No one has quite figured out how to put together a battlefield ray gun -- yet. But that isn't stopping the U.S. military from getting ready.The Air Force Research Lab is "conducting research... to accurately predict the effects of lasers on various threat targets. Laser vulnerability assessments on space, tactical/ground, and missile, systems, subsystems, and components shall be completed to accurately predict the consequences of lasers interaction with these targets. " The Naval Surface Warfare Center is launching "scientific investigations into the effects of Laser Weapons on marine mammals." And it's looking to "leverage of existing and/or Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) items into militarily useful laser weapon systems within two to three years." The Pentagon's High Energy Laser-Joint Technology Office is taking a slightly longer view, looking to kick in $10 million a year for all kinds of ray guns... from gas-powered lasers to electric ones to free electron lasers.

View: Full Article | Source: Wired

and why do we have to keep advancing our weapon technologies beyond what we need? i dunno if this makes me feel safer or more afraid of why this is happening.

If you look at the history of War as the weapons become more lethal the amount of time in war is drastically reduced.

World war 3 will probably only last a few months but the devestation will be massive.

And the lucky tax payer gets to invest in the future of our own suffering! Aint life grand and don,t it make a whole lotta sense!?

Yay more methods to wipe us off the face of the Earth. Pretty ironic don't you think?

I know-it's disgusting and scary.



Agreed-we are BEGGING to cause our own extinction. Never mind the millions of other problems that need to be solved. I see that our big and powerful leaders have no value for human life.

I think the advantage of high-powered "ray-gun" weapons is that they can be aimed and re-aimed very fast. They're probably intended mostly for shooting down missiles.