laser + lightning = safe conduction ?

.

I saw a couple of web articles recently on an experiment done to see if laser beams could be used to guide lighting strikes:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/lasers-seed-lightning

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/01/lasers-used-to-guide-lightning-strikes-to-a-safe-target/

This is pretty neat but probably no applications to ham radio, the laser is really powerful (expensive ??) and the results weren't perfect but a cool idea to try.

Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm