Huffington Post Defense and aerospace company Lockheed Martin announced this week that its new fiber-optic laser weapon system, dubbed ATHENA (Advanced Test High Energy Asset), successfully took out a small truck “from more than a mile away” during a recent field test. The ATHENA system uses a technique called “spectral beam combining,” which involves merging multiple laser modules to create a single and super-powerful 30-kilowatt laser beam. The system is described as having the “highest power ever documented by a laser weapon of its type.” “To put that in perspective, the laser in an everyday pointer might be about 1 milliwatt, or 3 million times less,” said Motherboard.

This is why the United States is king. You don’t hear about Russia and China’s awesome inventions, do you know why? Because when they finally figure it out they realize the US equivalent was trending on Twitter years ago. Lockheed had this “laser”

in their inventory years ago. They’re already onto version 8 that wipes out entire armies from 20 miles away.
The only downside to this is the ramifications Lockheed Martin will have on Hollywood going forward. American Sniper was hot in the streets this winter, a film about America’s deadliest and most accurate sniper.
Chris Kyle was a total badass, with a resume that included taking out an enemy target from 2,100 yards, the 8th longest kill at the time. According to that list, the longest sniper kill is 2,475 yards, less than a mile and a half. Lockheed Martin is letting us know they have a laser to wipe out targets from over a mile away.
You think Hollywood can rely on dramatic scenes where Bradley Cooper blows people away from a mile away knowing he could have just used the laser in his utility belt (a must for all futuristic soldiers btw).
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