4 ms·
100GW? More like vaporising planes and satellites. 100GW will heat about 50T of aluminum to boiling temperature in about 1s. Of course you won't have perfect he
by yetihehe 3y ago
100GW? More like vaporising planes and satellites. 100GW will heat about 50T of aluminum to boiling temperature in about 1s. Of course you won't have perfect heat transfer, but if you can send that power for more than 5s, most satellites will start actually boiling and vaporising.
- ericbarrett 3y agoCould you even operate this laser terrestrially? The article says optical frequencies (visible light). I think the backscatter from atmospheric dust alone would blind anybody who glanced at it, and it would be visible for miles around.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jandrese 3y agoIt's not one laser, it's 100,000,000 single kW lasers spread across the surface of the Earth. A single kW laser is already very dangerous and stuff like reflecting off of a passing airplane will be a problem, but they'll be everywhere so you can't hide. That's probably unfair. I assume they'll be spread across deserts and other places with low population density.
- ericbarrett 3y agoMissed that, thanks. I thought maybe attenuation in the atmosphere would be a problematic amount of heat, but it turns out the Earth gets roughly 200,000 TW of solar irradiance so 100 GW would have a negligible (immediate) effect even if fully absorbed.
- bagels 3y agoI didn't do the math, but on an array this big, the 'near field' might be outside of the atmosphere anyways.
- jdkee 3y agoYou could build it on the moon.