We're rather impressed with the US Air Force and their Starfire project. It's not every day you get to build a death ray on a desert hill in New Mexico and write it off as a scientific endeavor. The premise is that since the atmosphere diffracts light, messing up the view of ground-based optical telescopes, the Starfire shoots a laser 56 miles into the mesosphere and measures the distortion to adjust the telescope optics. Images from the Starfire are 40 times more accurate than regular, but the laser technology is coincidentally multi-purpose: "We don't hide the fact that it could help build an anti-satellite weapon," says the installation's chief, "if you choose to do it." Our thoughts exactly.
posted Jun 28th 2006 6:02PM
I, for one, welcome our new robot death ray overlords.
This station is now the ultimate power in the universe?
*cue humping mini me*
Its like that Satellite that Peter Griffin always fantasized about, the one that has a laser beam that can scratch your glutes form outer space!!! only this one is the other way around.... well, its a start!!!
Alexander W.
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All it does is blind the sattilites not blow them up.
I think the Air Force already has a laser that can shoot down stuff like satellites: http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/asat/miracl.htm
2-words - Friggin' sweet.
NOW! Witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational... um... satellite blindey thingy....
Satellites Shmatellites, I want something to cook the birds that shit on my car.
The power to measure atmospheric distortions is insignificant compared to the power of The Force.
is there a handheld version on thinkgeek yet?
I just read about this in the book "The Jasons".
@ henry
anything that has a starfleet insignia loses credibility
other than that, im with justin.
The Federation of American Scientists is pretty credible, IMO.
They tested MIRACL in 1997 on an old satellite, not to blow it up, but just to see how well they could target it.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/library/news/1997/t10231997_t1023asd.html
I wonder how effective (if at all) this technology would be against missiles.
Mini-me! Quit humping the fricken "laser". You and the "laser" should get a fricken room!
http://wickedlasers.com/products.php?content=spyder
isnt exactly going to take down satellites but is damn cool
How long untill portable versions come out that could be attached to something smallish , like say .. a sharks head ?
You know what really creeps me out is that Tom Swift did this in the book, Moonstalker, released in 1992.
This is not new. I saw a similar technology to this Starfire at the Lawrence Livermore National lab in California around 1992. They had to get air space clearance and divert any planes from the area around the lab.
They touted it back then as a method to modify their adaptive optics to improve earth based telescopes...
How is this different?
You just wait until James Bond has to prevent some evil gazillionaire from effin up something with the laser.
-G.
Starfire destroyed the Columbia space shuttle with their laser weapons. http://geocities.com/plautus_satire/columbia/X/
Could it be used to interfere with a fully operational death star ? i heard they were heading to tattoine !!!