Airborne laser

From WikiCover

Riki Ellison, President of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance was at Andrews AFB, Maryland on June 21, 2007 and had a tour of the Missile Defense Agency's Airborne Laser aircraft that had flown in from Edwards AFB, California. Ellison shared his experience with the MDAA membership:

"On Thursday on the tarmac of Andrews Air Force Base located in southern Maryland, our country's most advanced directed energy weapon system was put on display. The Airborne Laser aircraft is a modified 747-400 equipped with a chemical oxygen iodine and solid state lasers that in flight will acquire, track and destroy ballistic missiles at the speed of light."

"A mobile laser at high altitude that can take multiple shots at the speed of light is an unmatched defensive capability to defeat accelerating ballistic missiles that have thousands of pounds of explosive propellant in their first few minutes of flight. Within a second, a directed energy laser beam can penetrate the outer and protective skin of a ballistic missile, burning it through completely and halting the flight of the ballistic missile. The ability to destroy missiles in their boost phase eliminates the concern of multiple, advanced warheads that ballistic missiles may carry, as well as any decoys or other countermeasures they may be carrying."