Radar Death Ray

[Andrew Boulton]

http://www.livescience.com/scienceoffiction/051024_death_ray.html

 

[Chuck Anumia]

I was more concerned with the article about the Army's new Laser:

MTHEL - Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser
The Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (MTHEL) is a chemical laser-based energy beam weapon currently under development by the U.S. Army and Israel. Last month, the system successfully tracked and destroyed a large-caliber test rocket at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The system has also been used successfully on smaller, lower-flying Katyusha rockets (the type used by Hezbollah guerillas along Israel's northern border).

A fire control radar positioned near the hostile zone scans for threats. Once detected, the target's trajectory is tracked and a pointer-tracker is locked onto the target. Once locked in, a high-energy deuterium-fluoride laser beam is trained upon the target. The beam is only a few inches in diameter, but can heat the rocket's steel shell until the missile or shell warhead explodes. The system uses replaceable chemical charges to provide the power; it costs approximately $3,000 to fire (making it much cheaper than other anti-missile systems).

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Click on the link about Ralph 124c 41 + in the article, and you will go to a site called Technovelgy, that is oriented on SciFi book and movie technology. It has Flickercladding (from Wetware by Rudy Rucker), Retro-rockets (From the Earth to the Moon, Verne), an automatic door from HG Wells, Tom Swift's electric rifle, etc.