Airborne Laser Murders Ballistic Missile Mid-flight
Star Wars & Star Trek fans can agree on one thing, and only one thing: lasers are great at putting on ships to shoot other things. And now we have them in real life!
Defense contractor Northrop Grumman slapped a huge laser on the front of a modified 747, then used it to shoot down a ballistic missle, while they were both in the air.
Think about it: that’s like a bullet shooting a laser to shoot down another bullet. It’s incredible. Here’s a quote from last Friday’s press release:
“While ballistic missiles like the one [the Airborne Laser Testbed] destroyed move at speeds of about 4,000 miles per hour, they are no match for a super-heated, high-energy laser beam racing towards it at 670 million mph,”
Wow. You gotta love it when people seriously use phrases like “they’re no match for a super-heated, high-energy laser beam.” What the hell could possibly be a match for that?
The test went like this – a missile was fired from an “at sea” platform into the air. The 747 then detected that missile and fired three different beams at it – one to track it, one to monitor the atmosphere between the 747 and the missile, and one to blow that missile straight to hell.
Boeing calls that third laser, “the most powerful mobile laser device in the world” – when the laser connects, it heats up pressurized sections of the weapon targeted, rupturing those sections to take out the missile. All in all, it took two minutes to bring down the missile.
Damn!
