{"id":5646,"date":"2009-08-07T14:50:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-07T14:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/68.169.38.31\/?p=5646"},"modified":"2009-08-07T14:50:00","modified_gmt":"2009-08-07T14:50:00","slug":"i-wanna-be-airborne-laser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gormogons.com\/index.php\/2009\/08\/i-wanna-be-airborne-laser\/","title":{"rendered":"I Wanna Be an Airborne Laser&#8230;!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.airforce-technology.com\/projects\/abl\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">So check this out<\/a>.  The US Air Force has toyed with the idea of putting a high powered laser on the nose of an aircraft for a long time.  The problem with this is that air has enough particulate matter to distort lasers over long distances.  The further you fire the beam, the more the dust and smoke and pollen distorts the laser so that it scatters and weakens badly.<\/p>\n<p>Now what do you do? The USAF simply figured this out: put a laser on a Boeing 747-400F, and fire three lasers simultaneously.  The first, the COIL, is a chemical oxygen iodine laser powerful enough to destroy a hefty target from miles away.  To prevent the scattering effect, a second laser called the TILL (track illuminating laser) locks onto the target and determines the distance so the COIL knows what to hit.  The third laser, the becon illuminating laser (or BILL), studies the light reflected off the target by the TILL, and then measures how much scattering and distortion and scintillation is occuring at that precise moment.  Then, just as we use <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gemini.edu\/public\/adaptive.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">adaptive optics<\/a> with earthbound telescopes, mirrors <i>pre-distort<\/i> the COIL beam so that as it travels&#8230;the effects of the atmosphere distort it back into its original, lethal, and precise shape.<\/p>\n<p>People say that astronomy never produced anything useful.  Are you kidding? When you weaponize astronomy, it gets very cool indeed!<\/p>\n<p>(The Mandarin regrets he didn&#146;t think of this first. I did however manage to weaponize a lawn sprinkler, but couldn&#146;t find a hose long enough to orbit it. But we are making progress!)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.weaponsblog.org\/images\/airborne-laser-aircraft_18.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; FLOAT: right; CURSOR: hand\" title=\"The ABL YAL 1A Airborne Laser\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.weaponsblog.org\/images\/airborne-laser-aircraft_18.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So check this out. The US Air Force has toyed with the idea of putting a high powered laser on the nose of an aircraft for a long time. The problem with this is that air has enough particulate matter <span class=\"excerpt-dots\">&hellip;<\/span> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/gormogons.com\/index.php\/2009\/08\/i-wanna-be-airborne-laser\/\"><span class=\"more-msg\">Continue reading &rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1821,2040,1420,214,1060],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-defense","category-dr-evil","category-lasers","category-star-wars","category-usaf"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>I Wanna Be an Airborne Laser...! - The Gormogons<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/gormogons.com\/index.php\/2009\/08\/i-wanna-be-airborne-laser\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I Wanna Be an Airborne Laser...! - The Gormogons\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"So check this out. The US Air Force has toyed with the idea of putting a high powered laser on the nose of an aircraft for a long time. 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