The room-temperature pulsed operation of a semiconductor laser emitting at 8.5 mu m is reported. This device is an optimized vertical transition quantum cascade (QC) laser. At 300 K the peak output power from a single facet is 15 mW, and the current density at threshold is similar to 8 kA/cm(2). The temperature dependence of the threshold current density is described by a high T-o (107 K) in the 200-320 K temperature range.