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Sorry, valprest, but that isn't really all that likely to work As you vaporize the "dirt" (rock, whatever) it will create a gaseous form of the former dirt which will obscure the target from further heating. You might be able to do something by pulsing it, but the amount of energy needed to vaporize that much earth would be anything but trivial. You might be able to do something like this (maaaaybe) with a satellite and solar cells to drive it, but such a thing would be just as usable as a weapon and weaponizing space, while I'm sure it eventually will happen, isn't on anyone's "Hy, Great Idea!" list right now. The other obvious issue is how, exactly, did you plan to maintain a constant position over the hole looking straight down? Might be doable with some sort of balloon/dirigible object, but even there you'd still need to secure it using lines over a fairly fixed location, something which has been one of the chief banes of lighter-than-air travel for a century now -- mooring and docking issues. A plane would be impractical for this, as it couldn't perform the sort of tight circle needed to keep the weapon even vaguely close to the vertical line required. The application specified works well because you presumably don't need a sustained beam on-target, and, if you did, you can fly for more than a minute in the direction of the target object