Air Force 50-megawatt laser weapon classified power inference

Tom's three-method inference from open literature (superconducting generator program, Bowen's halide glass window project, Rockwell engineer's space-shuttle-cargo-bay confirmation) deducing the classified laser weapon power and the rationale for sizing the Space Shuttle cargo bay.

A guy at Naval Research Laboratory had a big 25-kilowatt laser back in the '70s, which was the biggest laser you could buy commercially. The Air Force had bigger ones, but you couldn't talk about them commercially. The Air Force's laser weapons back then were about 50 megawatts. That was classified — but you could figure it out by three different techniques in the open literature.