Putting the science in fiction - Dan Koboldt, Chuck Wendig 2018
The weapons of star wars
Star wars and the far future
By Judy L. Mohr
Franchise movies like Star Trek and Star Wars often spark imagination regarding the weapons of the future. The debates about how certain technologies could come about are steeped with speculation, sometimes loosely backed up by science. Although, some people question how much of science fiction is science fact.
The weapons depicted on the screen within Star Trek and Star Wars are all weapons of light. You have phasers of varying designs with their beams of light striking the enemy down. There are pulse cannons, sending a pulse of light to blow up the ships orbiting the planet. There are photon torpedoes on Star Trek, torpedoes with a light-based warhead. However, we can’t forget the most coveted of all light weapons: the lightsaber.
Before I get too carried away in debunking certain fandoms about their weapons, let’s turn our attention to the most important question in this argument: Is it possible to create weapons of light? The answer is yes and no.
The destructive force of light
For a moment, let’s pretend that we’re outside playing with a magnifying glass in the sun, torturing ants. It takes some careful maneuvering, but the sunlight can be focused into a fine point, and the ants … poof! And let’s not forget about the number of fires that have been started by focusing that light beam on a patch of dry leaves. Ah, the joys of childhood science.
The concept of turning light into a destructive force is something that many of us have played with at some point. With the introduction of laser technology, it was only a question of when lasers would become powerful enough to be weaponized.
If your objective is to slice through an opponent using only a beam of light, you will be pleased to hear that the laser technology already exists and is commercially available. Lasers have been used to cut high-density materials, such as diamonds and metal, since the 1960s. In the 1970s, laser-cutting technology was used to cut titanium for aerospace applications. However, the power requirements for laser cutting are enormous. Just cutting 6.4mm (0.25in) thickness of plywood requires a laser of 650 watts. Laser surgery, commonly used in eye surgery, uses a 1,000-watt laser, minimum.
For a laser beam capable of slicing off the nose of an X-wing starfighter, the power generation unit would need to be the size of a tank, based on current technology, but this is rapidly changing.
Laser cannons already exist
With our growing demands for smaller, more powerful batteries for cell phones and laptops, power generation technology is growing by leaps and bounds. So much so that weapons such as laser cannons and laser rifles, the ones like the stormtroopers in Star Wars used, are now within the reach of our current level of technology.
In 2014, the U.S. Navy experimented with a ship-mounted laser weapon system (LaWS) to target small boats and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with promising results. (We’ll blame the U.S. military for this incredibly exciting system name and acronym.) The system was installed on the U.S.S. Ponce, and videos of the tests can be found on YouTube. Personally, I feel sorry for that dummy on the dingy—to have its hand blown off by a beam of light. However, the accuracy of the system to take down a UAV … I’m impressed.
Today, similar systems have been mounted on several other naval vessels and land-based units, and have been deployed into the field. The current systems do take time to charge the laser unit between consecutive shots. It’s not the near-instantaneous shots that you see in Star Trek with the phaser cannons, but if I remember rightly, there a few episodes in the TV series Star Trek: Enterprise, where they spoke about charging the laser cannons. There was definitely this conversation in The Empire Strikes Back.
Now, I can hear a few readers shouting at me, saying that Star Wars used pulse cannons, not laser cannons. The difference between these two systems is the amount of energy sent out at a time. A laser cannon, like LaWS, employs a constant beam of light—creating its destructive abilities in the same way you did with that magnifying glass and sunlight. The pulse cannon sends a short burst of high-intensity light, giving the system the chance to build up its deadly charge in between shots.
Laser rifles
Laser pointers are now so common that many people use them to tease their cats. Novelty designs exist in the shapes of guns and rifles, some sold as toys. However, true laser-based handheld military weapons also exist and are currently being tested by military and gun enthusiasts.
In 2013, gun enthusiast Rob Pincus released a video on YouTube comparing the performance of laser rifles with projectile rifles. At the time, the laser rifle was lethal to a stationary balloon. A moving target, on the other hand … I shall hang my head in shame. A laser-based weapon like the one Pincus tested took far too long to charge. On the battlefield, a unit like that would be completely useless.
However, our level of understanding of power cells and fast-charging systems has dramatically improved since then, thanks to smartphones and tablets. It wouldn’t surprise me if, in the near future, weapons like the laser pistol Han Solo sported on his thigh become a reality.
The light-based grenade is standard issue for military
In Stargate, the Goa’uld had a grenade-type device that would emit a strong pulse of light and a high-pitched sound that rendered the enemy unconscious. Variants of the stun grenade have been around since the 1970s, and are now standard issue for Special Forces soldiers.
The stun grenade goes by many different names: flash grenade, flashbang, and thunder flash, to name a few. These devices produce a blinding flash of light and an intensely loud sound of greater than 170 decibels, overloading the senses of the assailants and disorienting them. In some cases, assailants are rendered unconscious. The stun grenades are normally nonlethal.
Lightsabers
What about the one weapon that so many covet: the lightsaber?
If you look on YouTube, you will find countless numbers of videos where people are demonstrating their homemade lightsabers. Some are just flashlights and LED rods fashioned to look like lightsabers. A few give the zooming-out beam that really does look like a lightsaber and can cause significant damage. However, if you take a close look at the latter category of videos, you’ll discover that what was created was actually a glorified blowtorch, complete with the long, narrow, blue flame. Yes, they are extremely impressive—from a cosplay perspective—but are they lightsabers?
To put it frankly, no. The lightsabers portrayed in the Star Wars films are swords constructed from a laser beam of some description—it’s made of light, hence its name. Now comes the next question: Like the laser cannons and guns, will we ever see a lightsaber in reality?
Well, I will gladly admit that the fight scene in Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace between Darth Maul, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Qui-Gon Jinn was a serious bow-down-to-the-Sith moment. It was spectacular on so many levels. Never mind that the science behind their weapons was seriously flawed.
Power generation is one thing, and as I’ve mentioned already, it won’t be long before we have a lethal laser unit that would fit in the palm of the hand. However, turning a laser beam into a functional sword is something that is pure science fiction.
Cutting down the enemy is only one requirement for a sword. A sword must also block the strike of another swordsman. No matter how hard you try, a light beam would never be able to stop another light beam. Dare I say it, even the glorified blowtorches that people have fashioned to look like lightsabers would have no hope of stopping the beam from another lightsaber. Stopping something of mass is possible, but at this stage, only by burning it to a crisp and blowing it up.
Let’s for a moment assume that the lightsaber’s blocking capabilities come from the force that flows through all things. The lightsabers portrayed in the movies have a visible beam that is approximately one to two meters long (one to two yards), depending on the design employed. Beyond this range, the lightsaber appears to be harmless; either that, or the Jedi would frequently be cutting holes in the decks of the ships they’re on. There are two things wrong with this picture.
First, light travels faster than the human eye can process. As such, to see the beams from lasers, one of two things has to happen: either the photons from the laser interact with particles in their path, for example dust or ionizing atoms; or a long-exposure image is taken using an exposure time beyond the capabilities of the human eye.
Second, any photon emitted from a laser will continue along its path until stopped by some energy-absorbing material. You cannot generate a laser beam with a finite length stopped only by clear air. Those photons need to interact with the surrounding air particles in some fashion, often resulting in a flash of light concentrated at the point of interaction. To render a high-powered laser beam harmless after a short distance, traveling through only air, one would need to employ another science fiction method to either teleport the light photon to the start again, or bend the beam back upon itself with a micro-singularity.
Science fiction is often the birth of modern technology, and many of the ideas come from Star Trek and Star Wars. Because of the inspiration fueled by these franchises, we now have laser cannons, and phaser pistols are just around the corner. The lightsaber? Let’s just leave that one for those who are strong with the Force.