Israeli Space Lasers

[Ug make hammer]

OK, the qualifier "Israeli" is bait, but I'm serious. Are space lasers really a thing?


Lasers aren't legitimate weapons on the ground, for several reasons:

1. They don't have the range through near-sea-level atmosphere, to justify their other drawbacks,
2. They can't hit targets below the horizon
3. They violate the Geneva convention by blinding civilians

They also requiring huge amounts of electricity which can only be provided on a mobile platform, by nuclear reactors.

So way out at sea where there are no civilians, and a big warship has the power to operate them, they may be somewhat practical. The US certainly has them, and I know that because China has them and isn't smart enough to hide them.

But from orbit, most of these problems go away. Shooting straight down on targets there is no concern about backrange, and with much less atmosphere between the space laser and the target, it could be closely focussed to take out one person. Bodyguards or family standing nearby would get nothing worse than hair on fire. And nuclear reactors in orbit would be nothing new.

Israel is a long shot, but odds are the US, Russia and China all have this technology. And we won't know until some crazy leader uses it.

 

[MamboDervish]

OK, the qualifier "Israeli" is bait, but I'm serious. Are space lasers really a thing?


[*]Lasers aren't legitimate weapons on the ground, for several reasons:

• 1. They don't have the range through near-sea-level atmosphere, to justify their other drawbacks,
  2. They can't hit targets below the horizon,
  3. They violate the Geneva convention by blinding civilians
  
  They also requiring huge amounts of electricity which can only be provided on the battlefield by nuclear reactors
  
  So way out at sea where there are no civilians, and a big warship has the power to operate them, they may be somewhat practical. The US certainly has them, and I know that because China has them and isn't smart enough to hide them.
  
  But from orbit, most of these problems go away. Shooting straight down on targets there is no concern about backrange, and with much less atmosphere between the space laser and the target, it could be closely focussed to take out one person. Bodyguards or family standing nearby would get nothing worse than hair on fire. Nuclear reactors in orbit would be nothing new.
  
  Israel is a long shot, but odds are the US, Russia and China all have this technology. And we won't know until some crazy leader uses it.

We'll be able to recognize the threshold of their implementation when we start to see the launch of orbit sweepers designed to destroy, or disable, opposition satellites. Concurrent with ideas of any such weapon would be the creation of its countermeasures. There is nothing more fleeting on earth than technological military superiority.

If you can build it, you can destroy it.

 

[NatMorton]

 

[Ug make hammer]

And if that doesn't get your juices flowing, what if Biden's scanty hair catches on fire and he drops dead of hyperthermia? Harris carries the House and Senate with a war agenda against whoever did it, and it's a year later and we're still not sure if it was the Russians or the Chinese who killed our President?

Scientists could tell you which satellite (or satellites, mulitple beams from different directions would work best, as in radiotherapy) were overhead at the time, but politics has undermined the scientific consensus. Any major power planning to assassinate the US President would surely invest in scientific opinion to muddy the waters.

 

[Loulit01]

And if that doesn't get your juices flowing, what if Biden's scanty hair catches on fire and he drops dead of hyperthermia? Harris carries the House and Senate with a war agenda against whoever did it, and it's a year later and we're still not sure if it was the Russians or the Chinese who killed our President?

Scientists could tell you which satellite (or satellites, mulitple beams from different directions would work best, as in radiotherapy) were overhead at the time, but politics has undermined the scientific consensus. Any major power planning to assassinate the US President would surely invest in scientific opinion to muddy the waters.

I gave you a like for weirdness.

 

[Ug make hammer]

We'll be able to recognize the threshold of their implementation when we start to see the launch of orbit sweepers designed to destroy, or disable, opposition satellites.

I disagree. The Russians are notorious for "barrel" satellites, which do nothing we can tell. They're just there, waiting.

Concurrent with ideas of any such weapon would be the creation of its countermeasures. There is nothing more fleeting on earth than technological military superiority.

If you can build it, you can destroy it.

I'm guessing that half the military stuff in orbit, is anti-satellite. But we should not be reassured about the other half. "Communications" they say.

 

[Ug make hammer]

I gave you a like for weirdness.

Thankyou, but it's genuinely scary. The US can make war on Russia, and take all the republics off them at the point of more accurate missiles and better ABM. The US can make war on China and humble them. But make war on both? Because the US can't be sure who killed their President? It's a nightmare which make the Cold War seem like two good old boys having a tussle on the pavement.

 

[bomberfox]

Checkerboard already explained there is such a thing as space lasers but not enough to actually do damage.

 

[Argent]

Are space lasers really a thing?

Yep,

A Powerful 'Space Laser' Has Been Detected Beaming From Deep Space

Powerful, radio-wavelength laser light has been detected emanating from the greatest distance across deep space yet.

www.sciencealert.com

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Checkerboard already explained there is such a thing as space lasers but not enough to actually do damage.

Oh no, they CAN do damage.
What I said was, back in the Reagan SDI era, they couldn't figure out how to reliably aim it and control the tracking of the target.
But believe me, it passed the test as far as being able to destroy a target a very long distance away, it's just that the target was also held stationary, so it was
almost like a "canned hunt" where people get to pretend that they hunted a wild beast.

Here's the "Thermal X-Ray Laser" my father helped develop. And since he was Jewish, it qualifies as a real actual genuine "Jewish Space Laser".
Forgive the juxtaposition of objects left to right, phone cameras in front don't flip everything to compensate on selfies.



Today the technology for aim and tracking is apparently worthy of deployment in a real life situation.

 

[Ug make hammer]

Oh no, they CAN do damage.
What I said was, back in the Reagan SDI era, they couldn't figure out how to reliably aim it and control the tracking of the target.
But believe me, it passed the test as far as being able to destroy a target a very long distance away, it's just that the target was also held stationary, so it was
almost like a "canned hunt" where people get to pretend that they hunted a wild beast.

Here's the "Thermal X-Ray Laser" my father helped develop. And since he was Jewish, it qualifies as a real actual genuine "Jewish Space Laser".
Forgive the juxtaposition of objects left to right, phone cameras in front don't flip everything to compensate on selfies.

View attachment 67385867

Today the technology for aim and tracking is apparently worthy of deployment in a real life situation.

Very interesting, thankyou.

X-rays have trouble getting through atmosphere, so that design would only be useful in space, against space targets. Correct?

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Very interesting, thankyou.

X-rays have trouble getting through atmosphere, so that design would only be useful in space, against space targets. Correct?

It was built for Reagan's SDI, and yes the target used in testing was out in space.
Believe it or not my old man used to have a small piece of one of the targets sitting on our bookcase shelf for a while.
After he died (1986) I kept it, and then one day in 1995 a seemingly kindly gentleman from R&D Associates (a Defense Nuclear Agency contractor in Marina del Rey - last outfit Dad worked for)
showed up and politely asked if I'd let him have it. He seemed intent on having me understand how badly they wanted it back.
Looking back I wished I'd been a bit more reluctant to just hand it over, it was nothing but a small hunk of scrap metal about the size of a small coffee saucer with
a very pitted and pockmarked plate on one side.