US Navy is One Step Closer to a Super Laser

The United States Navy is one step closer to building a super laser, ensuring America’s continued dominance in the world… or not. But the laser is real!

In an effort between the United States Navy’s Office of Naval Research and Jefferson Lab in Newport News, Virginia, the Navy announced that a prototype FEL (free electron laser) was able to burn through twenty feet of steel while using 500 kilovolts of electricity. For those of you who don’t know the conversion, that comes out to about 500,000 volts of electricity — or one stun baton.

So what do you do once you’ve taken a leap forward in weaponized laser technology? You make it more efficient. The Navy hopes to work with Boeing to take their FEL technology and package it as a 100 kilowatt system that would include shipboard communications, tracking and enemy detection. The Navy hopes to reach this objective by 2015.

If the Navy can perfect the FEL technology, it will allow them to do away with their larger, less efficient and more dangerous (to operate) chemical and solid-state lasers. FEL lasers would allow for less power consumption, more maneuverability and could be used at any time and in any weather condition. It would also for maniacal laughter, but let’s be honest: that comes with any death ray.

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