I guess the good news for now is that in case anyone had ambitions to use it like Dr. Evil or Darth Vader they would be unsuccessful 😉

“If one wanted to destroy a satellite, the Japanese LFEX laser would not be the answer, as it would not propagate far through the atmosphere – even if it could be pointed towards the satellite,” Michael Donovan, the associate director of Texas Petawatt Laser program in the US, told Patrick Tucker at Defence One. “The higher you get, the thinner the atmosphere. So a laser launched in space could propagate, but a petawatt laser is too large to economically launch into space.”

And below there is a video of the control room, monitoring the firing of a similar laser in Texas from a couple years ago:

The Texas Petawatt Laser is the highest power laser in the world and was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the most powerful laser by output in terms of wattage.

What do you think the applications would be for this type of device in the future? (aside from the military)

thanks to sciencealert.com for the great info