In an initiative reaching back to the Cold War, the U.S. Missile Command and the U.S Air Force are jointly continuing research and development on an airborne laser (ABL) weapon. Their plans call for mounting a powerful chemical oxygen iodine laser in a turret-like array on the nose of specially modified Boeing 747-400 air freighters.

The ABL's primary mission will be to shoot down enemy ballistic missiles by heating up the target's metallic "skin" to a point where flight stress will cause it to weaken and eventually break up (depicted in the artist's rendition above). Using infrared sensors to pick up ascending enemy missiles, the ABL system would then fire a three- to five-second laser burst to bring down each target. Successful ground tests have already demonstrated the lasers' killing power and the Air Force hopes to have an operational airborne version sometime after 2008.