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The toy-like drones destroyed during an Army field exercise at Fort Sill, Okla., last month weren't anything special; however, the way they were brought down -- zapped out of the sky by lasers mounted on a Stryker armored vehicle -- might grab people's attention.
The first soldier to try out the lasers was Spc. Brandon Sallaway, a forward observer with the 4th Infantry Division. He used a Mobile Expeditionary High Energy Laser to shoot down an 18-by-10-inch drone at 650 yards, an Army statement said.
"It's nothing too complicated but you have to learn how to operate each system and get used to the controls which is exactly like a video game controller," said Sallaway, who hadn't fired a laser before the exercise.
The drone-killing laser was relatively low energy -- only 5 kilowatts -- but the Army has tested much more powerful weapons. A 30-kilowatt truck-mounted High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator shot down dozens of mortar rounds and several drones in November 2013 at White Sands Missile Range, N.M.
Since then, researchers have made rapid advances in laser weapons, said Bob Ruszkowski, who works on air dominance projects and unmanned systems in Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works facility.
"We're really on the cusp of seeing the introduction of lasers in future systems," he said.
Which do you prefer, lasers or plasma weapons?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 31 2017, @01:14PM (2 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Country_of_the_Blind [wikipedia.org]
"... Nuñez slowly starts trying to explain sight to her. Medina-Saroté, however, simply dismisses it as his imagination. When Nuñez asks for her hand in marriage, he is turned down by the village elders on account of his "unstable" obsession with "sight". The village doctor suggests that Nuñez's eyes be removed, claiming that they are diseased and are affecting his brain. Nuñez reluctantly consents to the operation because of his love for Medina-Saroté. ..."
Lasers can be used in all sorts of helpful ways -- including to launch spacecraft into orbit so people can migrate to space habitats which could support exponential growth of human populations for another 1000 years. Sad that once again: "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Wednesday May 31 2017, @02:26PM
I read the story a long time ago and found it entertaining but ridiculous, as with much of HG Wells work. Seriously - it's trivially easy to prove that vision exists (I can tell how many fingers you're holding up from across the room!), and if everyone else actively refuses to believe you, you still have the option of just shutting up about it and quietly using your "psychic powers" to give yourself a major advantage.
And why would you bother trying to describe a powerful extra sense to those who will never experience it and do not know the lack in the first place? Seems like a pretty jerk move by a guy who just wants to be recognized as special rather than actually using his gift for something useful. The one-eyed man isn't king because the blind exalt him for his difference, he can become king because he has incredible powers of perception far beyond what anyone else can wield.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday May 31 2017, @04:41PM
Exponential growth in space is a delusion. At least if you're thinking of any very high exponent. Mere survival in space is going to be quite difficult. I will agree that it's highly worthwhile, and the only real future that isn't eventually disastrous, but it's not going to lead to a rapid population increase within the next few centuries.
I suppose it's technically correct to talk of population growth with a doubling time of a couple of centuries as exponential, but that's not how people normally understand the term. Resources in space while vast are rather sparsely distributed, and accelerated movement requires lots of energy. Various forms of ion-jet are a lot more efficient than chemical rockets, but they aren't fast, and they don't get away from the minimum energy cost. Solar sails also depend on the energy cost and are also slow, and can only move in limited directions, but they *do* get their energy directly from the sun without a lot of intermediate conversion as would be required to run an ion rocket. Somebody may someday come up with something better, but until they do that's not the way to bet.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.