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Military's Star Trek Tech Delayed

SATURDAY JULY 9 2005 6:59 PM

Submitted by Shalome. Edited By Shalome.

The US military has had "directed energy" technology available for years, but getting it into the form of a battlefield-practical weapon is taking longer than hoped. Some directed energy weapons act much like phasers from Star Trek -- they have a range of settings from "annoy" to "stun" to "lethal" that hit the target at the speed of light and can be easily redirected and refocused. Certain frequencies can even travel through walls. Couple that with heat-sensing technology that lets you "see" through walls, and you'd be able to immobilize every person in a room before entering -- something soldiers could definitely use on raids.

"It's a great technology with enormous potential, but I think the environment's not strong for it," said James Jay Carafano, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation who blames the military and Congress for not spending enough on getting directed energy to the front. "The tragedy is that I think it's exactly the right time for this."

The flexibility of directed-energy weapons could be vital as wide-scale, force-on-force conflict becomes increasingly rare, many experts say. But the technology has been slowed by such practical concerns as how to shrink beam-firing antennas and power supplies.

Military officials also say more needs to be done to assure the international community that directed-energy weapons set to stun rather than kill will not harm noncombatants.

Certain forms of directed energy weapons are already in use in places like Iraq. A hand-held laser that temporarily blinds a target by filling their field of vision with bright light is already used at checkpoints and roadblocks. These low-power lasers do no permanent damage. Other weapons in development send pulses that disable land mines and vehicles without physically destroying them.

Other energy weapons being developed are on a much larger, much more damaging scale:

A separate branch of directed-energy research involves bigger, badder beams: lasers that could obliterate targets tens of miles away from ships or planes. Such a strike would be so surgical that, as some designers put it at a recent conference here, the military could plausibly deny responsibility.

The main problem with deployment of these weapons is making them small enough to transport easily, and, of course, powering them.

I think it would be great if soldiers could stun or otherwise disable potential enemies using a targeted beam, and without using current chemical or projectile weapons that can cause serious and permanent harm.

21 Comments

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Cassiel

Aurora, CO

September 2004

JUL 09, 2005 07:22 PM

:recalls the laser weapon thing in Real Genius and the video game killing systems in Toys:

vampirelust4

Carrollton, TX

April 2005

JUL 09, 2005 08:19 PM

soooooooo cool

fhaknlknaoinoain

Omaha, NE

April 2004

JUL 09, 2005 08:49 PM

Include this with Japan's biped robot and Gundam is born.

Sexdwarf

Hermosa Beach, CA

February 2003

JUL 09, 2005 10:52 PM

Chemicalreaper said:
Include this with Japan's biped robot and Gundam is born.

Then throw in some shitty a.i. and a bad script and ya got "I, Robot"

MrCrisp

Charleston, SC

August 2004

JUL 09, 2005 11:04 PM

Sexdwarf said:

Chemicalreaper said:
Include this with Japan's biped robot and Gundam is born.

Then throw in some shitty a.i. and a bad script and ya got "I, Robot"

i'm up for that as long as they make a fourth law of robotics.

galaxies

Ashland, KY

September 2003

JUL 10, 2005 01:44 AM

Dude, this is SO awesome... I always dreamed I could grow up in a world with laser guns!

Mike

Titusville, FL

OLD SKOOL

JUL 10, 2005 03:30 AM

I wonder how long it will take to get a civilian version...

JohnFM1

United Kingdom

May 2004

JUL 10, 2005 03:32 AM

Do they still use that brown noise?

FrankMask

Saint Paul, MN

June 2003

JUL 10, 2005 04:03 AM

I thought they never quite figured out the brown noise, and then they discovered ways of doing the same thing without the mess.

traceelement

Australia

March 2005

JUL 10, 2005 04:42 AM

hah take that you alien assholes we have our own directed energy weapons

jake_lex

Lexington, KY

February 2003

JUL 10, 2005 08:19 AM

If you're going to work on Star Trek technology, I want the holodeck and the replicator.

I want a nice extended session with alien hologram babes, then I want to get out and bark "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot." to the replicator.

Fuck "energy beams". I want hologram sex and artifical tea.

Othello

Brooklyn, NY

OLD SKOOL

JUL 10, 2005 08:22 AM

Chemicalreaper said:
Include this with Japan's biped robot and Gundam is born.

Fuck the Japanese Biped, we got an American MECHA!

freshprncebelair

Ellicott City, MD

June 2004

JUL 10, 2005 08:45 AM

I think it would be great if soldiers could stun or otherwise disable potential enemies using a targeted beam, and without using current chemical or projectile weapons that can cause serious and permanent harm.

We are still going to kill enemies. Even if we have this technology

However, if we can use this to stun, we can avoid non-combatant casualites.

We can also take more people alive to use for intelligence purposes.

waldo

I'm lost

June 2004

JUL 10, 2005 09:02 AM

Mike said:
I wonder how long it will take to get a civilian version...

You really want a completely deniable weapon, one where nobody could ever prove which weapon had been used, in civilian hands? Watch the murder rate skyrocket. It's going to be bad enough in military hands.

[Edited on Jul 10, 2005 by waldo]