Air Force Turns 747 Into Holster for Giant Laser (washingtonpost.com)

[Steve Schear]

At 06:05 PM 7/23/2001 -0500, Jim Choate wrote:
>On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Steve Schear wrote:
>
> > >It's the one they use primarily.
> >
> > Only because the rocket exterior has not been "stealthed" via high
> > reflectivity and faceting.
>
>Maybe. But even mirrors can be burned through by a laser. And then we've
>got weight issues that this would entail. It's not like they've got a lot
>of overhead for the job. I suspect that faceting wouldn't be any more
>effective than a smoothly round body form, it could have aerodynamic
>effects as well (ie sharp corners at the facet edges - and yes they could
>be rounded - now you're moving back toward a round rocket planform).

Ahhh but  faceted exterior would deny the adversary less a visual or radar 
cross section to acquire and track (yeah I know about the tail plume).

steve