Could new powerful laser pointers distrupt professional sports

I recently checked out a website that said it had a laser that could shoot for 85miles and could leave the atmosphere that is legal in the u.s http://m.wickedlasers.com/lasers/S3_Krypton_Series-113-63.html. so out of curiosity i checked out a few videos on YouTube and saw some guys popping balloons and what not but I also saw a soccer player being hit with a laser his name was Lionel Messi so could someone mess up a game and change the tide of a game with one of these?

Probably.

Sure they could. They already disrupt concerts, films, and other performances. One of the problems with them is the beam is so powerful that it scintillates off of dust, pollen, and moisture in the air, and it is very easy to track right back to its source.

How do I know? I own one - in fact, in about two weeks Cecil will be highlighting some “cooking” experiments we did using the blue version of that laser.

But yes, especially at night, the beam is very easy to see. Unless Cecil changes his mind, some photos will be posted on the Straight Dope website when the column runs.

Some of the lasers on the market these days could instantly and permanently blind a player, and I think that would mess up the game.

There was a laser incident in the last soccer world cup and more recently in Indonesia:

http://guyism.com/sports/video-malaysian-fans-try-to-blind-singaporean-goalie-with-laser-pointer-during-world-cup-qualifier.html

View from the goalkeeper side showing the perpetrator:
http://blog.galvintan.com/laser-culprit-caught-on-photo-during-malaysia-v-singapore-match/

No player has been hurt by there yahoos, so far.

Someone could disrupt sports with a grenade or a bag of feces or any number of things; this isn’t very different. The disincentive to doing so is that one will likely be caught and punished, not any physical impossibility to the act, just like with the existing methods.

But few weapons give your average untrained hooligan as much reach, power, and anonymity as a laser. Stand in a crowd or a hidden nook, shine it for a few critical seconds, and walk away and it will be very difficult to trace you down versus, say, a bullet, a bag of feces, or anything that leaves a physical presence. It’s already a problem with idiots lasing pilots.

And that’s just with a visible laser. Wait until some guy with a score to settle gets a powerful IR one and attaches it to a binocular or camera or something to help disguise and aim it. It’ll look like he’ll just watching the game, even as the victim player on the field screams in pain and covers his eyes for apparently no reason.

IIRC from a news article, about 25 years ago the FBI arrested some gang that was planning to use an infrared laser (not visible!) to disrupt horse races. Hit the horse’s flank with a strong heat (but not to leave obvious burn marks or flames) and it will break stride or start jumping around and lose position.

These weren’t the brightest bulbs in the pack - first, wouldn’t someone get suspicious if too many favourites suddenly started losing because they jumped and broke stride? Secondly, they approached a laser retailer looking for a laser “strong enough to knock a horse off its stride”. The guy called the cops.

Do you need to take any safety precautions? How powerful can a laser get before you need to wear goggles etc?

Over 5mw lasers are forbidden in the United States

That’s not true.
Anything over 5mW is considered to be not “Eye Safe”, but as demonstrated by the fact that Wicked Lasers sells a 1,000mW laser, there’s nothing illegal about higher powered lasers. I have a 30W CO2 laser that makes all of these seem like the toys they are.

OSHA recommends that you have eye protection when working with lasers of over 5mW (Class IIIb or higher). With a Class IV laser like we have, even incidental reflections can cause permanent blindness, so we had to wear some very dark goggles, as in welding-level dark. I looked at the targets we fired the laser at a few times with a glance (accidentally) and the brightness of just the scattered/reflected light from the target was like looking at the sun.

What is the motivation for a person to post something both patently untrue and clearly without having read the thread? I often wonder.

Sure, but the key thing is we wanted to test a powerful handheld/battery-operated laser, and at the time I bought it, mine was the most powerful handheld version at 1W (they released a 1.5W and 2.0W version the month after I bought mine, grrrr!)

With or without goggles?

Lasers aren’t very efficient, I wonder how much power a 1W laser uses. I wouldn’t be surprised if a 30W laser used 3-phase power.

Well, my 30W CO2 only consumes around 400W at the wall, but CO2 lasers are the most efficient gas lasers. The 1W green laser that Wicked Lasers sells is probably horribly inefficient - it’s a frequency-doubled Infrared laser, so you have another stage of power loss after the inefficient laser diode itself. Still, even it it’s 3% efficient, that’s only 30W, and Lithium battery technology can put 30Whr of energy in a few cubic inches.

I glanced without, and on accident. It was not a good thing.

My laser seems to be able to put out 1W for at least a couple of hours with its battery. It’s the blue and I think that is a bit different in efficiency than the green.

Dumb question, but what practical, useful purpose do one-watt laser pointers have?

A good question. One worthy of an answer!

Pointing out constellations with a high power laser is useful. It’s amazing how far you can see the beam stretch into the sky. A guy did this at an observatory I went to a couple months ago and it was really helpful. He could point out individual stars in seconds with his pointer.