The latest installment in the "Star Wars" franchise seems to be on everyone's minds lately. The seventh film "The Force Awakens" broke many box office records by making a cosmic $247 million opening weekend, as reported by Vanity Fair. Yet, the pop culture phenomenon has reached past the entertainment industry and begun to inspire military leaders.
The Morning Ticker reported that the U.S. military has hired contractors to develop a laser defense system not unlike the ones used in the sci-fi saga. The lasers would be used to defend against attacks by air, land and sea.
Though the technology is in the early stages, and the final product will look nothing like the laser weapons in "Star Wars," the military has some interesting projects in the works. Fox News wrote that some of the contractors hired have been working on things like a drone-slaying laser, all-terrain vehicle-mounted lasers and aircraft-mounted lasers. The news source also reported that there was a project dedicated to laser-equipped boats called Area Defense Anti-Munitions, or ADAMs for short.
All of the technologies are still in the testing phase.