Will the NYT please get a science fact checker.

A recent NY Times article describing the potential de-funding of a laser-based anti-satellite system called Starfire contains the following statement.

"Unclassified pictures of Starfire in action show a pencil-thin laser beam shooting up from its hilltop observatory into the night sky."

Unfortunately, unlike what Star Wars would have you believe, one normally cannot see laser beams. If you can see them, it means significant scattering is dramatically weakening the laser's intensity. A quick Google search found the images mentioned above concerning Starfire, like the one to the left. In several places they were accurately labeled as illustrations because the laser beams are drawn in. As such, they are not pictures of Starfire in action, but drawings of how Starfire theoretically works. (Side Note: Because of atmospheric optical dispersion, the tracer and firing lasers are most likely the same color. Which should have been a clue that the lasers were drawn in. I mean besides the obvious labeling of the picture as illustration.) Considering other oversights, I think the NYT needs to hire journalists with stronger scientific backgrounds.