Laser guns are almost here

[Onix]

I want a black hole laser in Icar. Or maybe they're all black hole lasers?

I'm not entirely sure if I believe a metamaterial black hole would exhibit Hawking radiation but it would be cool to find out.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

Even if lasers are a ways off - a new concept is fast approaching. There is a project known as Wiki-Weapon that is attempting to make guns that can be reproduced on 3D printers.

At least at the moment, a rapid prototype machine costs ten to twenty times more than a handgun, so arguments about making firearms available to everyone ring a bit hollow. Furthermore, the thermoplastic used by these machines probably can't withstand firing most commonly used cartridges - rendering the exercise somewhat impractical.

Kind of scary really, I'm pretty sure some of our games warned us about this.

[kumakami]

Kind of scary really, I'm pretty sure some of our games warned us about this.

see Cybergenerations

[Onix]

Even if lasers are a ways off - a new concept is fast approaching. There is a project known as Wiki-Weapon that is attempting to make guns that can be reproduced on 3D printers.

At least at the moment, a rapid prototype machine costs ten to twenty times more than a handgun, so arguments about making firearms available to everyone ring a bit hollow.

So print off 10 to 20 handguns and you break even. The way the price of 3d printers is dropping, this won't be an issue for long.

Furthermore, the thermoplastic used by these machines probably can't withstand firing most commonly used cartridges - rendering the exercise somewhat impractical.

Thermoplastics may be on their way out, laser sintered powder machines just broke the $3000 level. They can print using very different materials. Still, make the barrel thick enough and you might get a gun that would withstand a few shots.

Kind of scary really, I'm pretty sure some of our games warned us about this.

I'm trying to think which ones might have. I never bought Cybergenerations (not sure why, I don't remember ever seeing it but I should have) so I can't speak to that. I know there was plastic guns in several games to get past metal detectors. I vaguely remember a movie/tv show where an assassin had a plastic two shot gun that disassembled. He kept the bullets in a hollowed out rabbit's foot on his keychain.

[tygertyger]

Laser beam riding lightning gun. All kinds of amazing.

A great idea, but we've still got some technical hurdles to get over.

1) Power supply: this will have to be seriously miniaturized before we get man-portable energy weapons. Advances in capacitors will be a big help here. It also wouldn't hurt to make the machinery more energy-efficient.

2) Dwell time: lasers (right now, anyway) need to stay on target for a while -- several seconds, at least -- in order to heat up the target enough to do damage. This limitation is one of the reasons we don't have antimissile lasers yet. It's possible to get around this by cranking the laser power WAY up, but that exacerbates the power supply problem.

[J.K.Mosher]

They should Red Dwarf's example . . .

Switch from Soft Light to Hard Light . . .

[Onix]

And in the latest news, a 50Kw device tested and this time there's some indication of what kind of damage it would do.

At 1 Km the 50Kw weapon could cut through a 15 mm thick (half inch) steel girder. The wording is a bit ambiguous though. It doesn't say how fast it could cut through it or if it only punched a hole or sliced the thing in half. Even under the most conservative of those interpretations, that's a lot of heat on target, steel is not easy to burn through.

It was able to take down drones and a fast moving (50 m/s) metal "ball" (I'm assuming this was a hollow sphere).

[Onix]

Want to see a 5Kw handheld laser gun cut through stainless steel?

Unfortunately the gun is just the nozzle end of a half ton laser. (Or is that fortunately?) Anyway, it gives an idea of what a laser of that power can do. Even if it's only a few inches away from the object it's cutting.

[DOC_Agren]

Battlefield Laser
http://io9.com/lockheed-takes-a-major-step-toward-bringing-lasers-to-t-1512304478
getting closer and closer

[Onix]

At slow motion 300 fps it takes 13 seconds to detonate. That's about 2.5 to3 seconds real time I think.

So 30kw at 1.5 km can detonate the warhead of a missile. Interesting data.