Dec 19
We weren’t aware the moon was a source of “dark power,” but apparently it is. That power has been harnessed in one of Wicked Lasers’ latest creations, the Lunar laser.
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Apr 09
When do we see lasers in action? Well, most of the time, lasers are depicted in science fiction movies sometime in the far off future, where mankind has explored the galaxies far and wide, bringing along with them their sense of adventure and warfare (it is inevitable, as the entire universe is atrophying, so resisting conflict would be futile), and in a case of self-defense (or offense for some), a quick laser shot would do the trick nicely. Star Trek has their phasers, while the X-Wings in the Star Wars universe will see lasers shot from the tips of the S-Foils. The thing is, when will such high tech warfare and weaponry arrive on planet earth? It seems that the answer is “in the right here and now”, where the US Navy has already received its very own kind of laser cannon that has made short work of drones bobbing away in a distance, and said laser cannons can be fitted to active warships.
The US Navy will obviously start to fit their own ships that sail the seven seas with lasers, touting that this represents the future of warfare. Also known as the Laser Weapon System or Laws for short, it has seen action in testing areas, shooting down drones, and considering how it relies on electricity to fire, it costs under $1 per shot – which should be as efficient in disabling a small vessel on the sea, and when you compare it to a $475,000 Sidewinder missile, it makes a whole lot more economical sense to implement Laws throughout their fleet, no?
Interestingly enough, the prototype is not expensive either, where it costs less than $40 million to make, which is a drop in the ocean that the US call their defense budget. It will be installed aboard the USS Ponce, where said vessel has been assigned to the status of a floating base in the Middle East, although this is set to happen sometime after October this year. The Navy has hope that incoming missiles will be unable to outmanoeuvre a highly accurate laser beam that is fired at the speed of light, and for the controller, this could very well be a video game of sorts, although real lives are at stake.
Source
[ US Navy gets laser cannon of their own copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
Jul 15
NIF sets record with 500 TW laser shot, lab-based nuclear fusion not far behind
Posted in: Today's Chili 
In an effort to recreate the fusion reaction that occurs in start formation, the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, CA has been building up to some extremely powerful laser shots. Back in March, researchers fired off 411 terawatts, and we know that kind of power doesn’t come cheap. NIF’s latest test shot, fired July 5th, set a new record with 192 lasers producing more than 500 trillion watts of peak power and 1.85 MJ of ultraviolet laser light. Mind you, that’s more than a thousand times more energy than the United States uses at any given moment, not to mention a hundred times more power than other lasers can fire consistently. More record-setting shots are sure to come, and in addition to enabling research on harnessing nuclear fusion, NIF’s mega-lasers are helping inform the design of new laser facilities being built in China, Japan, Russia, France and the UK.
Filed under: Science
NIF sets record with 500 TW laser shot, lab-based nuclear fusion not far behind originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 15 Jul 2012 06:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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