Posted 02.21.2012 at 11:58 am
2 Comments
The Airborne Laser Test Bed
Missile Defense Agency
The Missile Defense Agency’s Airborne Laser Test Bed (ALTB) is dead after a long battle with Pentagon budgetary priorities and Congress. ALTB is best remembered for being a far-out directed-energy beam missile defense interceptor that dodged cancellation by the SecDef himself in 2010 by successfully zapping a test missile from the sky, earning it $40 million more and a new lease on life. But even ALTB couldn’t survive last week’s federal budget slashing. ALTB was sixteen years and several billion dollars old. It will be laid to rest at the the Air Force’s Maintenance and Regeneration Group, known as “The Boneyard.” It is survived by the Navy’s Free Electron Laser.
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Now that they are scrapping this, they should take all the tech that they garnered from the decades of wasted research and create a c-130 based laser platform with a much smaller range, say 25 miles. Then we would have a proven platform upgrade that would cost far less and which could be used as an air support asset similar to the AC-130 that already exists. And just imagine the savings when the fuel to power the lasers is cheap in comparison to a thousand dollar mortar shell! I see cost savings in the future if they just properly utilize their knowledge base and technology.
Research is seldom wasted. Finding out what won't work is important too.
The main thing that has changed over the years is the efficiency and power of big laser diodes. They can be used to pump fiber lasers of very high power and reasonable efficiency.