http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=6346 If you could hold a giant magnifying glass in space and focus all the sunlight shining toward Earth onto one grain of sand, that concentrated ray would approach the intensity of a new laser beam made in a University of Michigan laboratory. Death Star potential :) May the force be with you.The pulsed laser beam lasts just 30 femtoseconds. A femtosecond is a millionth of a billionth of a second. The beam is twice as intense as one the researchers produced in 2004.

Such intense beams could help scientists develop better proton and electron beams for radiation treatment of cancer, among other applications.

The record-setting beam measures 20 billion trillion watts per square centimeter. It contains 300 terawatts of power. That’s 300 times the capacity of the entire U.S. electricity grid. The laser beam's power is concentrated to a 1.3-micron speck about 100th the diameter of a human hair. A human hair is about 100 microns wide.

Impressive. They'll be curing cataracts from orbit with that thing. Your doctor's prescription: "Walk outside. Look up."

Assuming we can up our power grid enough to handle powering that sucked. Good grief, who gets that power bill?

Enron?

D'OH!

Assuming we can up our power grid enough to handle powering that sucked. Good grief, who gets that power bill?

Why us the people, of course!

Actually I think this is an important step in learning to harness solar energy from orbiting platforms and lasered down receptors.

It's all about focusing without losing the power garnered.

Seems the Pentagon was one of the groups interested in developing it.

Duh, you can't take over the galaxy without a death ray :)

Actually I think this is an important step in learning to harness solar energy from orbiting platforms and lasered down receptors.

It's all about focusing without losing the power garnered.

Seems the Pentagon was one of the groups interested in developing it.
I don't think this has anything to do with actually beaming power down from orbit. We don't have any sort of photo cell that can translate that back into electricity.

I think you're right though, that orbital power may be huge in the future. I remember watching a TED talk once, where the speaker (Kurtzweil, I think) pointed out that harnessing even a tiny fraction of the Sun's energy above our atmosphere would power the entire world with an order of magnitude in reserve.

The Japanese have a tentative plan to launch a satellite with solar cells that'll beam power down via microwaves, to a collector on the ground. the problem being that the microwave death zone near the ground would be nearly a square half mile. Finding some way to use a laser would be awesome, if feasible.

Was I the only one that thought "laser" shoulda been in quotes?

The Japanese have a tentative plan to launch a satellite with solar cells that'll beam power down via microwaves, to a collector on the ground. the problem being that the microwave death zone near the ground would be nearly a square half mile. I suddenly foresee Masi Oka in the lead role in a Japanese adaptation of The Incredible Hulk.

Can we aim this at rogue nations that make up the "axis of evil". I suddenly get a vision of Kim Jong Il having tea when his palace explodes with kernels of popcorn! Now that would be a practical use! :D

Shoot that popcorn laser at my house! Extra butter please.

There is a book that's been out for several years about the idea of "beaming" power down to Earth via microwave. Of course, someone (i.e. Russia or some faction thereof) tries to destroy the satellite because they think it's a weapon.

The beaming satellite gets knocked out of it's geosynchronous orbit above the target area and begins wandering around the globe. Whe the bad guys tried to kill the satellite, they simply damaged it and since they were using discarded military hardware, the satellite goes into self-preservation mode ... sorta...

Anyway... a bunch of people get turned into popcorn from orbit and it's a happy-go-lucky story about the hero of the story who does what heros do... the impossible to save the world.

*fade out as music swells*

Someone (http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=940) got that idea first! :D

I still think the idea of static generation from a space elevator cable is the way to go until solar collection and beaming gets perfected. it serves a two-fold purpose. generation and a cheap method to achieve orbit with large payloads. takes the whole escape velocity factor out of it.
Ok i'll admit i get this from reading sci-fi books but remember sci-fi drives technology. Captain Kirk was the first human with a flip phone after all.
Could really use someone with some better therotical expertise here*earth to Iokase*