic to want to harness that power for ill intent"