Texas blasts the ISS with a ground-based laser

On Sunday, a group of amateur astronomers in San Antonio fired a one-watt blue laser up at the ISS and scored a direct hit, a first in ISS history. And instead of getting hunted down and arrested (which is what usually happens when you shoot lasers at flying things owned by the Feds), they got a congratulatory email from an astronaut.

Don Pettit, one of the lucky few up on the ISS, has been working with the San Antonio Astronomical Association for weeks to try and help them flash the ISS with a laser from the ground. Successfully doing this involves having a bright enough laser that's properly focused, knowing exactly where to point it and when, tracking the station as it moves, and most importantly, having an astronaut standing by on the station looking out a window with a camera.

Lots of people have tried to flash the ISS before this, and none of them have been successful. Pettit explained why it's so hard to do in a blog post last month:


Getting Sunday's attempt to work required a lot of coordination, and since the ISS only sends and receives email two or three times a day (!), that meant weeks of back-and-forth. But as you can see from the above pic, they managed to do it, successfully flashing the space station with a one-watt blue laser and a white spotlight as it passed overhead.

We should probably mention that unless you're emailing directly with an astronaut, firing powerful lasers into the sky at random is not a very good idea at all, and you run the risk of causing an international incident. So just stick to popping balloons and stuff, m'kay?

Via Smithsonian

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