US Navy shoots down drone with electric-powered laser

Emily L said:

I'm always curious as to whether you can actually see the laser in person, or if the beam we see in those pictures is just added for illustration purposes. Does anybody know?

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longview said:

My information is very dated, but they were attempting this with CO2 lasers, which have a wavelength of 9.6 or 10.6 um way longer than humans can see. On a strategic level, it is probably better to not have a big viable beam identifying where your source is.

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Oozlefinch said:

Actually, that is not true.

It requires a rather large device to create such an event, 1 megaton or larger. Also, this effect does not cover a huge area, only around 1,000 miles.

NEMP is a "boogieman" to a lot of people, and those who fear it generally have no reason to. Not unlike those that scream there are enough nukes to "destroy all life on the plant 100 times over" or some such, they greatly exaggerate the potential damage from one even if it does happen. It will not eliminate most of our communication, it will not take out the entire power grid, or any of the other effects some claim unless dozens were set off. And the only country that could do that is Russia, and I can guarantee they are not going to waste nukes by setting them off in space if there is a real nuclear war on.

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Tbird19482 said:

Do you remember when we had one from the sun?

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Tbird19482 said:

Do you remember when we had one from the sun?
Took out a lot of stuff in the north east years ago ( power system went down )
and we still get them from the sun and they still disrupt communications of all types
When I was working in the SOSUS system in the NAVY we had what they called the " A " train and we correlated it with sun spots.
We were getting interference from the sun thousands of feet below the surface of the ocean and it disrupted our detection of Soviet subs.
Yes that is not only noise but EMP's all at one time
and as I said ask any ham operator on just how much damage and interference the Sun does not only with noise but EMP's
Have a nice day

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longview said:

My information is very dated, but they were attempting this with CO2 lasers, which have a wavelength of 9.6 or 10.6 um way longer than humans can see. On a strategic level, it is probably better to not have a big viable beam identifying where your source is.

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Bodhisattva said:

It is possible that they added atmospheric dye after it is atomized and combined it to the laser beam...

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