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Functional laser weapons are just five years away. Advocates hope that won’t always be the case. The Air Force has been working on airborne laser weapons for more than 40 years, but a fielded system remains elusive. Experts also warn that the US does not enjoy a commanding lead in laser research. And the Air Force’s flagship laser weapon program, the Airborne Laser (later called the Airborne Laser Testbed) was terminated late last year and is now being dismantled. Still, service and industry experts predict there is plenty of reason for realistic optimism. Operational laser systems that can perform a...

The Pentagon has mothballed a laser-equipped jumbo jet after 15 years and $5 billion worth of research to develop an airborne missile defense system. Budget cuts shot down the Airborne Laser Test Bed but some research into anti-missile lasers will continue, according to the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. "We didn't have the funding to continue flying the aircraft," agency spokeswoman Debra Christman told the Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/xEnw3z ). The plane, a Boeing 747 mounted with a high-energy chemical laser, has been sent into storage at Davis Monthan Air Force Base, the agency said. The base near Tucson, Ariz., serves...

Preliminary indications are that the so-called Airborne Laser Test Bed tracked the target's exhaust plume but did not hand off to a second, "active tracking" system as a prelude to firing the high-powered chemical laser, said Richard Lehner, an MDA spokesman. "The transition didn't happen," he said. "Therefore, the high-energy lasing did not occur." Boeing produces the airframe and is the project's prime contractor, while Northrop Grumman supplies the high-energy laser and Lockheed Martin Corp has been developing the beam- and fire-control systems. Defense Secretary Robert Gates scaled back the program into a research experiment last year. About $4 billion...

The Pentagon’s Airborne Laser (ABL) is being prepared for a late July test in which it will attempt to shoot down an ascending target missile from twice the distance of the aircraft’s previous intercept tests, the program’s top official said. Originally conceived as an operational military system that would use a high-power chemical laser to destroy ballistic missiles in the early stages of flight, the ABL platform — only one has been built — has been relegated to the role of technology test-bed. The program is funded by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) through September, but its future is...

After more than a century of popular sci-fi fantasies that feature deadly energy weapons, including War of the Worlds, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Star Trek and Star Wars, it looks like the ray gun has finally arrived in the real world. And even if the first ray guns out of the lab can barely fit on the bed of a 30-ton off-road truck rather than in a soldier’s palm, the novel, "speed-of-light" capabilities that lasers could bring to the battlefield has drawn the keen interest of the Pentagon brass, which spends about $400 million a year on directed-energy beam weapons....

The House Armed Services Committee today added $362 million to the Obama administration’s 2011 defense authorization bill for missile defense, including $50 million for further tests of Boeing’s Airborne Laser, a program the Obama administration had sought to wind down. “I am particularly pleased that the Mark increases funding for directed energy research. It was clear that the budget request was not sufficient to support further flight testing using the Airborne Laser Test Bed as well as mature innovative directed energy technologies,” Rep. Michael R. Turner R-Ohio, top Republican on the Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, said in a...

National Security: An unclassified Defense Department report says an Iranian missile could strike the U.S. by 2015. If only we were working as hard to defend ourselves as they are to destroy us. In any discussion of the Iranian nuclear threat, the assumption is always that Tehran's target is Israel. Iran's quite mad president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has pledged to wipe Israel off the map as part of his grand scheme to usher in the age of the 12th Imam. Tehran may have a bigger fish that it wants to fry, namely us. "With sufficient foreign assistance, Iran could probably develop...

Arms Deal: President Obama signs away U.S. nuclear security and gives the Russians a veto over whether we can defend ourselves. Our nuclear umbrella is in tatters as another piece of paper proclaims peace in our time. Completing a process of disarmament and appeasement that manifested itself in the dismantling and defunding of U.S. military power that began with his inauguration, President Obama signed a new strategic arms limitation treaty with a grinning and very happy Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday in the Czech capital. How fitting this document was signed in Prague, which isn't far from Munich where...

The ABL did everything it was supposed to do. Now, the Pentagon wants to call it quits. On the night of Feb. 11, off the coast of Southern California, the Missile Defense Agency scored a major achievement by destroying a liquid-fueled ballistic missile target in flight. The important part was that it did so using a laser weapon carried onboard a Boeing 747-400 aircraft. This milestone event constituted the first publicly announced test success for the Airborne Laser (ABL). However, the success was actually the second of its kind within an eight-day period. On Feb. 3, the ABL aircraft was...

On February 12, 2010, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) used the Airborne Laser Test Bed (ALTB) mounted on a Boeing B-747 jumbo jet to shoot down a liquid-propellant and a solid-propellant target missile. The ALTB project is one of the MDA's most ambitious and long-term programs. Washington launched its initial research in this sphere in the 1970s. At that time, an NKC-135-ALL aircraft, a modified version of the KC-135 Stratotanker, was built and used as an airborne laboratory. United Technologies built a 10-ton, 04-0.5-MWt CO2 laser system for the program. The NKC-135-ALL was involved in a series of tests...

The Airborne Laser Testbed (ALTB) faces an uncertain future as both a research project and an operational system even after its 1MW-class chemical laser successfully - and historically - destroyed a ballistic missile off the California coast on 11 February. The long-awaited intercept test proved that the modified Boeing 747-400F's key technology - a chemical oxygen iodine laser (Coil) invented by US Air Force researchers in 1977 - is a lethal weapon against ballistic missiles. A week before the ballistic intercept, the ALTB shot down a Terrier Black Brant, a two-stage sounding rocket that presents faster and smaller target to...

Riki Ellison, Chairman and Founder of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA), released a statement today regarding the revolutionary airborne laser intercept test at Point Mugu, California last night. His comments and observations are the following. Ellison is one of the top lay experts in the field of missile defense in the world. "Late last night, the Airborne Laser (ABL) now called the Airborne Laser Test Bed (ALTB), a Boeing-747 modified to carry a chemical based mega watt laser weapon system, successfully intercepted and destroyed two short-range ballistic missiles, one liquid fueled Scud like missile and one solid fueled U.S....

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) Airborne Laser (ABL) has successfully engaged its first ballistic missile with its powerful chemical laser, shooting it down and demonstrating the concept of using high-powered lasers to destroy such threats in their boost phase of flight. A series of flight tests included engagement of a single liquid-fueled ballistic missile and two solid-fueled Terrier Black Brant sounding rockets. Though not ballistic missiles, the rockets closely mimic a solid-fueled ballistic missile in the boost phase, the period in which ABL is expected to engage. And they offer a lower-cost alternative to launching actual short-range ballistic missile...

Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center-Weapons Division Sea Range Watch VideoWatch RT News Report Also see news posted via Free Republic.

A high-energy laser mounted on a US military aircraft has shot down a ballistic missile in the first successful test of the weapon, the US Missile Defense Agency said on Friday. The experiment -- evoking a scene out of a science fiction film -- was carried out off the central California coast at Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center at 8:44 pm Thursday Pacific time (0444 GMT), the agency said in a statement. "The Missile Defense Agency demonstrated the potential use of directed energy to defend against ballistic missiles when the Airborne Laser Testbed (ALTB) successfully destroyed a boosting ballistic...

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) plans to conduct a flight test of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system Jan. 31 and hopes to execute the first-ever intercept attempt by the Airborne Laser soon after. The goal of the GMD test, expected between 5 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. EDT, will be to achieve an intercept against a new target, the Lockheed Martin LV-2, according to Rick Lehner, an MDA spokesman. This will also be the first flight of this target type, an intermediate-range ballistic missile that will deploy countermeasures during the test. Last fall, program officials said this would be...

Security: An Iranian mullah once said "a world without America and Zionism" was a real possibility. Our sellout of Eastern Europe and missile defense brings that dream closer to reality. It would take only one warhead."Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism?" Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked at a "World Without Zionism" conference in Tehran in 2005. "But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved." He added that Iran had a strategic "war preparation plan" for what it called "the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization." A...

A test-firing of a high-energy laser beam aboard a modified Boeing 747 has been called a success, the Missile Defense Agency said. A team from Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin conducted the Airborne Laser (ABL) test Tuesday over the California High Desert. The laser was fired into an onboard calorimeter, which captured the beam and measured its power. The test is preparation for an upcoming demonstration in which the laser will be fired through a nose-mounted turret on the aircraft toward the target. In a test Aug. 10, a low-power laser beam hit an instrument-equipped missile. "This test shows...

Defense: The Air Force airborne laser program successfully completes a simulated kill from a plane able to find, track and destroy a live ballistic missile. We can shoot down enemy missiles. Instead, we're shooting down the laser program.The Aug. 10 effort was the third such test — sort of like a sniper sighting the target with the red dot of a laser without actually pulling the trigger. In early June, the airborne laser (ABL) program engaged two un-instrumented missiles. This was the first in-flight test against an instrumented target missile. A modified Boeing 747-400F aircraft took off from Edwards Air...

Defense: Overlooked in the defense budget cuts is the decimation of missile defense systems. As North Korea tested an ICBM, our defense secretary was scrapping a system that could have destroyed it with a single shot.We will miss the F-22 Raptor, perhaps the only plane that could evade the sophisticated S-300 surface-to-air missile defense system Russia is selling to Iran. Russia's S-300 system is "one of the most lethal, if not the most lethal, all-altitude area defense" systems, according to the International Strategy and Assessment Service, a Virginia-based think tank. But the aircraft we and the nation will miss the...

Strategic Defense: The Air Force's airborne laser program passes yet another test, proving "unproven" missile defense once again. The question is not whether we can get it to work, but whether we can afford not to.The news that Iran has enough nuclear material to build a nuclear weapon in relatively short order and is well along on missiles to deliver its nukes has put a sense of urgency on the proposed missile defense system slated for Poland and the Czech Republic. Fortunately, another answer to the threat posed by rogue regimes like Iran and North Korea has just passed a...

Never has Ronald Reagan's dream of layered missile defenses—Star Wars, for short—been as politically out of favor as in the Age of Obama. Nor as close, at least technologically, to becoming realized. The latest encouraging news came Thursday courtesy of the Misssile Defense Agency. The Airborne Laser prototype aircraft this week found, tracked, engaged and simulated an intercept with a missile seconds after liftoff. It was the first time the Agency used an "instrumented" missile to confirm the laser works as expected. Next up this fall will be the first live attempt to bring down a ballistic missile, but this...

EDWARDS AFB, CA - The Boeing Company and the US Missile Defense Agency successfully completed the Airborne Laser's (ABL) first in-flight test against an instrumented target missile, achieving a historic milestone.During the test, the modified Boeing 747-400F used its infrared sensors to find a target missile launched from San Nicolas Island, Calif. The battle management system aboard ABL issued engagement and target location instructions to the beam control/fire control system, which acquired the target and fired its two solid-state illuminator lasers to track the target and measure atmospheric conditions.ABL then fired a surrogate high-energy laser at the target, simulating a...

SDI: If you missed the news, which isn't hard given how poorly these things are covered, our "unproven" missile defense proved itself again last week, when a U.S. warship downed a simulated North Korean missile in flight.The test, conducted in Hawaiian waters by the Navy and the Department of Defense's Missile Defense Agency (MDA), was the 23rd firing by ships equipped with the Aegis ballistic missile defense system. It was the 19th success, including the shoot-down of a dead U.S. spy satellite last year. A short-range ballistic missile simulating a missile like North Korea's Nodongs or Scuds was fired from...

The Missile Defense Agency announced yesterday that the prototype Airborne Laser aircraft successfully completed its first two tracking tests against boosting missile targets over the Pacific Ocean on June 6 and June 13, respectively. The first test came only seven weeks after the aircraft returned to flight, and follows nearly a year of aircraft and system modifications, including the installation of its megawatt-class chemical laser. These tests mark the first time ABL has demonstrated a complete low-power engagement sequence against a boosting target, in this case a ground-launched Terrier-Lynx missile. The missile was launched from San Nicolas Island, located in...

EDWARDS AFB - Progress continues on preparing the airborne laser ballistic missile defense system for full-scale ground testing later this year, with a final flight demonstration of its ability to shoot down a ballistic missile still set for 2009. The Missile Defense Agency program, led by contractor The Boeing Co. and housed at Edwards Air Force Base, recently began testing the chemical laser system, the lethal component to the weapon, which is housed in a modified Boeing 747. A high-energy chemical laser, fired through a rotating turret on the airplane's nose, is used to puncture a hole in the missile's...

The United States Defence Department has developed a prototype of an aircraft armed with a laser gun that could destroy tanks 10 miles away. The Airborne Tactical Laser weapon is to be mounted on a Boeing aircraft and is capable of destroying targets up to 15km (10m) away, according to Defense Update online magazine. The ten-centimetre-wide beam will heat targets almost instantly to thousands of degrees and will slice through metal even at maximum range. It is intended both for battlefield use and for missile defense.

Redondo Beach CA (SPX) Northrop Grumman, along with industry teammates and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA), have begun re-assembly of the world's most powerful laser built for an airborne environment onto MDA's Airborne Laser (ABL) aircraft to prepare for high-power system testing. The integration is taking place at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., following a refurbishment by the company that involved the disassembly and inspection of the high-energy Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser (COIL) after the successful conclusion of ground tests in 2005. During those tests, the laser demonstrated repeatability of sufficient power and duration to shoot down a ballistic...

EDWARDS AFB - A modified U.S. 747 airliner circles near threatening territory, searching for signs of a ballistic missile launch. When a missile is detected, shortly after it leaves the ground, the aircraft's high-tech systems go to work, shooting a high-energy laser from a turret in the aircraft's nose. The laser burns a hole in the ballistic missile, destroying it and raining debris on the territory which launched it. That scenario may sound like a scene from "Star Wars," but officials with the Missile Defense Agency say it is quite close to reality with the airborne laser ballistic missile defense...

This latest test demonstrates ABL's ability to use both its illuminator lasers to track a simulated target, compensate for atmospheric disturbances, and complete the engagement sequence by simultaneously propagating a surrogate high energy laser to the target aircraft. This latest test, conducted on 24 July, demonstrates ABL's ability to use both it's illuminator lasers to track a simulated target, compensate for atmospheric disturbances, and to complete to engagement sequence by simultaneously propagating a surrogating a surrogate high energy laser to the target.

The airborne laser ballistic missile defense system successfully fired its tracking laser during a flight test Thursday night. Testing of the ABL is based at Edwards Air Force Base, and the laser test took place over the Pacific Ocean off the California coast. The weapons system is designed to use a high-energy laser mounted in a highly modified 747 aircraft to destroy a ballistic missile while it is still in the boost phase, shortly after launch. A high-energy chemical laser is used to puncture a hole in the missile's pressurized fuel tank, causing it to rupture. In this way, the...

Lt. General Henry A. “Trey” Obering, Missile Defense Agency director, announced today the successful completion March 15, 2007 of the first in-flight test of the laser targeting system for the Airborne Laser (ABL), a boost-phase missile defense system that is designed to use directed energy to destroy a ballistic missile in the “boost” phase of flight. This important milestone involved multiple firings of the Tracking Illuminator Laser (TILL), mounted inside of the world’s most heavily modified Boeing 747-400 aircraft, to engage a missile-shaped target painted on the side of a KC-135 aircraft nicknamed “Big Crow,” and used as an aerial...

ST. LOUIS, Oct. 27, 2006 -- The Boeing Company [NYSE:BA], along with industry teammates and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, rolled out the Airborne Laser (ABL) aircraft today from a modification facility in Wichita, Kan., during a ceremony marking major program achievements on several fronts. Boeing presented the aircraft to a crowd of hundreds of government customers, industry partners and Boeing employees gathered at its Integrated Defense Systems facilities in Wichita. The ceremony highlighted the following accomplishments: The Airborne Laser team in Wichita fully integrated the Lockheed Martin-designed beam control/fire control system inside the ABL aircraft, a modified Boeing 747-400F....

ST. LOUIS, June 26, 2006 -- A Boeing-led [NYSE: BA] industry team and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) took a major step toward demonstrating the capability of the Airborne Laser (ABL) by successfully firing surrogate lasers from inside the aircraft. During recent ground tests at Boeing facilities in Wichita, Kan., the team placed the lasers in the ABL aircraft, a modified Boeing 747-400F, and fired them repeatedly into a measuring device called a range simulator. The tests verified that the ABL team properly aligned the optical beam train, a series of optical components, steering and deformable mirrors, and sensors...

Airborne Laser given a reprieve — and challenging development schedule The threat of cancellation no longer looms over the Pentagon's Airborne Laser effort, but senior program officials say they are taking nothing for granted as they prepare for a missile-intercept demonstration in 2008. Several clear test milestones have been laid out for the Airborne Laser in 2006 so that senior Missile Defense Agency officials will be able to measure its progress, according to Air Force Col. John Daniels, the effort's program director. The Airborne Laser, or ABL, is a Boeing 747 aircraft being equipped with a high-powered chemical laser to...

The threat of cancellation no longer looms over the Pentagon’s Airborne Laser (ABL) effort, but senior program officials said they are taking nothing for granted as they prepare for a missile-intercept demonstration in 2008. Several clear milestones have been laid out for the ABL in 2006 so that senior Missile Defense Agency (MDA) officials will be able to measure its progress, according to Air Force Col. John Daniels, the ABL’s program director. The ABL is a Boeing 747 aircraft being equipped with a high-powered chemical laser to destroy ballistic missiles in their boost phase. Boeing, Chicago, is the prime contactor....

ST. LOUIS, Jan. 23, 2006 -- Boeing [NYSE: BA] Missile Defense Systems (MDS) has taken delivery of the aircraft for the Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) program, achieving the first of several key milestones in the laser gunship effort. The C-130H transport, which belongs to the U.S. Air Force's 46th Test Wing, was handed over to Boeing on Jan. 18 in Crestview, Fla., near Eglin Air Force Base. Boeing is modifying the aircraft to enable it to carry a high-energy chemical laser and battle management and beam control subsystems. Boeing will begin flight testing the aircraft this summer with all subsystems...

Airborne Laser Completes Laser Ground Tests ST. LOUIS, Dec. 12, 2005 -- The Boeing-led [NYSE: BA] Airborne Laser team announced today the successful completion of a series of tests involving its high energy laser at the Systems Integration Lab at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. During this test series, lasing duration and power were demonstrated at levels suitable for the destruction of multiple classes of ballistic missiles. This is the second of two program significant knowledge points planned for 2005. Airborne Laser's (ABL) megawatt-class Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser (COIL) is designed and built by Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC). Lasing...

ST. LOUIS, Dec. 12, 2005 -- The Boeing-led [NYSE: BA] Airborne Laser team announced today the successful completion of a series of tests involving its high energy laser at the Systems Integration Lab at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. During this test series, lasing duration and power were demonstrated at levels suitable for the destruction of multiple classes of ballistic missiles. This is the second of two program significant knowledge points planned for 2005. Airborne Laser's (ABL) megawatt-class Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser (COIL) is designed and built by Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC). Lasing tests included more than 70 separate...

WASHINGTON -- Boeing has completed passive flight testing of its missile-killing Airborne Laser, or ABL, the company announced Wednesday. Now the program to install a missile-killing laser into a Boeing 747 will move back to Wichita, Kan., after the latest round of tests, which were conducted at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Boeing Integrated Defense System Wichita originally modified a 747 for the Airborne Laser program that is designed to detect, track and destroy ballistic missiles. The system utilizes a megawatt-class Chemical Oxygen Iodine laser. The recently completed flight tests measured the aircraft's ability to identify and track targets,...

Lockheed Martin has completed factory testing of the optical benches for the Airborne Laser's Beam Control/Fire Control (BC/FC) system. The Airborne Laser (ABL) is the first megawatt-class laser weapon system to be carried on a specially configured 747-400F aircraft, designed to autonomously detect, track and destroy hostile ballistic missiles. The Beam Control/Fire Control system will accurately point, focus and fire the laser to provide sufficient energy to destroy the missile while it is still in the highly vulnerable boost phase of flight - before separation of its warheads. The ABL program is managed by the Missile Defense Agency and is...

WASHINGTON - Boeing Co.'s plant in Wichita, Kan., is getting $55 million in new work on the Air Force's airborne laser missile defense project, Sen. Pat Roberts said Wednesday. The Kansas Republican said the project would employ 30 to 40 engineers to install laser components onto modified 747 aircraft designed to shoot down ballistic missiles. "I am pleased that Boeing has recognized the skilled labor force in Wichita and has decided to bring this important work to their facility there," Roberts said. "It is my hope that as the (project) moves from prototype to full production, this work will remain...

One of the biggest challenges facing Lockheed Martin in its efforts to install a high-energy laser on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is the question of what to do with all the excess heat generated by the system, according to the company's lead for directed energy programs. Laser systems use electricity to produce highly focused beams of light, as well as considerable amounts of waste heat that must be dissipated. Lockheed Martin believes that a 100-kilowatt laser is the minimum power level needed to be an effective weapon for a fighter. However, "to get 100 kilowatts of light out,...

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – YAL-1A, the Airborne Laser (ABL) aircraft, flew for 2 hours and 31 minutes over this installation on Thursday, December 9, completing an earlier flight cut short because of a faulty instrument reading. The flight was part of a continuing series to reestablish airworthiness – a requirement since the aircraft has been out of service for almost two years for modifications and installation of ABL’s complex beam control system. The plane first flew on Dec. 3, a shorter flight than originally planned. The mission was abbreviated when the crew decided to return to base to...

EDWARDS AFB - The Airborne Laser program reached a major developmental milestone earlier this month with the first-ever test firing of the system's high-energy laser, the centerpiece of the weapons system. The Nov. 10 ground test at the program's Edwards Air Force Base test site - dubbed "First Light" - was the first time all six modules that make up the powerful laser were connected and successfully fired as a single unit. "This is a wonderful moment for the Missile Defense Agency and the proponents of a ballistic missile defense system around the world," said Col. Ellen Pawlikowski, ABL program...

Redondo Beach CA (SPX) Nov 15, 2004 The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has successfully test-fired the megawatt-class laser built by Northrop Grumman for the Airborne Laser (ABL) system, marking the first time such a powerful directed energy weapon suitable for use in an airborne environment has been demonstrated. The ground-based test, referred to as "First Light," took place Nov. 10 on ABL's laser testbed at the Systems Integration Laboratory, a special building at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., which houses a modified Boeing 747 freighter fuselage where all elements of the laser system are being assembled and tested. The test...

Defense projects with ties to the Antelope Valley will benefit from the $420.6 billion defense budget recently signed into law. The fiscal 2005 National Defense Authorization Act, signed Oct. 28, is the final step in the defense budget process for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. The final budget included an increase of $19.3 billion over the previous year. In addition, $25 billion for additional war-related costs for Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom were approved. Among military hardware programs in the Antelope Valley to receive funding are the F/A-22 Raptor, the F-35 joint strike fighter and the airborne...

WASHINGTON - A Boeing Co.-led team has successfully fired for the first time a powerful laser meant to fly aboard a modified 747 as part of a U.S. ballistic missile defense shield, officials said Friday. The test, dubbed “First Light” by insiders, lasted only a fraction of a second but gave the project an important boost at a time it was deemed at risk of cuts or cancellation.

The Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base has long been known for providing the weaponry for future conflicts, but recently it has been called on to assist in ongoing conflicts as well. "We are also sort of the 911 of your Air Force," Maj. Gen. Doug Pearson, the center's commander, told members of the California City Economic Development Corp. on Thursday night. When things go wrong, "someone will call me," he said. The most recent example came during the early days of the war in Iraq when the Air Force was having difficulties with some of...

The Air Force is readying the first airborne laser weapon, which could be used to intercept Scud missiles. Mark Farmer takes you inside the project. In a starkly sanitized clean room, a stocky Lockheed Martin engineer wearing a shower cap and laboratory smock scuttles in and about black plastic curtains, talking with near-manic intensity and flashing his bright eyes and wry smile. "Want to see something really cool?" asks Paul Shattuck as he yanks back the curtains, revealing a maze of psychedelically colored optics and black anodized metal hardware. "This," he says, "is what they call the Wall of...