Air Force Turns 747 Into Holster for Giant Laser

Steve Schear schear at lvcm.com
Tue Jul 24 23:38:22 PDT 2001


At 04:43 PM 7/24/2001 -0500, Jim Choate wrote:
>On Tue, 24 Jul 2001, Eugene Leitl wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Jim Choate wrote:
> >
> > > Maybe. But even mirrors can be burned through by a laser. And then we've
> >
> > Jim, why are you trying so hard to make a complete fool out of yourself,
> > in a public forum?
> >
> > A chemical laser needs active optics to track your remote target. What do
> > you think that optics is made from, unobtainium? Do you understand basic
> > laws of optics? I recommend purchasing a 15 W laser (and a pair of
> > matching protection goggles), and then use it to ignite a match from a
> > close distance, and then over a few km, preferably during summer in your
> > native Texas. You could target the beam towards a projection wall, and
> > watch it with a pair of binoculars. It will be quite instructive.
>
>The optics used for focusing are NOT mirrors, they are (hopefully)
>transparent at the frequency under use. A mirror on the other hand is
>required to be OPAQUE with respect to transmission, we want full, 100%,
>reflectivity. That means that every photon that hits that mirror
>interacts, loses some energy, and gets re-emitted.

The optics used for focusing are probably mirrors, one fully reflective and 
probably backed by piezo actuators to controllably distort for focus and 
adjust for atmospheric distortions, the other mostly reflecting (to keep 
the lasing process going) to "leak" the lethal beam.

steve






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