Originally posted by Aliensun
The only interesting thing about the video is the comment from the narrator that the propulsion for the toy is an old, out-dated "Star Wars laser that is so powerful that it "could cripple a satellite if accidently hit." And here these guys are playing with it. --What does that tell you about our present capabilities in that area?

Yeah, why don't you say what it tells us?

Because all I see is massive defense spending budgets with very little put towards space programs these days.

And you can talk about how we have all kinds of secret technology. Well guess what? We don't. Those who do are a pretty exclusive club and, in the words of George Carlin, "we ain't in it".

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I wrote a paper on building a space elevator once. One of the popular concepts for fueling the ascent of vehicles up the tether is also by means of using infrared lasers targeting solar panels on the vehicle. This video outlines the same principal but in much more free operating system (a vehicle on a tether vs a vehicle powered by a satalite). Pretty interesting stuff.

they have vasimir..which will be tested in about a year (2013-2014)