OK, they successfully scrambled the laser test and set fire to the prototype, but they haven't done anything to change the underlying problem - their invention has become a weapon. The military has the info needs to know to build another.
shareyeah, it doesn't work, it pops.
His name...was Julio Iglesias!
I agree to a point. That's why the have the congressman in there. While the weapon's technology will still exist there will be some level of government oversight.
I don't know how the political temperament of the times would have handled it but in today's political climate the congressman would probably shrug it off as an effective weapon in The War on XYZ, the students would be killed and their bodies dumped in a landfill or at least jailed indefinitely.
I don't know how the political temperament of the times would have handled it but in today's political climate the congressman would probably shrug it off as an effective weapon in The War on XYZ, the students would be killed and their bodies dumped in a landfill or at least jailed indefinitely.
Why would they rebuild a laser that just failed spectacularly?
shareSeems to me that the laser worked spectacularly. The tracking system seemed to be a boondoggle however.
**WARNING: MY POSTS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS**
.
^Excellent point, though do you think that the military/checkwriters would make that distinction? Technically the tracking system worked well; it was just given the wrong target location (exposing security flaws in the system).
shareSince they set the laser up to destroy itself after it was fired, there is a good possibility it could not be rebuilt without Chris and Mitch doing it. The time frame from when they finished it to when it was tested isn't stated but seems to be merely be a day or two at most. Unless there were massive amounts of paperwork and blueprints describing how they made it work and built it, I doubt there was enough time for the army to reverse engineer it to build another one.
Plus it was a failure to the army since it broke, it's unreliable. Hathaway would be finished at the university with the Dean(or high ranking professor, I forget what he was) in attendance, so Hathaway has no power to make them rebuild it. The Senator would likely try to put pressure on the army about it so they would just deny it ever happened and move on.
I think even as a single-use weapon, the military (any military) would be highly interested in it. If not the military then the CIA, most definitely.
**WARNING: MY POSTS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS**
.
I haven't seen the movie in a while, but I thought the whole program hinged on that one demonstration going well. If it didn't then Hathaway's involvement in the program (and the money that went along with it) would be cut. That's why he threatened Chris with expulsion if he wasn't able to get it working on time. So while the info to make another is still there, the program that requested the laser was either scrapped or no longer wanted Hathaway's solution because of how poorly the demonstration went.
shareHow so?
It didn't hit the target, however the laser itself very successfully fired.
The R&D guys would have been all over that, and even if Hathaway got sacked, any documents about how to prepare a frozen fuel sample and the prototype itself (albeit charred, there's still lots to see) would be in their hands.
When you're _this_ close to getting a working weapon, unless the Congressman made it too public (and they couldn't spin it they way they wanted to) the military would have clearly refined the design and had a working weapon.
The hard part had already been done... Chris' inspiration to use the specific frozen fuel pellet he did - once they knew what the fuel pellet was, redoing the rest would have been well within the capabilities of any competent laser physicist, or even a tool like Kent.
Just because the tracking system obviously malfunctioned and the laser caught fire due to them replacing the PROM chips, it fired _quite_ successfully.
Everybody wants to rule the world....
So chris mitch lazlo do..ok ;)
"I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass.. and I'm all out of bubblegum"