alt Hacker Newswhat concerns me is that it's wild laser beam in potentially public space. anyone that would accidentally cross that potentially invisible line could get killed or severely hurt.
imagine something reflective entering this beam, it could blind people in a very large radius.
for me it means that thus would still need some pipe/fiber that would protect world from this laser.
Replies
IMO there's two safe ways to implement this:
- Ground-satellite-ground relaying, with at least one geostationary satellite between the ground stations. The satellites being geostationary means that the path of the beam through the atmosphere is constant, and air traffic can be routed around them in a reasonable way. (You could do this with lower orbits, but it'd be a hassle with current aviation industry technology).
- Beaming by tunnel! Can't get hit by a laser if it's under your feet. Obviously, this negates the benefits of the technology, and just turns into fibre lines without the fibre, over shorter distances, with all the pain in the ass of laying underground cable.
In the first approach, there'd have to be an effective exclusion zone around the receiving station (how big, I don't know), and it'd be nice to have satellites fail safe, so that if they end up pitching or rolling off axis, the beam will be shut off before becoming an accidental weapon.
The eventual goal is to use it at extremely high altitude with drones so that that isn't much of a risk.
They tested that thing at the White Sands Missile Range where the public is excluded.
A friend of mine was looking for a stargazing spot between WSMR and the Rio Grande River a fair bit south of San Antonio, NM and got her Chevy Blazy stuck and figured her best bet was to walk across the security perimeter and get caught by the security force and they caught her pretty quickly.