14 DAY TRIAL // If you were under the impression that only Star Wars spacecrafts can use laser, you are wrong, because soon, the aircrafts will be dogfighting using laser beams, and we are not talking here about the ones used to read the controversial optical formats Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.
Pentagon researchers have devised a laser system small enough to be mounted on an aircraft, which packs enough power to take down enemy missiles.
The system, called High Energy Laser Area Defense System (HELLADS), is the size of a large fridge and it weighs 750 Kg.
So far, such lasers have been too large and required huge cooling systems to prevent them form overheating, the only aircrafts able to carry them being the jumbo jets.
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which has developed the new project, says that the problem was solved by combining liquid state lasers with solid state ones.
Liquid state lasers are able to emit a continuous beam, but they need large cooling systems, while solid state lasers are more powerful, but they can only emit pulses.
"We've combined the high energy density of the solid state laser with the thermal management of the liquid laser," New Scientist quoted project manager Don Woodbury as saying.
The researchers claim that by 2007, they will be able to develop a 150-kW laser, able to take down enemy missiles.
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