WOOT! US army knocks out artillery shell with a Laser!

[Icehawk]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... laser_dc_6

Now THAT is cool. A few more years of advancement and perfecting and effective point defense weaponry will finally be a reality.

[Sea Skimmer]

First firing unit is supposed to go into service in northern Israel in 2003. It however will be fixed and will only be shooting down rockets.

[Darth Wong]

Awesome! Ronnie Reagan's Star Wars program is finally bearing some fruit.

[Mr Bean]

Now we need to link six of these in a Phaser Array and then Target....

THE MOON!

So I want to carve my name up there so what?

[The Dark]

Now we need to link six of these in a Phaser Array and then Target....

THE MOON!

So I want to carve my name up there so what?

Just don't do what Meeko(sp?) did, Bean. I like seeing the moon on crisp autumn nights like tonight (cold front came through-W00T!).

[Mr Bean]

I like seeing the moon on crisp autumn nights like tonight (cold front came through-W00T!).

I'd figured I'd start small and carve The Imperal Symbol 50 Miles in Diamter into the Sea of Tranquility and go from there

[Master of Ossus]

Awesome! Ronnie Reagan's Star Wars program is finally bearing some fruit.

The collapse of the USSR doesn't count as a piece of "fruit" from SW?

[phongn]

Awesome! Ronnie Reagan's Star Wars program is finally bearing some fruit.

The Pentagon is planning a small number of Space-Based Laser satellites to shoot down small-scale ballistic missile attacks

[phongn]

Awesome! Ronnie Reagan's Star Wars program is finally bearing some fruit.

The collapse of the USSR doesn't count as a piece of "fruit" from SW?

Well, SDI was only one of Reagan's programs.

OTOH, we're getting to the point where we can actually use lasers and such for more than just targetting.

[weemadando]

Awesome! Ronnie Reagan's Star Wars program is finally bearing some fruit.

The collapse of the USSR doesn't count as a piece of "fruit" from SW?

*thwap* Read some non-US history books.

Star Wars was a system ceded in talks with the Russians in order to prevent them from rapidly increasing their ground based missile stocks.

I have an essay on it if you want to read it.

[neoolong]

Another cool piece of technology that I wish I could have.

[The Dark]

I'll wait for the F-35 laser, though the anti-arty laser would be useful for groundpounders.

[phongn]

Awesome! Ronnie Reagan's Star Wars program is finally bearing some fruit.

The collapse of the USSR doesn't count as a piece of "fruit" from SW?

*thwap* Read some non-US history books.

So the history books written in the US are wrong and the ones written elsewhere are right?

Star Wars was a system ceded in talks with the Russians in order to prevent them from rapidly increasing their ground based missile stocks.

SDI was a bluff. There really wasn't any real chance of its deployment (we did not have the lift capacity even if we did have all the satellites to move) but it very much scared the USSR, who did think that we could do it - and they could not afford to counter it.

[weemadando]

*thwap* Read some non-US history books.

So the history books written in the US are wrong and the ones written elsewhere are right?

Yeah, sorry... Got to calm down a bit...

Star Wars was a system ceded in talks with the Russians in order to prevent them from rapidly increasing their ground based missile stocks.

SDI was a bluff. There really wasn't any real chance of its deployment (we did not have the lift capacity even if we did have all the satellites to move) but it very much scared the USSR, who did think that we could do it - and they could not afford to counter it.

Indeed, but it was still a creation traded with the Soviets. And not a factor directly responsible for their collapse as MoO claimed.

[Sea Skimmer]

I like seeing the moon on crisp autumn nights like tonight (cold front came through-W00T!).

I'd figured I'd start small and carve The Imperal Symbol 50 Miles in Diamter into the Sea of Tranquility and go from there

I'd rather do the reverse, using my Moon mounted particle beam cannon to carve my name into Iraq.

[Mr Bean]

I'd rather do the reverse, using my Moon mounted particle beam cannon to carve my name into Iraq.

Better the Moon after all everyone can see your name on the moon, But Iraq? Baah

[EmperorMing]

[Dr. Evil mode]

"Witness the awesome power of my Alan Parsons Project..."

[end Dr. Evil mode]

[Lord_Xerxes]

Awesome! Ronnie Reagan's Star Wars program is finally bearing some fruit.

The Pentagon is planning a small number of Space-Based Laser satellites to shoot down small-scale ballistic missile attacks

An article about this came up in Popular Mechanics last year, and when it did, I submitted it to TheForce.Net, and they threw it up. Here's a copy of the article I submitted, which I just pulled out of their archived by a news search:

http://cgi.theforce.net/theforce/tfn.cgi?storyID=10881

More Real-Life SW Tech: Protocol Droids... And Death Stars?
Tue, Jun 12, 01 12:43:58 AM EST

Hot on the heels of the real-life repulsorlift story, Xer'xes sends us the following:
Hey guys, it's Monday, and as I said before, new magazine day. Apparently that last one I sent was last months, cause we got a new Popular Mechanics (July 2001). And this one had not one but two juicy tidbits of of Real-Life following in the footsteps Lucas paved the way for.
"We're doomed" could sum both up. One is comical, the other...shocking.

"Computer scientists at the Massachusetts Institue of Technology (MIT) and Siemens, the German electronics company, have developed robot heads that react to a person's voice with manlike facial expresions Mexi (below ) was built at the C-Lab , a joint venture of Siemens and Germany's University of Paderborn. She will be attached to a body, which is now being developed, and then go to work as a museum tour guide. <"...human-cyborg relations."> A robot named Kismet, from MIT, has a more experessive face and learns from human interaction. "The gaol is to build a socially intelligent machine that learns things as we learn from them," says inventor Cynthia Breazeal. Check it out at Popular Mechanics.

Protocol Droids coming in 2001? A funny side note, the face of the robot featured has that stripped down look of 3PO in TPM.

And then...this.

"You may fire when ready..." ...Too heavy for NASA doesn't mean unfit for duty. One possible mission may be to jump-start the U.S. space-based laser program. A powerful mobile ewapon already exists. It is known as the THEL, for Tactical High Energy Laser. Built by TRW Inc. of Redondo Beach, California, it was intended to protect Israeli settlements against Katyusha rockets fired from southern Lebanon by Hezbollah guerillas. During tests at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, THEL downed two rockets at once. Although tested the system was never shipped to Israel. In space, where the beam from THEL's deuterium-fluoride chemical laser would not be diffused by the atomsphere, it could do more damage. Space-based lasers were essentially forbidden by a treaty between the United States and the U.S.S.R. Recently, the United States has signaled that it plans to ignore the treaty. Coupling Columbia with THEL could put a military laser in space in a matter of months, and not years."

Droids and Death Stars. "We're doomed..." could soon be a commonly heard phrase.

Thanks Xer'xes! Man: Death Stars, protocol droids, repulsorlifts, ion drives, a working holonet, faster-than-light speeds... what'll they come up with next? [/url]

[Sea Skimmer]

I'd rather do the reverse, using my Moon mounted particle beam cannon to carve my name into Iraq.

Better the Moon after all everyone can see your name on the moon, But Iraq? Baah

I'll also get my own real-time recon satellite and hijack a nice chunk of the EM spectrum to broadcast live pictures of it 24/7

[Icehawk]

The really interesting stuff I find is the SBL (Space Based Laser) project thats supposed to be lofted up into orbit for fire testing in 2013. Megawatt class firepower. (Yeah it totally sucks by scifi standards but its a good start I would think)

http://lmms.external.lmco.com/newsburea ... 01.04.html

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Megawatt range firepower is pretty good for Real Life, and it's in the range of Gundam tech.

[Icehawk]

Megawatt range firepower is pretty good for Real Life, and it's in the range of Gundam tech

Sorry to go off topic but... Are you serious about the Gundam tech? I thought the energy weapons in that would easily exceed Megawatt class. Which Gundam series and what weapons do you refer too?

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Pretty much all of them.

The RX-78-2 Gundam's beam sabers were rated at 0.38 MW. That was in UC 0079.

The RX-78GP01 Gundam had two beam rifles rated at 1.5 and 2.2 MW in UC 0083.

The Zeta Gundam's beam sabers were rated at 0.65 MW, and doubled as 1.3 MW beam guns. It also had a beam rifle at 5.7 MW, and the Hyper Mega Launcher is 8.3 MW. This was UC 0087.

The Gundam ZZ had a high mega cannon in its head rated at 50 MW, in UC 0088.

If you go here, you can read a lot about Gundam tech:
http://www.mahq.net/index.htm
Go to "Mecha" and click on "Gundam".

[Icehawk]

Hmmmm. Interesting. Although I wonder if they based those on actual calcs and are not just numbers pulled out of thin air.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

They are official numbers.

MAHQ does not make stuff up. Everything in the tech sections come from offical sources.

Yes, Gundam is weak. But I still love it with all my heart.