Comments on: Laser weapons: A distant target

Boeing and Northrop Grumman report progress in their work toward a tactical laser weapon for the Army, but don't look for it in the field anytime soon.

[expatincebu]

So nice, we keep spending billions to develop new and better ways to kill people. Meanwhile the countries infrastructure is failing, any money to develop clean energy is called socialism, and the nation is trillions in debt and essentially bankrupt.

[Commander_Spock]

Re: "the nation is trillions in debt and essentially bankrupt..." Not necessarily so when it comes to "i-d-e-a-s" though! Besides, of what use is a country going to be to its people if they cannot defend it? Duh! Do you remember these words: "Ask Not What (Your Country) America Can Do For You, But What You Can Do For (Your Country) America"?

[xZero2007x]

expatincebu: Very funny and true. Might want to check your spelling and grammar though. lol. It's weird, but we haven't really had any periods of peace yet, so it's only expected to continue developing weapons technologies. The country's infrastructure failing thing is more in line with our personal money habits in my opinion. Well, that and our constant need to have our car and AC running while expecting it to be cheap. Japan's been paying these prices for a while, and we haven't heard them complaining about it. But clean energy and our debt to ourselves are valid issues. I'd imagine that if we didn't continue projects like these, it'd affect our market in some indirect way, but at the same time, I agree that the money could go to another part of the market to improve on something else.

[jeepwonder]

Why assume because it's military that it won't be useful for civilian use later? In the medical field for one.
A lot of advances have been funded for military purposes and then bled over into other applications. I for one, would love to see this in a smaller scale for zapping mosquitos on my back porch! I had a laser procedure done ten years ago (septioplasty) and it was much quicker to heal and less bleeding that with a scalpel. I for one am glad for advances in controlling and using this kind of light beam.

[ortzinator]

New ways of killing people are usually better than the old ways. For example, accurately guided bombs versus dummy bombs that produce more collateral damage. And I agree with xZero2007x. Stop blaming the government.

[litesong]

When our nighttime astronomy sessions were temporarily clouded out, we would sight in on cars 10 miles away. We would remove the eyepieces & flash powerful lights down the optical tubes. The mirrors would align the light beam & we could illuminate cars 10 miles away with the flashes. If gang members ever came in possession of one the military's optical weapons, it would be death for people 10 miles away.

[Rants&Raves]

How about investing a fraction of military spending on better, more intelligent, diplomacy ? Diplomats these days are seldom career relationists; they are honorific roles given to people at the trailing end of their careers. We need smarter diplomacy, backed by better analysis, and a more refined foreign policy.

And that would all cost a hell of a lot less than a single B-1B.

[willdryden]

Sometimes you just can't talk someone into being reasonable. There are times when force is the only way.

[Rants&Raves]

Diplomacy isn't about "talking people into being reasonable". It is playing chess and winning, well before the end. When you put a soldier on the ground, you lost that game already or didn't value her life enough to play it with all you had.

Priorities are the name of the game in government. Who else do you blame when the economy is failing, the budget isn't balanced, people are suffering and money is being spent on non-essentials while essentials are quintessential? Granted, this is a worthy technology and in the grand scheme of the budget $36 million is a tiny slice of the pie. Where our government needs to focus its efforts in the military spending arena is the area of no-bid contracts that seem to be the favorite of this administration in particular. Billions of dollars are being spent on fraudulent billing for goods and services that were never received. Many of these dubious billed services are provided by private paramilitary groups and contractors that are performing duties that are traditionally borne by the military itself and still should be. First you should be on the phone to your congressman complaining about the fact that no one will stand up and force congress to investigate the company that has infamous ties to Vice President Cheney and companies like it that are pulling in record profits illegally with impunity. (Sen. Byron Dorgan has intorduced numerous efforts to investigate this and somehow the effort is always curtailed). Second, you should register to vote people out of office who support pork barrel spending and oppose clean energy incentives and research. Third, force congress to pass a law limiting the amount of speculation on a single barrel of oil before it reaches the pumps. (Sometimes a barrel of oil can be bought and sold myriad times before it ever reaches someone who can actually do something producttive with it and this serves to drive the price up immensely just for the benefit of the speculator.) We are the people and this is our government, or at least is once was until we became complacent and let self serving individuals corrupt the ranks of our representatives. Do YOUR civic duty and form a consensus as a people and force your leaders to reflect your views in their actions.

[Commander_Spock]

Re: "Third, force congress to pass a law limiting the amount of speculation on a single barrel of oil before it reaches the pumps. (Sometimes a barrel of oil can be bought and sold myriad times before it ever reaches someone who can actually do something producttive with it and this serves to drive the price up immensely just for the benefit of the speculator.)... What is the "production cost" of "a barrel of oil" anyway? Show us the M-A-T-H-S!

[marvinsfane]

A least we don't have to spend too much for a Laser Defence System. There is at least one in every home - a mirror. And surely every missle and shell to be produced will now be polished to a high luster, aluminium or something similar. How about deflecting the laser back to the point of origin and knocking out the Laser weapon itself. Defence becomes Offence!

[willdryden]

The article is slightly behind the times. There was an airborne system deployed in 1992 and the system they are describing was deployed in 2001.

[shevaberg]

I wondering how much China and the other countries of the world are spending to kill us....
At least the government is trying to do something about it...