NEWS: The Future of Fighter Jets.. Now with Added Lasers!

GEEK: The Future of Fighter Jets.. Now with Added Lasers!

The US military has developed a combination liquid- and solid-state laser that is designed to be mounted on fighter planes.

Aside from the Star-Wars-style coolness of this technology... is anyone else scared shitless at the thought of military jets with laser beams?

man, wouldn't it be great if we could spend money on things that mattered?

No, not really. Given that there are already precision munitions with ranges in the tens and hundreds of miles, AC-130 gunships, Apache attack helicopter's, and so on, Laser beams aren't much more intimidating.

Maybe if they mounted the laser beams to flying sharks. Then I might have problem.

Dude, you know they're totally going to find a way to burn "Ph34r M3!" into nearby hillsides with this technology. Psychological warfare, man.

I dunno, developing military technology seems to lead to vast improvements in other areas as well; I think R&D is one of the most valuable things the military does, but I'm silly in a lot of other ways too.

I wish I had an attractive girl fellating me while I sit and type this, but it seems as though we're both out of luck. Unless you know someone?!

But the lasers aren't of "fricken" spec....it would be an excercise in futility.

We could throw a ton of money at NASA instead of the military to the same effect.

We could also throw a wad of money at agencies to improve the infrastructure in the country: update energy grid and production, build bullet trains and light rail, etc.

All you really need is investment and an area where a problem can be defined. Then, it's straightforward to set people to work to advance current technology to the point that it provides a desirable solution to the problem.

No...we couldn't. I mean in theory we could, but in actual fact we couldn't, because you can't convince most Americans that they desperately need NASA. Or an improved energy grid for that matter, oddly enough. Better fighter planes than China though...that people seem sure we need.

The other thing about the Military that's handy is that they do a whole lot of fieldwork so technology put into their hands seems to advance fairly quickly.

I mean you could spend the money in better ways in a perfect, or perhaps more reasonable world, but in this one we can at least be thankful that there are benefits to the money we throw at the military beyond a higher ability to deal out carnage.

Nowhere near as fast as the private/consumer sector. The military has to buy hardware that will last, and be standardised. That's _slow_.

Example: Computers.
Example: Vehicles.

Counterexamples welcome

I don't disagree with this, in fact I have to admit that I was going to far in your quote of me; but the military tends to buy it's things from the private sector, and the technology demand it creates pushes things along. You offered the example of computers, but the propelling demand for computer technology came from the military, same deal with the internet.

I doubt cellular phones, satellite phones or global positioning technology would be anywhere near as avanced as they are if there was no military demand for the items.

Vehicles, a lot like computers, are another example of a technology whose early advances we can thank military demand for.

I guess what I mean to say through this is that military demand for products seems to legitimize them by creating a large and rich market for them--once the private sector starts to try to compete for sales they find other uses for the items. Then, 3 weeks later, everyone has a fucking cellphone and I feel the urge to smack my head against the table.

Alright, I've gone away from what I originally said, but I reserve the right to evolve my ideas as people show me the terrible inconsistencies, mistakes and ignorance in my original ones...

Yes, on the one hand the military's technology is behind the civilian sectors I hd an uncle who worked on radar systems and he was repairing equipment with vacuum tubes and refridgerator-sized hard drives just a few years ago. But, military research has created some very important advances that the private sector probably wouldn't have had the coordination or the money to create:

Miniature microprosessors (created for missile guidance systems)
The Internet (created for researchers at DARPA)
Interchangable parts (perfected at the Springfield Armory in the 1820's for gun manufacturing)
The settlement of the South and Southwest (sped along by policies to deconcentrate military manufacturing and research away from a few vunerable population centers).

Add in the post office, which helped to fund transportation improvements like steamship lines up the Mississippi (helped to settle the West), air transportation, and government land grants to railroads to create cost-to-coast rail networks (also primarily to carry mail) and there isn't much of importance that happened in the US that wasn't directly initiated by government policies. IMHO, anyway.

At least these weapons are currently only used to defend the fighters by shooting down incoming missiles, and not for offensive purposes. I think it's great that we can improve the survivability of our pilots, althougn I wonder if it could be more cost-effectively improved by adding better armor, better jamming equipment, or *gasp* not sending them into BATTLE in the first f*ing place.

That said, despite their cool sci-fi cred, laser weapons are not really any greater in most respects that other weapons. Since their power requirements are enormous, their output generally low, and their effective range somewhat limited by atmosphereic conditions, it seems to me that their only advantage is speed. Which makes them useful mainly for defensive purposes (i.e. shooting down extremely fast-moving munitions). They're cool and scary, but not particularly dangerous. At least, not more than other weapons...for now.

I think it depends on the economic circumstances at the time, who's in office, how charasmatic they are, and how they motivate the issue.

That's not exactly true.

From the time the military solicits designs for a concept, goes through the competitions, selects a design, and puts it in the hands of soldiers, there is generally a very large period of time that passes. It's the same lag time you see in all design implementation.

Furthermore, some of the militaries advances are directly related to fighting wars. F-16s and F-15s were developed following the wars in southeast Asia, for example, due to the poor performance of their predecessors. In some cases, like that, it takes a multi-billion dollar war to point out the design flaws in a piece of equipment and billions more to provide for the designs to fix them or for outright replacements.

That's not an efficient use of capital.

Yeah, I'm thankful for the side-benefits to the ways we currently allocate our resources. But I'm still hoping that reason catches on in the US sometime soon.

[Edited on Aug 25, 2005 by emperorreagan]

The Springfield Armory was an amazing place.

When they were building guns, they would throw out entire lots of parts if one part in that lot came in out of spec. They were very serious about making sure that US soldiers carried the best and most reliable weapons possible.

I just recently found out that the government sells surplus M1 Garands from the old Springfield Armory in varying conditions to the public, providing that one meets a few basic requirements. I really want one.



[Edited on Aug 25, 2005 by emperorreagan]

will there be green ones for good guys and red ones for bad guys?

I don't recall suggesting that it was efficient, in fact I thought I at least impled otherwise. As for your point about NASA...military technological innovations hasn't seemed to be bound by the same constraints. Again, I'm not trying to argue that it's the best way, just that it isn't the complete and utter waste of money people make it out to be, and that pretending that military spending in R&D is a complete waste of money.

"with this 'laser'" - dr evil

Give a shit i want one
defeat my enemys now i can

Give a shit i want one
defeat my enemys now i can

well, then what would you have us do? sit around and play spades, drink, and keep a pack of smokes tucked in our helmets? honestly, what is a military good for if not for fighting? it's ok, we understand it's our job to go into battle...it's kinda why we signed up and volunteered.

absolutely not. we all knew this kind of thing was coming, it's simply the next wave in the advancement of fighter plane technology. I commend the scientists and engineers for being able to develop such an addition. the same arguement could be applied to fighter planes 50 years ago, with the addition of automatic 20mm cannons.