The GLEF systems are mounted as an accessory to Common Remotely Operated Weapon Stations or CROWS, the turret system that provides Soldiers the ability to employ cameras, sensors and weapons from inside the protection of an armored vehicle. The non-lethal green-light laser gives Soldiers an interim step before escalating force while conducting daily operations.

“Protecting civilian populations is critical to our success in fighting insurgencies,” said Col. Douglas Tamilio, project manager for Soldier Weapons.

“Green lasers have proven safe and effective as a non-lethal tool that sends a strong message without the need to employ deadly force.”

The GLEF system emits a wide band of green light that temporarily disrupts a person’s vision so that driving a vehicle or aiming a weapon becomes difficult if not impossible. One application would be to warn civilians away from checkpoints and other areas where their safety is at risk. At closer distances, the lasers provide an immediate, nonlethal capability to deter aggressive actions.

“The human eye is four times more sensitive to green light than to red light during the day and far more sensitive at night,” explained Maj. Michael Pottratz, program manager for Crew Served Weapons.

“The effect is the same as looking at the sun for a fraction of a second. The lasers send a warning signal across language and cultural barriers to keep innocent people from entering into harm’s way.”

While green lasers have been commercially available for a number of years, the system configuration for use as a CROWS accessory is a new development. By employing previously tested and approved technologies, engineers were able to design, assemble and field the new configuration for use in CROWS systems in less than 12 months.

Select units will test the systems for 90 days and report back to PEO Soldier on system performance and its impact on operations. Soldier input will be incorporated into the final designs.

diode lasers

Source – spacedaily.com/reports/Army_Testing_Green_Laser_Kits_In_Afghanistan_999.html

You can get banned from soccer matches for having very good aim with one

Fifty years ago, the laser first cut an elegant line through the air in a laboratory operated by Bell Labs, changing culture, economies and science forever.

The technology is becoming more subtle and precise as our needs expand. We fantasise about laser swords, laser guns, and futuristic laser security systems. There is nothing that capitalises on the future quite like the laser and, as in the case of 50 years ago, the future is our present.

Our culture is positively saturated with lasers. You can get banned from soccer matches for having particularly good aim with one on your key ring (evidently, shining a laser in a goalie’s eyes is cheating). Your disc player uses laser technology to read data and your child has probably used a laser at some point to play war.

The first laser battle took place in a patent office. The laser was patented in 1958 as the “optical maser” by Bell Labs. At the same time, a man by the name of Gordon Gould was working on a similar invention which he called “the laser” and which he tried to patent in 1959. The patent was denied and Bell figured the word “laser” was catchier than “optical maser”.

Bell patented the laser in 1960, the same year in which Theodore Maiman made the first functional example of one, sparking almost three decades of lawsuits.

Gould won his first, minor patent in 1977 and the big prize of patents on his optically pumped, gas-discharge lasers in 1987.

How do lasers actually work?

The word “laser” stands for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. What this translates into is the fact that a bunch of atoms are pumped with energy until they undergo what is called “population inversion”.

Your normal atom is usually – like the rest of us – lazy and relaxed, “grounded” as it were. With population inversion, the majority of the atoms get about as agitated as an AWB member at a Malema rally. The energy needs to go somewhere, which is why once the atom relaxes, it emits light at a specific wavelength. A bit like extremists exploding, except that the atom survives.

What makes lasers different to normal light is the fact that in the case of normal light, the beam you get is a mix of different wavelengths, which makes it look white. In the case of the laser, however, only one wavelength is released, specific to the atom used. Two of the same atoms charged in the same way get hit by that light and you get stimulated emission (the two emit light on the same frequency in the same direction).

Put these atoms in between two mirrors, (one half mirrored) and you start to get your laser. The photons (little bits of light) bounce between the mirrors and get those atoms really excited. Mob hysteria hits them and, zap, the light comes out in one direction as the straight beam we associate with villains threatening James Bond.

This beam is then, basically, used to melt things in a clean, precise way. A powerful laser can vaporise metal and if you make it more powerful, what you end up with is plasma, or charged ions. This is generally not such a hot idea though, as plasma blocks the beam.

Not just kids’ stuff

In medicine, lasers mean surgeons can work with such precision they can actually reshape your cornea to correct your vision. In addition, green light laser surgery is used for treating an enlarged pancreas.

Surgery using lasers often means recovery is quick as the cut is so fine there isn’t much damage.

Lasers are used in industry for the same reason we use them in medicine, because they are that much more precise than anything else. Plus they aren’t contact tools, so you don’t need to sharpen your thin beam of light. That hole in your baby’s bottle? That was one of the first things lasers were used for.

The major downside is that with lasers using heat, the bigger the hole you want, the more heat you need to generate and the longer it gets all of those atoms pointing their energy the right way. Smaller holes are therefore a lot easier.

Lasers also cost a bundle and dirt and vibration need to be avoided. Shop floors are noisy and often dirty, so they can be impractical for some applications.

Still, these precise, thin points of light have revolutionised everything we do and they demonstrate the sheer practical value of good science.

Over time, with the work of such institutions as our very own Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, which is researching things like how lasers can be used to weld dissimilar materials or improve fibre-optic lines, the uses of this invention are only going to expand.

diode lasers

Source – timeslive.co.za/lifestyle/article454579.ece/Laser–the-sharpest-tool-in-the-box

No, this was not Star Trek come to life but actually a computer simulation in a computerized war-game of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M.

During the exercise, called Advanced Concepts Event or ACE, pilots used the newly developed laser-armed F-16 simulator to prepare for aerial combat once laser weapons become available. The simulator also enables Air Combat Command experts to ­develop tactics, techniques, and procedures for future laser battles.

“We started this effort nearly four years ago,” notes Rudy Martinez, the HEL Fighter project officer at the AFRL’s Directed Energy Directorate. “We wanted to merge an F-16 simulator with a laser weapon system so that a pilot could blend flying experience with the skills needed to operate a revolutionary speed-of-light weapon.

“A pilot would fly his F-16 differently in a laser battle compared to a more traditional fight using guns or missiles,” Martinez continues. “With guns and missiles a pilot has to maneuver to approach a target from behind or from the side. But with a laser weapon that pilot can have more latitude. That’s because the laser fires through a turret mounted underneath the plane. The turret allows the laser to fire on either side or straight ahead, so the pilot doesn’t have to do as much maneuvering.”

Improvements to HEL Fighter are in the works. One of those improvements, according to Martinez, is to use lasers, rather than radar, to acquire targets in an air battle. Until then, Martinez adds, that experience will only be available through simulators like the HEL Fighter and exercises such as ACE.

These types of laser weapons have yet to be fielded; needed, and under development, are solid-state lasers and compact electrical sources that can power high-energy laser weapons.

Today’s military is looking to deploy lasers that are invisible to the naked eye and require a large-scale design to generate enough heat to destroy targets such as missiles, says Ed Pogue, Director, High Energy Laser Joint Technology Office (HEL JTO) in Albuquerque, N.M. The weapons would also not make any noise, he adds.

The HEL JTO coordinates the Air Force, Army, and Navy’s efforts to develop high-energy laser weapons.

Weapons systems continue to appeal to the Air Force and to the U.S. Department of Defense, says Bruce Simpson, ­director of the AFRL Directed Energy ­Directorate. Most of the money – in the hundreds of millions – still goes to the U.S. Air Force Airborne Laser program, Simpson says. AFRL programs are usually in the tens of millions when it comes to funding, he adds.

We could always use more money for the right program and the right time line, Simpson says. The goal is to do things “cheaper, better, faster.”

AFRL experts are looking at three types of lasers for destroying targets: chemical lasers, solid-state lasers, and ­optical-fiber lasers.
Chemical lasers

The biggest laser is currently in development at the AFRL Directed Energy ­Directorate – the U.S. Air Force Airborne Laser (ABL), which deploys a chemical laser to destroy ballistic missiles in flight, and other targets.

The ABL attacks ballistic missiles during their boost phase, the period when they are moving on a relatively even, predictable path and, because of their pressurized fuel load, are particularly vulnerable to the ABL style of attack. The ABL system, which flies aboard a Boeing 747-400 jumbo jet, is set to shoot down its first ballistic missile in a test over the Pacific Ocean later this year.

The megawatt-class chemical oxygen- iodine laser (COIL) that will destroy ballistic missiles comes from the Northrop Grumman Space Technology division in Redondo Beach, Calif.

“The technology behind the COIL is an impressive accomplishment, probably only surpassed by the systems integration achievement on ABL,” says Jackie Gish director of directed energy technology at Northrop Grumman Space Technology.

The ABL COIL, which actually destroys the target, is a 1.5-meter-diameter laser that heats the skin of the missile, causing it to deform and resulting in internal depressurization, which causes the missile to explode, says Maj. Matt Murdough, manager of weapons system integration for the ABL at Kirtland. However, contrary to popular belief, the laser does not actually burn a hole in the missile, he adds.

The COIL-laser section is composed of six identical modules. Each module weighs roughly 4,500 pounds and is the size of a “Chevy Suburban turned on its end,” says Maj. Mark Skouson, Battle Management C4I product team leader on the ABL program at Kirtland. It is a continuous-wave laser that propagates at a wavelength of 1.315 microns, a wavelength chosen specifically because its beam travels well through the atmosphere. In other words, little of the beam’s energy is absorbed en route to the target. Iodine is its lasing medium.

The big challenge regarding the COIL laser on ABL was “integrating all the various systems onto a platform intended to operate in an airborne environment,” Gish says.

The U.S. Army’s Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (MTHEL) is also a chemical laser. The MTHEL program is the responsibility of the SHORAD Project Office under the Army’s Program Executive Office for Air, Space, and Missile Defense. The purpose of the MTHEL program is to develop and test the first mobile directed energy weapon system capable of detecting, tracking, engaging, and defeating Rockets/Artillery/Mortars (RAM), cruise missiles, short-range ballistic missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles. The Army is collaborating with the Israeli Ministry of Defense in the execution of the MTHEL program.

“By recently destroying mortars in-flight in August, Northrop Grumman’s high-energy laser technology continues to show its viability against current threats faced by troops in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Gish says. “The Tactical High Energy Laser test bed has shot down more than 50 threats in field tests.

“Our troops in Iraq are facing frequent mortar attacks and one challenge is to deliver systems as fast as possible,” Gish says “For MTHEL, the challenge will be to make it compact, transportable, and mobile.

“It is also a challenge to locate and track targets and place the beam on the desired location on the target,” Gish says. “MTHEL has accomplished this for the air-defense mission, but the air-to-air, air-to-ground, and shipboard missions will be more challenging, particularly to place a high-quality beam on the target through the turbulent atmosphere.”
Solid-state lasers

“Solid-state and fiber lasers offer the potential of being more compact, thus suitable to a wider range of applications and platforms,” Gish says. “Bulk solid-state lasers are more mature than fiber lasers, but fiber lasers offer the promise of higher efficiency.”

Solid-state lasers require only electrical energy to run, which makes them somewhat easier to support, Pogue says.

Northrop Grumman is one of three teams involved in the Joint High Power Solid State Laser (JHPSSL) program, which is scaling bulk solid-state lasers to 25 kilowatts.

The JHPSSL is slated to conduct laboratory demonstrations of three 25-kilowatt solid-state lasers designed by Northrop Grumman, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., and Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson, Ariz.

Right now the JHPSSL is looking at demonstrating lasers at 25 kilowatts, with 100 kilowatts obtainable in a couple years, says Michael Booen, Raytheon’s vice president of directed- ­energy wea­pons. However, these are laboratory lasers and there will be more system engineering issues to overcome before it can be deployed in the field.

“The crux of the issue with solid-state lasers is where does the power come from, how much power can be obtained, and how big a laser is needed to obtain lethality effectiveness, Booen says.

“With solid-state lasers, the challenge will be to make them more powerful and compact, and to dispose of and/or store waste heat compactly,” Gish says. “As I mentioned with ABL, systems integration will be a challenge as we strive to integrate laser defense systems on a variety of platforms.”

Typically issues boil down to efficient thermal management, Booen says. “You’re generating a tremendous amount of heat in a small spot.”

“Getting heat out of the material is one of the biggest challenges,” AFRL’s Simpson says. At this time it is “difficult and ­tedious to get lasers into small form factors,” and much of this is due to thermal and power issues.

“Our approach to thermal management is to remove the heat in real time,” Gish says. This allows the laser to operate indefinitely. By the way, even the heat-­capacity laser removes heat from the diodes in real time.”
Fiber lasers

The push is toward using fibers for laser weapons, says Bryce Samson, vice president of business development at Nufern in East Granby, Conn. However it is not just one fiber, but also a combination of multiple fibers.

Nufern provides the fiber building blocks for combining fibers for one array. Pictured above is the company’s Fiber Laser Gain Module.
Click here to enlarge image

The technology is still in the research and development phase, with companies like Northrop Grumman and Hughes Research Labs in Malibu, Calif., investigating fiber-laser technology, Samson says.

Northrop Grumman’s Gish would not speculate on how long it will take before their fiber lasers are ready for military service. “The current state of the art is a kilowatt, so it will require phasing many units to get to high power. We have approaches that we believe are scalable.”

“During the past two years, the output power for single-mode ytterbium fiber lasers has increased by more than an order of magnitude, to greater than one kilowatt,” Samson says. “Beam-combining schemes have been demonstrated at lower powers, indicating feasibility for combining multiple fiber lasers to achieve 25 kilowatt or even 100 kilowatt output powers – enough power to destroy enemy missiles in flight.

“Perhaps most irresistible to those creating conceptual designs for such high-power lasers is the near-quantum-limited efficiency of ytterbium-doped fiber lasers,” Samson says. “This characteristic allows for an increase in wall-plug efficiency of greater than a factor of two versus traditional solid-state lasers – a tremendous advantage considering certain of these systems are to be flown.”

Nufern provides the fiber building blocks for this process. A company like Northrop Grumman would do the actual combining of fibers for one array, Samson says.
Looking ahead

The biggest challenge is to make the lasers reliable and affordable, says Gish. “This will occur as we move from research and development into fielding multiple systems.”

“It will be about 10 years, in 2015,” before the thermal and other issues begin to really be solved and weapons start getting fielded, says Don Seeley, Army representative at HEL JTO.

The “sweet spot” will be developing a tactical package for the warfighter in a lighter and smaller form factor, Raytheon’s Booen says. It is important to note AFRL and HEL JTO have enabled the research and development of laser weapons and shortened the time line for eventually transferring these technologies and capabilities to the warfighter, Booen adds.

diode lasers

Source – militaryaerospace.com/index/display/article-display/219618/articles/military-aerospace-electronics/volume-16/issue-1/news/laser-weapons-slowly-shifting-from-science-fiction-to-reality.html

Astronomers measure the moon’s distance from Earth by bouncing laser beams off reflectors delivered to the surface by lunar missions. Three were left behind by Apollo astronauts and one is attached to the back of a Soviet-built robotic rover, Lunokhod 2.

Now, astronomers have managed to bounce laser light off another Soviet rover, Lunokhod 1, after a hiatus of nearly 40 years.

Lunokhod 1 landed on the moon in 1970 and last communicated with Earth by radio in 1971. It also has a reflector on its back but could not be targeted as its exact location was not known.

That changed in March when NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spotted Lunokhod 1. On 22 April, a team led by Tom Murphy of the University of California, San Diego, fired a laser at the new coordinates and got a reflected signal back. “We found it within minutes of our first attempt,” Murphy says. “Once we knew where it was, it popped right out.”

Lunokhod 1 is closer to the edge of the moon’s Earth-facing side than any other reflector. That makes it useful for measuring slight wobbles in the moon’s orientation, which could help reveal its internal structure. It could also allow precise tests of general relativity, which predicts how the moon should move in response to the gravity of Earth, the sun, and other solar system bodies.

diode lasers

Source – newscientist.com/article/dn18826-longlost-lunar-rover-successfully-zapped-with-laser.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=space

In this week’s Nature Physics an international team, led by Oxford University scientists, report that a short pulse from the FLASH laser ‘knocked out’ a core electron from every aluminium atom in a sample without disrupting the metal’s crystalline structure. This turned the aluminium nearly invisible to extreme ultraviolet radiation.

”What we have created is a completely new state of matter nobody has seen before,’ said Professor Justin Wark of Oxford University’s Department of Physics, one of the authors of the paper. ‘Transparent aluminium is just the start. The physical properties of the matter we are creating are relevant to the conditions inside large planets, and we also hope that by studying it we can gain a greater understanding of what is going on during the creation of ‘miniature stars’ created by high-power laser implosions, which may one day allow the power of nuclear fusion to be harnessed here on Earth.’

The discovery was made possible with the development of a new source of radiation that is ten billion times brighter than any synchrotron in the world (such as the UK’s Diamond Light Source). The FLASH laser, based in Hamburg, Germany, produces extremely brief pulses of soft X-ray light, each of which is more powerful than the output of a power plant that provides electricity to a whole city.

The Oxford team, along with their international colleagues, focused all this power down into a spot with a diameter less than a twentieth of the width of a human hair. At such high intensities the aluminium turned transparent.

Whilst the invisible effect lasted for only an extremely brief period – an estimated 40 femtoseconds – it demonstrates that such an exotic state of matter can be created using very high power X-ray sources.

Professor Wark added: ‘What is particularly remarkable about our experiment is that we have turned ordinary aluminium into this exotic new material in a single step by using this very powerful laser. For a brief period the sample looks and behaves in every way like a new form of matter. In certain respects, the way it reacts is as though we had changed every aluminium atom into silicon: it’s almost as surprising as finding that you can turn lead into gold with light!’

The researchers believe that the new approach is an ideal way to create and study such exotic states of matter and will lead to further work relevant to areas as diverse as planetary science, astrophysics and nuclear fusion power.

diode lasers

Source – blacklistednews.com/news-8929-0-23-23–.html

That was one thought to come out of a meeting of some 50 experts gathered this week in Frascati, Italy, to assess Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull eruption.

Such information can be used to work out ash concentration and thus determine the risk to aircraft engines.

The US Calipso lidar was shown to be very effective in returning this data.

Currently, the European Space Agency (Esa) has two lidar (light detection and ranging) missions of its own in preparation.

ADM-Aeolus and Earthcare will be launching later this decade. Neither has been driven by the needs of volcanic ash monitoring. Aeolus will study the wind; Earthcare will profile normal weather clouds.
ADM-Aeolus artist’s impression (Esa) The primary mission of Europe’s Aeolus will be to study Earth’s winds

Nonetheless, like the American Calipso spacecraft, their technology – they fire pulses of light into the atmosphere and catch the backscatter from particles – can be used very effectively to determine the thickness of drifting ash plumes.

If the vertical profile is combined with the known extent of the plume, a concentration can be calculated.

The airlines at this time are working to a safe limit of four milligrams of ash per cubic metre of air.

The performance of current space sensors and the wish-list for future technologies were discussed during a two-day meeting at Esa’s Esrin Earth-observation centre.

The space agency organised the gathering jointly with Eumetsat, which operates Europe’s weather satellites.

The summit brought together representatives of civil aviation authorities, ground-based and in-situ observation experts, modellers and satellite remote-sensing experts. The European Commission was also involved.
Cancelled flights (AP) Europe’s air and tourism sectors may have lost billions

The outcome of the discussions will be summarised in a white paper that will make some recommendations on future action.

The necessity of space lidar instruments is sure to be featured in the paper, said Dr Ken Holmlund, the head of Eumetsat’s meteorological observations division.

“Esa will look into its future missions now to see if there is some tweaking that can be done or some additional instrumentation or further improvements that should be taken onboard,” he told BBC News.

“And from a Eumetsat perspective, this really emphasises the crucial role of the Meteosat Third Generation mission which is now being debated. This was a clear message for me that for future volcanic monitoring, you really need good observations from geostationary orbit; and for Europe, it will be MTG or nothing.”

The 3.5bn-euro MTG is one of Europe’s flagship space endeavours of the coming decade.

It will replace the current Second Generation spacecraft that return 15-minute updates on the state of weather systems over Europe.
METEOSAT – BIGGER, BETTER
Continue reading the main story MTG-S (Eumetsat)

* Europe’s 1st imaging satellite (800kg) was launched in 1977; it had just three channels
* Today’s 2nd generation imager has 12 channels; it’s a 2-tonne class spacecraft
* The planned 3rd generation imager will be a 3-tonne satellite; it will have 16 channels
* MTG adds a second platform: a sounding satellite (above) to see the layers in the atmosphere

Consortium wins big weather prize

MTG will incorporate more advanced technologies, including sensors capable of making highly detailed measurements in the infrared and ultraviolet/visible parts of the spectrum.

A glimpse of MTG’s capability was seen in the IASI and GOME-2 instruments on Eumetsat’s Metop spacecraft that returned remarkable atmospheric composition data during the recent Eyjafjallajokull event.

As a polar orbiting spacecraft, however, Metop sees Europe approximately only once a day.

Derivatives of IASI and GOME-2 will go on MTG but in its geosynchronous orbit will have the advantage of being able to stare constantly at Europe.

In the short term, Dr Holmlund said, there was an acknowledgement that much more could be done with existing sensors and data to provide better information to the national Volcanic Ash Advisory Centres (VAACs) which issue the atmospheric warnings to the aviation sector.

What was clear from the Eyjafjallajokull episode was the requirement not just to describe conditions, but to put some hard numbers on them, too. There was a need to develop new quantitative products, he argued.

“Until now the data from the various missions have been used in isolation,” he told BBC News. “We should try more to look at multi-mission approaches, bringing together all the available data in a more effective way to make better products.

“What was demonstrated during this workshop was that the advice that has been given out by the VAACs has been very, very accurate in most cases; and this has been confirmed by aircraft measurements.

“There were a lot of [aircraft measurement] campaigns going out from France, the UK and Germany, and in most cases the ash was confirmed to be where the satellite data saw it and the modelling had predicted it to be. We did a pretty good job.”

EU officials calculated recently that the losses to Europe’s air and tourism sectors as a result of flight disruption caused by the volcanic eruption in Iceland could exceed 2.5 billion euros.

diode lasers

Source – news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10186406.stm

The intervention prevented abnormal impulses for three months.

…more about:
> abnormal electrical pulses > atrial fibrillation > catheters > Heart > irregular heartbeats > visual guidance > Visually-guided laser

Additional long-term studies are needed to assess ongoing safety and effectiveness.

A new treatment known as a visually-guided laser-balloon catheter successfully interrupted abnormal electrical pulses in patients and pigs with intermittent, irregular heartbeats, in a study reported in Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology, a journal of the American Heart Association.

Severe cases of irregular heartbeat may require a procedure called ablation, which destroys a group of “misfiring” cells to stop abnormal electrical impulses that cause erratic heartbeats.

Investigators aimed at cells in the pulmonary veins that carry blood from the lungs to the heart. In the clinical part of the study, they ablated the misfiring cells with 100 percent accuracy. In 84 percent of the pulmonary veins treated, electrical pulses ceased after just one set of laser treatments. Three months after treatment, 90 percent of the treated veins remained inactive.

Unlike other catheters that rely on X-rays for visual guidance, in the new treatment doctors use a slender instrument called an endoscope that provides continuous real-time images. This allows investigators to aim the laser at precise locations in the pulmonary veins. The investigators destroyed cells in an overlapping pattern to completely “disconnect” them and prevent new electrical connections from forming later.

The study’s clinical component included 27 patients, average age 53, two-thirds male, with diagnosed intermittent, abnormal heartbeat (called paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, or PAF). All patients had tried at least one drug that did not relieve their symptoms.

For the animal model, the scientists examined pigs because their hearts are structured similar to humans. The investigators inactivated abnormally functioning pulmonary veins 97 percent of the time after the first set of laser-energy treatments. Four weeks later, 80 percent of the ablated veins were still inactive.

Additional research is needed to determine long-term safety and efficacy of balloon-guided, laser catheter, researchers said.

Author disclosures are on the manuscript. CardioFocus, Inc., funded the study.

Atrial Fibrillation facts and statistics

An estimated 2.2 million Americans are living with atrial fibrillation (AF).
It’s the most common “serious” heart rhythm abnormality in people over the age of 65 years.

11,438 deaths and 461,000 hospital discharges are attributed to AF per year, and about 75,000 new cases of AF are diagnosed each year.

Stroke is 5 times more likely in people with AF compared to those without the condition.

AF is responsible for at least 15% to 20% of all ischemic strokes.

Data from the NHDS/NCHS (1996 –2001) on cases that included AF as a primary discharge diagnosis found the following:

– Approximately 44.8% of patients were men.
– The mean age for men was 66.8 years, versus 74.6 years for women.
– The racial breakdown for admissions was 71.2% white, 5.6% black, and 2.0% other races (20.8% were not specified).

Symptoms of atrial fibrillation

Some people with AF don’t feel a thing. Others notice an irregularity immediately. Symptoms may include:
– Racing, uncomfortable, irregular heartbeat
– “Flopping,” fluttering or thumping feeling in your chest
– Heart palpitations
– Dizziness
– Sweating
– Chest pain or pressure
– Difficulty getting your breath
– Overall weakness
– Fainting
– Fatigue during exercise.

diode lasers

Source – innovations-report.com/html/reports/medical_technology/visually_guided_laser_viable_treatment_abnormal_155323.html

One of the biggest, and most expensive, disappointments has been the YAL-1, a powerful laser mounted in a Boeing 747 transport, and capable of burning a hole in a ballistic missile, up to 130 kilometers distant, as it is taking off. This destroys the ballistic missile when it is most vulnerable. The YAL-1 project was eight years behind schedule and $4 billion over budget when it was canceled last year as unlikely to be ready for use anytime soon. Also noted was the likely paucity of situations where enemy ballistic missile launch sites would be within range. The YAL-1 worked in tests, but was nowhere near needed levels of reliability for regular use. It’s been the same with less powerful lasers, designed to knock down rockets and shells.

A persistent problem with combat lasers is generating sufficient electrical power to drive them. But the U.S. Army and Air Force have discovered that low power lasers can be pretty lethal battlefield weapons. For decades, the conventional wisdom was that you needed a high powered laser (as in instantly burning through the metal skin of a missile). But over the last few years, it’s become obvious that slow burn (lower powered) lasers will do useful stuff like cause the explosives in shells, missiles and roadside bombs to go off. That was thought to be potentially very useful, but the U.S. Department of Defense conducted lots of tests in the last five years, only to discover that these cheaper, easier to use (because of the lower power requirements) lasers were also not yet ready for prime time. A lot of work was also done on lasers that can blind enemy sensors. This sort of thing has been around for years, but new, cheaper and more sensitive sensors are also more vulnerable to lasers. This didn’t work out either.

While scaling back most efforts to develop laser weapons into systems that can actually be used in combat, the military is continuing to do a lot of basic engineering work. Breakthroughs in battery power and laser design can eventually solve a lot of the existing problems. Meanwhile, lasers continue to proliferate as measuring tools (laser range finders) and sensors (ladar). The laser weapons, it’s agreed, are going to arrive later, rather than sooner.

diode lasers

Source – strategypage.com/dls/articles/Lasers-Lose-Their-Luster-5-27-2010.asp

The two are collaborating on a laser guidance system for 2.75 inch rockets, which are used by helicopter-based defence systems in the US, UAE and worldwide. The system “fills the critical operational capability gap between unguided rockets and guided heavy anti-tank missiles”, according to the US-based Raytheon.
EAI’s investment in the rocket programme helped save Raytheon millions of dollars in development costs, the companies have said.

As part of the joint development deal, a follow-on production proposal involves manufacturing the laser-guided rockets in both the US and the UAE as early as this year.

Last month, Raytheon announced that it and EAI had completed four ground-based guided flight tests of the TALON Laser-Guided Rocket.
“The Raytheon-EAI team has a proven, production-ready laser-guided rocket,” said Taylor Lawrence, the vice president of the company and the president of Raytheon missile systems. “These tests affirm we are on track to deliver an affordable, fully qualified precision weapon for attack helicopters in 2010.”

The tests used rockets built on the Raytheon-EAI production line and pave the way for airborne testing of the TALON, including live firings from the Boeing AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopter.
Hussain al Hammadi, the chief executive of EAI, said the programme was now entering the “final phase” and was helping the UAE achieve its goals of developing specialised skills among the workforce.

diode lasers

Source – thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100530/BUSINESS/705299960/1010/rss

They suspect a US laser cannon burned through the vehicles and literally cut to pieces many of the innocent occupants. One witness to the aftermath went on-the-record to say the apparent laser, in some cases, melted the faces off some of these victims, yet kept their entire body intact.

There’s no smoking-laser cannon evidence that such a despicable war crime was ever committed. But then again, this was the US military during the Bush administration. An era when US military big-wigs and civilian scientists had free reign to spend piles of cash on a toy-store array of weapons. An era that makes Hitler and his Nazi’s look relatively mild when it came to passion for all things used to wage war. Certainly a time when those running the weapons program, might unhinge mentally, and take their obsession with the weapon too far.

Before the invasion, as the US build-up labored on, there was much talk amongst Americans about the prospects of the Pentagon unleashing a number of new and perhaps even secret weapons on the Iraq battlefield. Weapons that only a few officers and scientists were aware of, considering only a few officers and civilian scientists had built them. Weapons that no doubt had undergone years of research, costing hundreds of millions of dollars to develop.

Indeed, the Pentagon told the likes of Defense Industry Daily that several Humvees mounted with a classified weapons-grade laser known as “Zeus“ had been deployed to Iraq at the onset of the war. Compared to most US military lasers, Zeus is small and easily mobile. The Pentagon classifies Zeus as a (aptly-named) “HEL”, or High Energy Laser weapon. But Zeus, essentially a true laser cannon, only had one mission, said the Pentagon. And it was clear: Blow-up hidden IEDs and land mines.

But did the Zeus, or any HEL for that matter, have a secret secondary mission? Let’s say the military unit handling the laser weapon received orders to conduct a secret “demonstration”. And tested the laser(s) in a way that could have been deemed immoral? To perhaps, for example, test its ability to burn through “atmospheric distortion”, say fog and rain, or something a little thicker. Like human skin?

Even though the Pentagon was challenged to answer such questions, no way would they answer either yes or no. Yet if you listen to what a prominent Iraqi violinist and several doctors have to say, you might soon be scratching your head. Picture a scene, an aftermath, of an elite US military unit told to use the secret laser in a different way – say, crowd control. And the experiment went awry as the laser’s power level was misunderstood by the US military officers leading this super-secret platoon.

Perhaps a good way to show just how far the US military has come to building a combat-style laser that can do serious damage, is to recall a test in a New Mexico desert in 1973. That year, the US Air Force shot down a winged-drone at the Sandia Optical Range, New Mexico.

For the most part, all lasers work in the same way. Get certain atoms excited by light particles, and photons radiate out. Reflect this light back into the excited atoms, and more photons are born. But whether the laser is just a bright light, or the kind that can shoot down satellites, depends on the type of atoms or “gain medium” you use to generate the laser beam. Such as certain liquids and gases, and also solids, like crystals.

Today, US military lasers are far past shooting down drones, no small feat of itself. They’re now capable of knocking mortars and missiles out of the sky. Lasers that can melt a hole in the side of a ten-foot cylindrical spear that’s traveling at over 700-hundred mph. On YouTube, a Zeus laser chews through thick metal as if it were Velveeta melting in the microwave. But like most US military’s weapons systems with huge black budgets, it is hard to gauge what defense contractors are exactly cooking up – and how long the technology is from being deployed to a battlefield. Yet in 2008, a laser mounted on Humvee – which suggests US military lasers are becoming smaller equating into greater mobility – shot down a Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). Moreover, experts agree the US military has spent between $100 to $200 million annually for over 30 years now on secret research into lasers, more precisely, laser cannons.

And it is the secrecy behind US military lasers that makes the evidence a US military beam weapon was used inappropriately by killing human beings at the Baghdad International Airport, even more scattered and difficult to piece together, like a complicated puzzle of a thousand pieces.

Nevertheless, the evidence, while largely circumstantial, is intriguing.

There are witnesses who are sure something strange happened not far from the Baghdad airport and other nearby locations during the beginning of the invasion. Their stories describe several post-combat aftermaths that even the most war-torn Iraqis, such as doctors, were having a hard time deciphering. To narrow it down even more, the tragic aftermaths appear to be your typical US troop-blow-away-civilian-that-comes-too-close episode. Nevertheless, one survivor claimed he was the target of a US weapon that killed silently and invisibly, taking-off heads and limbs with ease.

One of the witnesses to the aftermaths is a prominent violinist of Baghdad’s orchestra. The others are the mentioned Iraqi doctors who worked on the dead and injured of this apparent strange combat aftermath. The violinist claimed a large van with several civilian passengers was heat-warped into a “wet rag”. He added that other vehicles with civilians were also targeted. He said he saw victims with their faces melted off, but their bodies were untouched. He said in some cases the dead were hastily buried by US troops, but the bodies were later unearthed and taken away into the ink-stained night. The Iraqi doctors claim that during the same week the violinist discovered the melted van, about twenty-plus dead civilians were brought to their morgue with a confusing array of brutal injuries. Types of wounds they were not familiar with. Mysteriously, there was no sign of bullet or artillery wounds, they claimed.

These witnesses and their stories were first reported in detail by two respected Italian journalists, Maurizio Torrealta and Sigfrido Ranucci. They work for RAI Television, one of three major broadcasting channels serving Italy. The channel is owned by the government and controlled by the Italian parliament. Thus RAI is considered state-run news, and probably close to what PBS has to offer. Not surprisingly the channel’s share of the Italian audience is nearly half the nation.

Torrealta and Ranucci’s half-hour video is titled after America’s biggest symbol of science fiction: Star Wars in Iraq A video whose production and professionalism rivals that of any US-based effort, such as a story by NBC’s Dateline. The two journalists also traveled the world to get the story, speaking with experts like retired US Colonel John B. Alexander, a former program director at the US Los Alamos National Laboratory – a place widely believed to house a significant percentage of the US military’s secret “black” laser research. Interestingly, Colonel Alexander told the pair: “The research and certainly the concepts for direct-energy weapons go back many decades. What is happening is that the technology has now advanced sufficiently that were starting to see the weapons come into fruition. In other words, they’re becoming real.”

The two journalists also dug up statements made at the onset of the invasion by then-Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld during a press conference. The footage shows an American journalist asking Rumy specifically about “directed energy and high-powered microwave technology,” and he added, “When do you envision that you can weaponize that type of technology?”

Rumsfeld, who undoubtedly had, and still has, millions of dollars worth of stock invested in the company’s developing lasers for the US military, seemed to lose his cool a bit. Stumbling over the first part of his answer, then steadying himself:

“In the normal order of things, when you invest in research and development and begin a developmental project, you don’t have any intention or expectations that one would use it,” he said, as American troops closed in on Baghdad. “On the other hand, the real world intervenes from time to time, and you reach in there and take something out that is still in a developmental stage, and you might use it. So the – your question’s not answerable. It is – it depends on what happens in the future and how well things move along the track and whether or not someone feels it’s appropriate to reach into a development stage and see if something might be useful, as was the case with the unmanned aerial vehicles.”

Which prompted the journalist to ask, “But you sound like you’re willing to experiment with it?”

Also standing on the podium that day with Rumsfeld was Gen. Richard Myers, who responded or attempted to respond to the question, saying, “Yeah, I think that’s the point. And I think – and it’s – we have, I think, from the beginning of this conflict – I think General Franks has been very open to looking at new things, if there are new things available, and has been willing to put them into the fight, even before they’ve been fully wrung out.

And I think that’s – not referring to these particular cases of directed energy or high-powered microwave, but sure. And we will continue to do that”.

Let’s analyze what he had to say. The General stated, “…We have, I think, from the beginning of this conflict – I think General Franks has been very open looking at new things available, if there are new things available, and has been willing to put them into the fight.” At first he attempts to be half honest by saying, “We have”, but then like any PR-whipped General, he qualifies it with “I think”. He does it again by saying Franks is “very open”, and qualifies it with “if there are new things available”, which is safe to say he damn well knows they are.

According to Dr. Carlo Kopp, a well-known defense expert from Australia, “The next ten years will see the emergence of high energy lasers as an operational capability in US service.” He wrote that in Air Power Australia magazine in 2006. Two-decades ago, US defense contractors were able to unleash 60 kilowatts (60,000 watts) of power from a Gas Dynamic Laser (GDL) for a few milliseconds. In March of 2009, defense contractor Northrop Grumman and the US military’s Joint High-Powered Solid State Laser (JHPSSL) project announced they had reached the 100- kilowatt level of laser power with a duration of over 85 minutes.

The 100-kilowatt threshold is what some experts have called the “holy-grail level” of laser power, or as the Pentagon likes to refer to it, “weapons grade”, or capable of shooting down a cruise missile or ICBMs. The military has consistently reached this level with gas-powered or chemically powered lasers, but not solid-state lasers, until Northrop Grumman did it in 2009. Yet the Pentagon may be shifting away from gas-powered or chemically induced lasers because for starters, they’re so damn big and heavy. Take the Air Borne Laser or ABL, the huge Boeing 747-freighter jet turned flying laser cannon being designed and tested by the US Missile Defense Agency.

The ABL, if it survives the Obama administration, might be capable of taking out boost-phase ICBMs (in the Earth’s atmosphere) by focusing its laser beam on the skin of the missile and simply melting a small hole, causing the missile to disintegrate due to its velocity. The ABL did this first time during a test in 2010 over central California.

Due to the size of the equipment and the fact you need thousands of gallons of hazardous chemicals nearby, it might be safe to assume that such a laser was not used in the battle for the Baghdad airport or anywhere else. But was a smaller version used? There is the Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL), for instance, a joint project with Israel. The THEL has a mobile counterpart (MTHEL), and between 2000 to 2004, shot down artillery rockets and shells, mortar rounds, and low-flying drones.

The program’s funding was cut-off in 2006, however. Similar to the ABL, another chemical laser still surviving is the Advanced Tactical Laser or ATL, which is loaded onto a C-130 aircraft. In September of 2009, the ATL completed its first air-to-ground engagement with a movable target. It melted a hole in the fender of a moving vehicle, said the US military and Boeing, the ATL’s civilian contractor. Another liquid laser making serious progress is the HELLADS, or the, which is projected by 2012 of having a power level of a 150 kilowatts, but weighing only 1,300 pounds, which according to Wired would make it ten times lighter than other liquid laser systems.

diode lasers

Source – dissidentvoice.org/2010/05/the-night-all-%E2%80%9Chel%E2%80%9D-broke-out/