Salty Cracker and Wall Street Apes are now insinuating it. The op was a success, they've created a narrative binary where either space lasers did it or climate change (MSM narrative) did it. Meanwhile the much more likely story (strategic arson ahead of high winds + collusion with crooked state and local officials to mishandle the response on purpose) has effectively been shoved under the rug. Now instead of having the entire internet digging into that to possibly find some arsonists or conspiracies to mishandle response, they are instead "laser focused" on space lasers.
Of course, if the DEW theory is correct, this is fine. I just don't think it is.
endrant
You haven't been following what I have been saying. I have repeatedly pointed out that there are surface-to-air DEWs under field test from land and water, which is only what you are catching up with. They are not suitable to go after land targets from airplanes above, and that is what I said. (I have been following these surface weapon developments for years.) The only wilful ignorance is yours, in failing to pay attention. The interesting thing about them is that they are electric fiber-based lasers, with maybe 30% quantum efficiency. The question will be if they have solved the power and thermal cooling requirements for successive rapid shots.
The "irony of my patronizing posts" is that I have been correct. Land-based high-energy lasers have been around since the 1970s, shooting down tethered helicopters (I saw the footage)---but they were laboratory systems, not operational ones. That's a freebie. You want airborne lasers with muscle, go look up YAL-1A, for which I did initial preliminary design work (1970s), edited the winning proposal for the development contract (1990s), and conducted mission analysis for the system in development (2000s). Including shoot-down missions (possible, but a waste of resources; easier to get the job done with conventional means).
In any case, it is just a charade that people here are talking about "all possibilities." They are turning up their nose at the boring ones and spending time on the treasured ones---just as you are doing.
The Lockhead video i linked you shows the systems equipped on a plane. A quick google search shows several results of these systems equipped on planes as well.
Whats available to the public is decades behind whats already been built. If you think that they were testing these systems 50+ years ago and couldnt figure it out by now youre crazy.
China has a system that can disable satellites from the ground. So why couldnt that work in reverse, from a satellite/satellites to the ground.
Elon has been sending thousands of satellites up. No one spends that kind of money just to use them for internet access.
There is no charade, this is how stuff is being leaked to the public. Slow and obvious. Full declass incoming.
You are very credulous. The only lasers on planes in that video were cartoons. Their only comments about airborne applications were in the future tense. The piece of podded hardware was, in all likelihood, a targeting laser pod for missiles homing on a laser-designated target (paint the target and home on the signal).
If you saw Google images of the YAL-1A Airborne Laser, realize that it is now scattered into parts. The program was canceled and the system was scrapped. You have this idea that "the pubic is decades behind what has already been built," but I doubt you can back that up with any evidence. The Corona and successor programs might be the only example. The Airborne Laser was known from the beginning.
It's not a matter of me "thinking" anything about 50 years ago versus now. I was there. I was working in the field. They were experimenting 50 years ago and it has taken this much time to get where we are. The fundamental technology has gone through about 5 generations by now.
The China system blinds sensors. That takes a far lower power level than a hard kill. A satellite couldn't afford to mount such a system (weight and power) and it wouldn't have any thermal weapon effects on other objects.
Elon spends that much money for internet access. It's not just him, either. Everybody wants in on the action. Lots of plans for huge constellations. Your flight of fancy ("no one spends that kind of money...") is refuted by the facts.
Nothing is being "leaked" to the public. Such DEWs as we have are out in the open. But you have to be attentive and quick to pick up on what is going on. No "slow and obvious"---it is all fast and obvious.