Now that's a laser

[kalimus]

A test rocket is far from the only thing certain lasers have been tested on. And that's all I'm going to say on that topic ;-)

[DGthe3]

Originally Posted by CamaroSkooter

Not so much reflective as insulated. A reflective material can still be heated quite easily.

I imagine the software is not programmed to handle super erratic behavior, though. While I'm sure it could be adjusted to account for it, it will make the tracking and focusing exponentially more difficult.

But I think, at that point, money would be better spent developing an insulated missile rather than an erratically behaving one. Besides, could you imagine how difficult it would be to "test" an erratically behaving missile?

Yeah more passive means like insulation (or reflection ... or both) would probably be more effective, since such 'super erratic' behaviour would be next to impossible to achieve. A missile cannot stop its forward progress in mid air, and if it can't stop it can't move sideways. All it can do is turn up/down/left/right or go straight. So the movement will be continuous. And continuous movement of something the size of a missile is always predictable (to within a couple inches) in the short term -say on the order of 1/10 of a second. If you update your targeting data at a much higher frequency than that it will be next to impossible for the target to lose the lock. Compounding the problem is the fact that the laser can adjust its aim nearly instantaneously.


As I think about it ... imagine a missile with a rigged exterior (increasing its surface area, making it easier to disipate heat), that is a polished metal that reflects 95% of incoming light. Now keep the missile spinning while its in flight, preventing the laser from focusing on one specific point but instead has to heat up an entire band around the missile body. That could buy it enough time to get the missile beyond the effective range of a point defence laser.

On the other hand ... such defensive measures can only do so much. But lasers can always get more powerful. And the reflective of a material is somewhat dependant on the wavelength hitting it. As I understand it, shorter wavelengths are harder to reflect than longer. So something that can easily reflect IR light won't be as efficient with UV. And whatever isn't reflected is turned into heat. Even if reflectivity drops from 95% to 80%, that is a 4x increase in the amount of heat being absorbed by the target for a laser beam of equal power.


I seem to be rambling ... so I'll stop here, for now at least.

[trewyn15]

that's badass!

[KaBoom1701]

Oh man!

I was expecting to see a blue or red lazer! lol

[RubyCamaro]

Pretty darn cool!

[oklapike]

Originally Posted by KaBoom1701

Oh man!

I was expecting to see a blue or red lazer! lol

Yep. I'm not sure how many folks are aware of this, but the brightly-colored laser beams we see in movies are not even close to physically accurate. Laser light is invisible, it can only be seen when and where it interacts with particulates in air (smoke, dust, etc.) or solid objects (like the rocket).

[DGthe3]

Originally Posted by KaBoom1701

Oh man!

I was expecting to see a blue or red lazer! lol

Whenever I hear mention of red and blue lasers, I can't help but think of this handy pie chart ...

[Vengeance Graphix]

damn thats crazyy