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A recent test of a free electron laser has hastened the day that ships of the United States Navy will be equipped with weapons that seem to be out of an episode of "Star Trek." The power of the laser has passed a significant milestone.


"Walking into a control station at Jefferson Labs, Quentin Saulter started horsing around with his colleague, Carlos Hernandez. Saulter had spent the morning showing two reporters his baby: the laboratory version of the Navy's death ray of the future, known as the free-electron laser, or FEL. He asked Hernandez, the head of injector- and electron-gun systems for the project, to power a mock-up electron gun — the pressure-pumping heart of this energy weapon — to 500 kilovolts. No one has ever cranked the gun that high before. Smiling through his glasses and goatee, Hernandez motioned for Saulter to click and drag a line on his computer terminal up to the 500-kV mark. He had actually been running the electron injector at that kilovoltage for the past eight hours. It's a goal that eluded him for six years."

The US Navy has been developing lasers weapons for a number of years. Last summer, a laser prototype shot down four aerial drones, testing one of the main functions of a laser weapon, to shield ships against enemy missile attack.

The more powerful lasers can be made, the better weapons they become. Right now the laser prototype generates 14 kilowatts. A 100 kilowatt laser is needed for it to be deployed on a ship as an anti-missile weapon.

Once a laser weapon is developed, along with the Navy's planned electromagnet rail gun, the face of naval warfare is changed as thoroughly as when cannons were first mounted in wooden ships in the 16th century, or when missiles appeared as ship-borne weapons starting in the 1950s and 1960s.

By the 2020s, ships of the United States Navy would be almost invulnerable to anti-ships missiles, including the carrier busting ballistic missile the Chinese are developing. The US Navy would be able to bombard land
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targets or other ships with their electromagnetic rail guns almost with impunity. The lasers could also be used to attack other ships. Current lasers can punch through 20 feet of steel per second. Future lasers will be able to punch through 2,000 feet of steel per second.

The electron laser being tested can also penetrate the air, often obscured by crud and water that exists on the ocean. That is because the laser's wavelength can be adjusted to compensate. Increasing the power of the laser is simply a matter of adding more electrons. The trick, of course, is to create a laser weapon small enough to deploy on a ship and powerful enough to engage a target.

Thus, in some future war, a future captain of a Navy ship will actually be able to give the order. "Lock lasers on target," if such has not already been done by a computer.