At this point no one is talking about using lasers to defend against hyper-sonic missiles (at least not anywhere near the target). All of the current laser systems require being focused on the targets for some amount of time to "burn though", which means they are only suitable for lower-speed targets (drones, cruise missiles, and some low-level ballistics).

You would need to have significantly stronger lasers to try and "burn through" on something moving that fast.

For completeness I should mention that there was quite some work on trying to get laser defenses against ballistic missiles on their "boost" phase (when they were launching, so slow enough to track a point in the missile), for example George Bush's "Star Wars" defense system. These would have been space based (some of the testing involved mounting on 747s, but I don't think that was ever an end-goal), but never made it near production.

> You would need to have significantly stronger lasers to try and "burn through" on something moving that fast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pumped_laser

Still being researched. And yes, was part Regan's "star wars" Strategic Defense Initiative.

Reagan, not Bush.

Or you could just shoot the missiles while it's raining, or in a dense fog.

Laser defense system is a very expensive paperweight in those conditions.

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