RE: New TBMD Laser

As this seems to be the best way to deal with firing a laser through an 
atmosphere, most combat lasers would probably have this feature. 
There's a 
couple of was to work around the atmospheric distortion - they were
doing 
some tests with a Space Shuttle (Atlantis, I think) bouncing beams from 
Hawaii off the Shuttle and vice versa.	With particle beams you have 
another problem entirely - beam scatter/distortion due to the planet's 
magnetic field.  You get around it be altering the charge on the
projectile 
particles.  It all kind of depends on your particular FT background.

I wonder how useful this TBMD laser palne would be at shooting down
other 
aircraft.  If the beam footprint is the size of a basketball, unless
they 
can hold it on the target for a *long* time (probably not), that's an 
enormous amount of energy being delivered.  Might be able to finish off
a 
plane right quick.

Noah

-----Original Message-----
From:	Los [SMTP:los@cris.com]
Sent:	Wednesday, September 02, 1998 11:07 AM
To:	FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
Subject:	Re: New TBMD Laser

Tim Jones wrote:

> It uses a flexible mirror to correct for atmospheric
> distortion and increase its range.

Yes and if I'm reading the article right (probably not):

1. The targetting laser paints the target.
2. The returning beam is measured for distortion. Assessing the
atmorshphere between the laser and the missle.
3. The "rubber mirrors or lenses" distort the primary beam as it's fired
by the atmosphere, in almost an opposite fashion. The beam can be over a
meter in diameter as it leaves the AC.
4. The very atmosphere the laser is passing through refocuses the
distorted beam so that when it reached the target, it's back into its
killing configuration (roughly the shape of a basketball.)

In FT usage, would this specify that a space-based Beam system is
potentially ineffective against atmospheric targets unless it contains a
similar distortion-compensating mechanism?

Los