The Pentagon Plans To Test More Airborne Laser Weapons As Soon As Next Year

The DoD's track record shooting missiles from the sky with laser beams is checkered at best, but DARPA is nonetheless taking a new 150-kilowatt energy beam into trials. The last time the Pentagon took an active interest in airborne laser weapons it resulted in a massive fail, literally. The hulking Boeing 747 housing the Missile Defense Agency's Airborne Laser Test Bed missile killer--a 1 megawatt laser designed to knock boosting ICBMs out of the sky--was killed after billions of dollars in deve...