3 ms·
would the atmosphere along the beam path vaporize in short order at those power levels, so scattering/attenuation is temporary for a fixed beam?
by jjtheblunt 3y ago
would the atmosphere along the beam path vaporize in short order at those power levels, so scattering/attenuation is temporary for a fixed beam?
- nine_k 3y agoIf it does so, the resulting plasma will very actively absorb the laser pulse's energy. Your best bet is not interacting with the atmosphere in any way, and merely adjusting for refraction.
- akiselev 3y agoMaybe, maybe not; self focusing [1] is an active area of research. Optics is one area where secret projects have been shown to be way ahead of what is publicly available [2] so I wouldn't be surprised if they've figured out some scifi way of making orbital lasers more effective. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-focusing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-focusing [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_National_Reconnaissance_Office_space_telescope_donation_to_NASA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_National_Reconnaissance_O...