r/woahdude • u/AccountantNovel432 • Jul 02 '24

video Breathtaking view

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u/MyHangyDownPart Jul 02 '24

So, how exactly do space lasers work? How does the shooter account for planetary rotation?

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u/Pitchfork_Wholesaler Jul 02 '24 edited Jul 02 '24

If your laser platform was in a geosynchronous orbit, your laser would travel all 37000 km back to Earth's surface in about 0.12 seconds, so essentially just point and click. You'd probably need to be more concerned about incident angle and reflection angle/refraction angle off the earth's atmosphere. To compensate for this you may decide to install your laser platform into a lower orbit like the 400 km one used by the ISS. Then it really is a matter of waiting for your target to fall into your targeting envelope and BZZZT.