What’s that ghostly trail in the air? A bullet, flying and turning on its way to nail a target nearly 2km away. This is science fiction — four inches long and launched from the barrel of a gun.
The guided bullet was cooked up at Sandia National Laboratories, a joint weapons toyshop between the Department of Energy and Lockheed Martin. Somewhere in there, bright minds have produced this projectile, which self-corrects its trajectory 30 times every second to wind its way over 2000m to a laser-pinpointed target, missile-style. Wind? Weather? The rotation of the earth? Those shouldn’t be a problem for the bullet’s tiny fins, which are fed navigational data by an onboard sensor.
Of course, laser-guided missiles miss their mark too, but a failed shot from a gun should carry a lot less of a risk than that of a missile. Sadly, if the bullet is ever deployed in combat (and not a test range), it won’t carry that eery trail — that’s just an onboard LED to prove the thing’s dexterity. Which is a shame! What’s more terrifying than a bullet that flies itself? A glowing bullet.
[Sandia via Danger Room]
Scottc
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 8:19 AMPlease correct me if I am wrong, but like the 162 km long ship, I think giz has mixed up km and m again…
Elly Hart
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 9:10 AMFixed!
light487
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 8:25 AMHrmm.. would you even need a laser designator though.. you only need something for it to track. Just stick some very tiny device to to “body” you are wanting to hit and fire from anywhere you want. Presidential assinations? Anyone?
Timmahh
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 9:41 AMHuh…?
James Ray Cox
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 9:46 AMBut then you’d have to get up close to the target and pin a ‘device’ to it, while the laser can be held by someone from a safe distance pinpointing the target.
Jackson Bison
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 9:47 AMAnd how do you get that device on them in the first place? Shoot it onto them from a distance? Slip it discretely into their coffee? Stick it to the underside of their car? Wrap it tightly to their neck using an incredibly thin strong and wire? Get ninjas to surgically insert it into their body in the middle of the night?
Sounds fairly convoluted to me.
light487
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 10:20 AMYou’re taking the most extremely unlikely methods of insertion to make your case when all it takes is a passing glance. You only need to look at professional con people and pickpockets to know how easy it is to plant a device (or evidence) on someone.
The people who would be in possession of technology like this are not going to be your average joe with a grudge against their leadership because they over taxed them.
The laser pointer might work for some situations but not all. The point I am making is that it doesn’t need to be a laser pointer.
th3Pil0t
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 11:53 AMThis has been done for a while. CIA paying locals to plant beacons for drone attacks. Same could easily apply here…
MotorMouth
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 9:58 AMJust for the record, tracer bullets have been around for a very long time. They are a very useful ranging device and the cool thing about them is that they are much harder to see from in front than from behind. i.e. You can see where you’re shooting but they can’t see where you’re shooting from. In Vietnam, our tracer was red, theirs was green and it is normally only put in every fifth round of a machine gun belt/magazine.
Ajmay
Thursday, May 3, 2012 at 11:20 PM…but they didn’t have any form of guidance so your point would be slightly less than relevant.
tag86
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 10:45 AMHow will the CSI guys use their body-laser-stick-things to pinpoint where a shot came from?
Osiris Fox
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 2:41 PMThe point of this, is to improve accuracy right? Well, if you suck at aiming a gun at a target, you’re gonna suck at aiming a laser too.
MD
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 3:03 PMExcept that a laser is usually tripod mounted, and the windage along the path, elevation etc don’t need to be calculated by the marksman… a great little piece of software does all that in real time along the path… automated warfare anyone.. fore and forget bullets. Multi target Laser designation by the AWCS…. more ideas
red t-rex
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 4:36 PMSo pretty soon they will have a “Replay” feature just like “The 5th Element”.
Jamie
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 1:49 PMYay! More weapons! Just what the world needs….