Security

Lightning Gunners Take to the Skies

Once, a company called Ionatron promised to build the military real-life lightning guns that would blow up improvised bombs in exchange for tens of millions of taxpayer dollars. It never panned out—and the company had to change its name, 86 its senior executives, and fend off shareholder lawsuits as a result. But the firm-that-was-Ionatron still […]

Once, a company called Ionatron promised to build the military real-life lightning guns that would blow up improvised bombs in exchange for tens of millions of taxpayer dollars. It never panned out—and the company had to change its name, 86 its senior executives, and fend off shareholder lawsuits as a result. But the firm-that-was-Ionatron still manages to rake in military cash. The company just gotnearly a million dollars to look into deploying its gear on "U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps aircraft."

The company, recently renamed Applied Electronics, claims that they’re going to help the Navy and Marines figure out how put ultra short pulse lasers on planes.

USP lasers shoot incredibly fast pulses of light that create channels in the air for electricity to travel to a target. The targets are vaporized so quickly that the lasers don't generate any extra heat. People have mostly speculated that USP lasers could be used in medicine to help blow up dental plaque or cancerous tumors. The armed forces, no doubt, could find all sorts of useful things to do with them. Judge for yourself if Applied Electronics will come through, given their track record.

Here’s what the COO of the company said about their new contract in a recent press release:

We continuously search for opportunities to leverage the technologies developed for LGE [Laser Guided Energy] as part of our core strategy and we believe this new program is evidence of the potential these lasers will have in military applications. We have been successful in doing this with our High Voltage technologies for counter-IED applications, and now we are beginning to see similar opportunities for laser technologies.

We’ll certainly be waiting in the wings to see what they come up with twelve months from now, when they have to make good on their contract. Laser guns on planes or military funding mishap? Stay tuned.

[Photo: Gizmodo]

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