Light and Death

This is about death in the form of light. Or more specifically, it's about different forms of electromagnetic radiation and weapons technology.

I first got started thinking about this lasers and death rays from Jim, a friend I work with for my day job. Jim has basically worked for a lot of really cool thinktank type places, like Bell Labs, NASA, etc...you get the idea. Now he's slumming it in quasi-retirement with academics. Jim and I like chewing the fat over any number of esoteric topics du jour. So...since Jim has worked on a lot of interesting projects over the years, including, as it turns out, intercontinental missile defense (or something pretty darn near it).

When you're a big government/research lab with lots of dough and lots of brain power, I guess it's pretty obvious that you're going to start thinking about REALLY big weapons before long. Maybe it's a guy thing. In one of our little chats, I had a recollection of Reagan's infamous Star Wars speech and the determined follow-up in the press of the unfeasibility of the whole thing. At the time I was quite young and more impressionable so I didn't really question the status quo. Now I had a chance, what did Jim think of this? He was succinct. The solution to missile defense shields were well known in the 1960s...laser cannons. Presumably the movability, the ability to refire, and the range, would really help. So...did such things exist? Well, he remarked that the technology for dealing with smaller more efficient lasers certainly existed right now. Back then, they'd even discussed issues like cloud cover (solution? infrared).

Jim was right. Sure enough I noticed an article by the associated press a few months later that mentioned that laser cannon technology had improved to the point where they were "exponentially smaller than a refrigerator" with applications for planes. Yeah, who thought that up that phrase? I can't find the original article, but this seems close: DARPA's "Star Wars" style laser cannon .

Now, they don't mention space applications, but they are obvious, aren't they? If you could solve the fuel problem for SVs or at least a method of collected fuel (like through solar panels) and passing them between them, you'd probably get close. Nice. But lasers aren't the only way. How about messy, non-coherent light like the sun's rays?

Turns out Archimedes, *may* have thought of that one as well.

A group of MIT students played around with the idea of using mirrors to focus the sun's rays onto mock ships. Here's their page on the matter:

MIT Archimedes Death Ray Experiment

Fun eh? Doesn't it make you want to set one up somewhere to annoy/scorch the neighbors?

So, now it's established that it's possible that one could exist, the question is does it? Dunno. But aside from all the good geek paranoid fun, what are the political implications of such a system?

A system that would be affordable to only a very few and make all the intercontinental missile arsenal defunct and ... well, it's obvious isn't it?

But that's not the only application out there.

I read this little article in the Guardian about lasers that can be used to see through solid objects. Yes, superman x-ray vision could be yours! And who says those guys were paranoid for thinking that G.I. sunglasses could be used to see through clothing! Now, of course, they have been vindicated in this article, which claims that the first steps have been taken in using lasers to see through solid objects. Cool.

Here's a final tangent on more government research on laser weapons. I've been reading about dazzlers for a while (though they aren't as cool as laser cannons or death rays) and finally we have some actual press.
Check it out - blinding your enemy or just annoying them with a REALLY BIG LASER POINTER.
Our government dollars at work! Well, not that hard at work. What's a million dollars here and there?
And on the laser weapon blinding you theme, why do we have a ban on weapons in warfare that maim or disfigure? Does this really make sense in that we don't ban weapons that KILL people? Although I guess we do have bans on weapons that really efficiently kill people (missile treaties and so forth). So...there's some middle ground here? It's okay to kill people in battle if you use the right weapons that don't work too efficiently and don't maim them intentionally to avoid killing them. I guess that shows that most of our wars, even the so-called "total wars" have some kind of political goals in which utterly annilating and/or maiming the enemy is counter productive.