The concept of a ray gun is founded in science fiction as a directed energy weapon. Other terms used to describe the devices include phasers, laser guns, blasters, and beam guns. The classic image of a ray gun is a weapon that can be instantly fatal to a human being or cut through metal and other objects similar to a blow torch. The most well known real world equivalent is the taser gun used by law enforcement and DoD agencies to temporarily incapacitate an individual person. More recently, the United States Navy successfully deployed and tested a larger version of a ray gun in a sea-based laser gun with research and development continuing in the development of smaller units with similar ray gun capabilities.
Science Fiction History of Ray Guns
One of the earliest known mentions of a ray gun is the heat ray guns featured in The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells in 1898. From that point onwards, ray guns became more common in science fiction novels and in the 1960′s the source of the directed energy shifted to laser technologies made popular in popular shows such as Star Trek and the Lost in Space TV series. Moving through the 1970s through 80′s the Star Wars movies showed the use of laser-based blasters in outer space as well as for individual weapons. Until the past decade, however, technology lagged the implementation of directed beam ray guns in the real world.
The Ray Guns of Today
In the spring of 2011, the United States Navy successfully tested a laser-based weapon on board the USS Paul Foster shooing a 15-kilowatt beam at a rigid boat more than a mile away. The test resulted in the outboard engines bursting into flames and was the first at-sea test of a high-energy laser. Although these types of lasers had been tested ashore before, it was unknown if the damp sea air would reduce the strength of the laser to a something not militarily useful. Research continues on increasing the effective range of solid state lasers as well as reducing the size of the required hardware to potentially result in the first real-world, hand-held ray gun of tomorrow as well as larger ray guns capable of delivery 100 kw of power or more.