Giant Blimp Deflated; Laser Jet Delayed

The big weapons -- the destroyers, the aircraft carriers, and the stealth jets -- all emerged pretty much unscathed in the Pentagon's latest budget. Some of the more bleeding-edge projects weren't so lucky. Especially at the Missile Defense Agency, which took about a half-billion dollar hit for fiscal year 2008.

Take the High-Altitude Airship, for instance. Just a year ago, the Pentagon handed Lockheed a $150 million contract to build the missile-spotting dirigible. No, it wouldn't be 25 times bigger than the Goodyear Blimp, as originally planned. Nor would it be powered by lasers. But it would still be built to "hover above the jet stream at an altitude of 65,000 feet for months at a time." That is, if major advances in solar panels, fuel cells, aerodynamic controls, and flexible materials could be overcome.

Lockheed won't get the chance any time soon, however. The High Altitude Airship "has been canceled due to funding constraints," according to the Missile Defense Agency. But get too distraught, blimp-lovers; the budget for the Aerostat Joint Program Office just jumped from $243 million to $481 mil.

The Airborne Laser -- the modified 747, meant to zap missiles as they take off -- still gets more than $500 million in the new budget. But its first live-fire test has been delayed, again. Originally scheduled for 2002, the blast has now been rescheduled for 2009, Inside Defense notes. The Laser Jet's alternative -- the "Kinetic Energy Interceptor," a non-explosive interceptor missile -- has been pared back, as well. There's no longer a "kill vehicle," or warhead, part to the program, Defense News observes. Instead, the KEI has been tweaked, to become a "common booster" for all sorts of missile interceptions.

There's much, much, much more in this budget to explore. Expect lots of posts in the week to come.

Pain Ray's Burning Questions

When controversial new military tools are being rolled out, perceptions often matter more than reality. Take the Active Denial System, the millimeter-wave pain ray developed by the Air Force. The weapon's effects are now pretty well understood by military researchers. But for the average person, it's been nearly impossible to sort through the range of claims and counter-claims surrounding the system. And these questions could come back to haunt the American government, if and when they ever deploy the system.

I was powerfully reminded of this by the recent case of Raul Castells.

Raul Castells is a controversial social activist in Argentina. In 2004 he organised a march on McDonalds ; in March 2006 he opened a community kitchen providing free food for poor people in Puerto Madero, a swish redeveloped dock area. Located opposite the Hilton Hotel, it carried the slogan "We are fighting for an Argentina in which the dogs of the rich don't eat better than the children of the poor".

This behavior has angered some of his opponents in Argentina.

On December 12th, Castells was in a scuffle with the police which resulted in his being hospitalised with serious burns over 20% of his body.

“I was victim of a new Police weapon, a type of flame thrower,” said Castells (my translation). In fact, he was not sure if it was a flamethrower,a giant lighter or something else. Others claim that rubber bullets were fired at them after they went to help the burning man.

The police dispute the account given by Castells and his followers, saying that he was hit by a molotov cocktail thrown by one of his own supporters.

“The Buenosairean and Federal Police do not use flame throwers,” said a police spokesman, reasonably enough.

My first guess was that this was an accident, and that Castells had been hit with pepper spray which had been accidentally ignited. Such sprays use a flammable alcohol base; non-flammable alternatives have been rejected on grounds of safety, effectiveness and environmental damage. However, the police deny using pepper spray in the encounter.

This leaves two completely opposed versions of what happened. Who do you believe, the police or the protesters? While the days of the dirty war and critics of the government being 'disappeared' have long gone, the police are not universally trusted and officers have been convicted of extra-judicial executions of protesters as recently as 2002.

I’m not suggesting that the Argentine police are covertly field-testing an Active Denial system (though a portable version for police use was under development, and the Argentine police are quite innovative, being the first to adopt the electric cattle prod in the 1930’s ). But when the ADS is employed, people will turn up on CNN claiming to be victims, and showing off sunburn, leprosy, blisters and every other skin condition ever seen. Who will you believe? More importantly, who will the local population believe?

Dr Juergen Altmann suggests that prolonged exposure would likely produce high temperatures resulting in blistering over the entire exposed surface of the body. Clearly there is a risk, but re-radiation of heat outwards, and conduction of heat inwards will prevent the temperature from rising indefinitely. I have great respect for Dr Altmann’s technical knowledge in matters nonlethal, but the lack of this kind of injury during extensive testing leads me to suspect that the ADS is (relatively) safe.

Consider: if you step into warm sun from an air conditioned room, in a few seconds your skin temperature shoots up several degrees. This does not mean the solar heating will cause you to burst into flames if you remain for a few more minutes.

But who is really right? Until questions like this can be resolved, any deployment of Active Denial technology is going to be a political minefield.

-- David Hambling

50 Iraqis Dead from Laser Shortfall?

"Civilian casualties in Iraq's volatile Anbar province would have been greatly reduced over the past 20 months if an inexpensive, hand-held laser system had been sent to the Marines operating there, according to a series of e-mail messages between troops in the field and acquisition officials in suburban Washington" obtained by the Tampa Tribune. "A military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said close to 50 innocent Iraqis were killed and nearly 140 were wounded in Anbar between March and December by Marines who did not have the dazzlers as an alternative to lethal force."

The decision to deny delivery of the Compact High Power Laser Dazzler has touched off an internal debate, the messages reveal, with highly charged phrases such as "unnecessary carnage" being used to describe the situation...

The dazzler is a nonlethal tool for steering unwelcome vehicles and people away from U.S. checkpoints and convoys. Without it, U.S. forces must open fire when Iraqis fail to heed warning signals and get too close...

Made by LE Systems, a small company in Hartford, Conn., the compact laser creates a wall of intense green light that stops or redirects oncoming traffic by temporarily impairing the driver's vision.

In June 2005, Marine Corps leaders in western Iraq filed an "urgent universal need" request for several hundred of LE Systems' dazzlers, which cost about $8,000 each. The request, which was repeated less than a year later, has gone unfulfilled.

The dazzler order appears to have been made by Marine Corps Major General Richard Zilmer, who's heading up the coalition effort in western Iraq. He is emerging as a extremely interesting figure. First, he tells Congress that the Marines "needs [the] capability" to deploy through space. Then, once he gets to Iraq, he sends an "urgent request" to the Pentagon, asking for new gear. At the top of his list: a "priority 1" plea for 183 renewable power stations, equipped with "solar panels and wind turbines." By reducing the need for [petroleum-based fuels] at our outlying bases, we can decrease the frequency of logistics convoys on the road, thereby reducing the danger to our Marines, soldiers, and sailors," the request stated. So far, however, the response to Zilmer's renewable-power request has been limited. A single station is being examined for research and development, sources tell Defense Tech. And the Army's Rapid Equipping Force is putting together four alt-power units: two trailer-sized, and two as big as "connex" cargo containers. It's a start, for sure. But it's a far cry from what Zilmer asked for.

(Big ups: Haninah)

Heat 'Em Up

Last week, the Defense Department showcased its "Active Denial System" or ADS At Moody Air Force Base, Georgia. Officially this system is still in "extended user evaluation" phase of an ACTD (advanced concept technology demonstration). They aren't being produced in quantities to ship to Iraq, although I'm sure the troops there wouldn't mind having a few in Baghdad. This system uses millimeter wave energy to cause an uncomfortable hot sensation, designed to encourage people to a hasty retreat from the scene.

The ADS has gone thorough treaty and legal reviews to ensure the system is compliant with applicable arms control treaties and agreements, according to the release. It has also undergone three military utility assessments, where it was evaluated in a variety of operational scenarios ranging from checkpoint support to facility, perimeter and harbor security.

Most of DoD’s current non-lethal weapons, such as bean bag rounds, use “kinetic” energy, Hymes said. With these weapons, the size and mass of the target and the distance at which the weapon is used can change the effect of the weapon, perhaps making it more dangerous, he explained.

“The ADS, on the other hand, is a ‘muzzle-safe’ weapon, which means it is safe and effective at 50 feet and 500 meters,” Hymes said. “The range, safety, universal effect, and tremendous repel capability make the ADS a very versatile non-lethal weapon with a great deal of military utility.”

Other people are more skeptical. German physicist Juergen Altmann points out that non-lethal weapons (or as some prefer, "less-lethal") are not without the capability for lethal results.

"It only stays at 50 degrees Celsius if the beam is switched off at the correct time, let's say after 3.5 seconds," he says. "If you beam on for a further three or five seconds, then you get 60 and 70 and 80 degrees, and you get second- and third-degree burns on the whole part of the body that is exposed, because the beam is at least 3 meters wide, and probably a little wider. You get essentially half of the body exposed that is pointing toward the antenna. And then there is the potential for life-threatening conditions. Medical literature says that if you have somebody who has second- or third-degree burns on more than 20 percent of his body, then he has to be put into intensive care, because it's life-threatening."

Concerns such as these may be why DOD is getting some early press on the system. While the Department says that the system has cleared treaty and legal issues, there will always be the perception that military personnel don't use non-lethal weapons without causing some casualties. DefenseTech has covered the evolution of this system for some time, and captured this Marine officer's comment in response to a question: what if the bad guys try to deflect the beam?

"If they try and deflect beams then we will kill them because we know what their intentions are. "

OKAY! good to know that the non-lethal weapons are of some use, in at least identifying the bad guys to shoot. For the final word, let's go to the Colbert Report. On Tuesday night, Stephen Colbert talked about the ADS (it had been featured on Faux News). He commented, "This is the perfect weapon for the war on terror. What's better than an invisible beam to fight an abstract concept?"

-- Jason Sigger, crossposted at Armchair Generalist

Pain Ray: Keep Waiting

On Monday night, the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate told guys like David Hambling and me that we were welcome to come check out its microwave-ish pain ray -- provided we could make it to the middle of Georgia on 36 hours' notice. It wasn't exactly the most serious offer, for fellows in London and in L.A. And it's one of several reasons why I decided not to blog about the demonstration, when word about it hit the wires yesterday.

But New Scientist did pick up on one interesting tidbit: Theodore Barna, an assistant deputy undersecretary of defense for advanced systems and concepts told Reuters that "We expect the services to add it to their tool kit. And that could happen as early as 2010." (Here's a promo vid for the system.)

Three years from now, hunh? Well, we'll see. For years and years, there have been promises that the pain ray (or "Active Denial System" if you prefer) was just about to be rolled out to the field. Thirteen months ago, for example, the 18th Military Police Brigade requested ADS "to help 'suppress' insurgent attacks and quell prison uprisings." The head of the Army's Rapid Equipping Force said, after nearly 10,000 trial shots, the system was good to go. $30 million was allocated to outfitting three fighting vehicles with pain rays.

But the military still can't shake fears about ADS, as Hambling so ably noted last month. As Hambling put it, "the big problem is not with the technology, which seems to work fine. The problem is getting people to accept it. Everyone is still worried the millimeter-wave beam is going to give them cancer, melt their eyeballs or make them sterile."

Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne didn't help matters much when he suggested the pain ray should be zapping crowds here in the U.S. before it blasted any Iraqis.

Will Americans really be any more comfortable with that, a few years from now?

Next-Gen Ray Gun: Laser, Microwave Combo?

"Lasers and high-power microwave devices long have been eyed as competing directed-energy attack options. However, researchers are now combining the two to produce smaller, cheaper, more powerful, nonkinetic weapons," according to Aviation Week.

"An advanced concept, pioneered by BAE Systems' researchers, uses light to multiply the speed and power at which HPM [high-power microwave] pulses... Researchers predict leaps of 10-100 times in power output within two years," making it possible to generate the 100-gigawatt pulse needed "to disable a cruise missile at a useful range."

The development of HPM weapons has been hobbled for the last 30 years by seemingly intractable cost, size, beam-control and power-generation requirements. Tests of modified air-launched cruise missiles carrying devices to produce explosively generated spikes of energy were considered big disappointments in the early 1990s because of an inability to direct pulses and predict effects. New active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars can jam emitters or possibly cause damage to electronic components with focused beams. But power levels and ranges are limited by aperture size.

BAE Systems' photonically driven technology could open the way to much smaller and more powerful electronic jammers, nonkinetic beam weapons for cruise and anti-ship missile defenses, and stealth-detecting sensors.

"You could put a [sensor] system on a fighter-size aircraft that could generate enough power, with a 1-ft. resolution, to see stealthy objects at 100 mi." D'Amico says. "You can defeat stealth with enough power. If stealth takes the signature [of an aircraft or missile] down a factor of 10, you have to increase the [sensor's] power by a factor of 10." Most current fighter-size radars have less than a megawatt of peak power. Detecting stealth would require tens of gigawatts, which is now impossible in fighter-size packages...

"We have shown everything we claimed with a laboratory testbed," says Oved Zucker, director of photonics programs for BAE Systems' advanced concepts facility here. "We are in the process of demonstrating total power substantially above 10 gigawatts, and we have plans to test [the system] further in an airborne mode..."

There's no dearth of missions for HPM technology, including detecting and detonating improvised explosive devices, finding suicide bombers or hidden explosives, and attacking shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles...

"At one end, it can fry anything [electronic] that's out there," Zucker says. "The levels of EW extend from the sledgehammer to just making the [computer's] brain a little bit befuddled so it can't think for a moment. At a lower level, you can kill the detector of the other guy's radar as part of the suppression of enemy air defenses. You don't need much power because you're going after the most sensitive part. You're blinding the system."

The level below that is to momentarily stop electronics from functioning. A radar will try to defend itself by using a chain of circuits to "blink," and thereby shut out intruding signals. One method of exploitation is to do something during the blink. But if an intruding signal is fast enough, the radar can't react in time to keep out the invader...

BAE researchers envision HPM pulse weapons that are powerful enough to disable a tank, a missile, perhaps a helicopter or aircraft, but at the same time are small and light enough to function as part of a microwave radar sensor designed into the skin of an aircraft.

I'm sure this beam combo is harder than AvWeek is making it out to be. But still, it's an interesting concept.

Electric Lasers Shoot Mortars, Gain Strength

Real-life laser weapons continue to inch closer to reality. Two recent examples: Raytheon says its "prototype solid-state Laser Area Defense System (LADS) successfully detonated 60-millimeter mortars." And Northrop Grumman is opening up a new "directed energy production facility" for building high energy, solid-state lasers.

Raytheon's announcement is interesting, because solid-state, electric lasers haven't yet hit the 100 kilowatt threshold which many people consider to be the minimum strength for weapons-grade lasers. (They're not too far off, though.) But Raytheon says they zapped these mortars using "an a proven, existing, off-the-shelf solid-state laser, coupled with commercially available optics technology."

So how did the company pull it off? I got a non-answer from a company flack, something about "view[ing] the problem from the user point of view."

Now, this was a very limited test. These mortars were small -- just 60 mm. The company wouldn't say how long they were zapped (even a weak laser can bore holes in metal, given enough time). And the mortars were on the ground, around 550 yards away, not flying through the air. But this LADS is built on the back on Raytheon's 4,500-round-per-minute Phalanx gun, which is already knocking down mortars in Iraq. So presumably, the targeting and tracking piece is won't be that hard to manage. In-air tests of the laser are planned for later this year.

Meanwhile, Northrop has opened up a new facility, south of Los Angeles, to build what the company hopes is the world's first 100 kilowatt, solid-state laser. It'll start by putting together the series of 32 garnet crystal "modules" that form the heart of the system. Shine light-emitting diodes into 'em, and they start the laser chain-reaction, shooting out focused light. Combine all those beams into one, and you've got yourself a battlefield-strength ray. The array is similar to what Northrop used in its 25 kw demonstrator. But the gum-stick-sized crystals have been shrunk by about 50% -- part of the company's effort to make the laser small and rugged enough for war zone use.

50 people should be hired over the next year in the new facility. Company officials say they're still on track on demonstrate their 100 kw laser by the end of next year. If everything works according to plan, there should be enough room in the new building to simultaneously build and test three weapons-grade lasers at once.

Good Luck Stopping Missiles Early

"I have to say that it is the ugliest aircraft I have ever seen."

That's what Missile Defense Agency director Lieutenant General Trey Obering said when he laid eyes on the Airborne Laser at a rollout ceremony in October.

I'm not one of those guys that swoons in front of aircraft. But I were, I guess I'd agree, with the modified 747's turrets and antennae and protrusions. But the Airborne Laser isn't mean to win beauty contests. It's being to blast ballistic missiles -- using a chemically-powered, megawatt-class laser -- as they're first climbing into the sky. That's when missiles are slowest and most vulnerable.

This is called boost-phase intercept. Mid-course intercept is up to the Navy's SM-3 missile and the Ground-Based Interceptors based in California and Alaska. Terminal interception -- right before the suckers hit -- is left to Army Patriot missiles, Navy SM-2s and the Army's forthcoming Terminal High-Altitude Air Defense missile, or THAAD. It takes defenses in all three phases to make a fully-functioning missile shield.

The boost-phase intercept is the hardest. There's just a short window before a missile accelerates, noses over, deploys decoys and gets a lot harder to kill. Some folks in the military think the job is so difficult, we shouldn't even bother, going with "pre-boost phase" defense instead -- blowing up the missiles before they ever get off the launching pad, with lightning-quick attacks. But with three Airborne Laser jets, you could maintain a 24-hour orbit near a launch area and zap the missiles mere seconds after launch. Theoretically.

Problem is, the 747's chemical laser and delicate sensors don't quite work yet, despite about a zillion tests, and planning going back the Reagan Administration. The first was supposed to enter service in 2002, then 2005. Now, the target date has been pushed back at least until 2009, and further production is on hold. Obering says he hasn't lost hope -- yet. "Airborne Laser, if it pans out, is very capable," he said at the Surface Navy Symposium, held yesterday in Crystal City near Washington, D.C. "[It is] our primary boost-phase program -- but it's a high-risk program. If it doesn't pan out, we [still] need a boost-phase capability."

So Obering has a back-up... sorta. It's called the Kinetic Energy Interceptor, a fancy name for a "hit-to-kill" (no explosion) long-range missile. Obering figures it will launch from ground silos or from the Navy's projected CG(X) missile cruiser. The general prefers the latter. "I'm a big believer in a more mobile capability. An increased emphasis on seabasing ... is important."

But the Kinetic Energy Interceptor exists mostly on paper, and couldn't be operational before 2014. So too the CG(X), which is still in the study phase. It's supposed to be based on the $2-billion DDG-1000, itself clinging to life after a series of cutbacks. A theoretical missile on a theoretical cruiser is hardly a confidence-inspiring alternative to the finicky flying chemical bomb that is the Airborne Laser.

But nobody's got a better idea.

UPDATE 12:10 PM: "Besides the [Airborne Laser's] technical difficulties, of which there are many, I don't think that MDA [the Missile Defense Agency] has even begun to address how one could realistically try to use ABL in an operational setting," adds missile defense analyst Victoria Samson.

One justification for the ABL is that it's better than other types of interceptors because it can continually shoot at a target until the threat is gone - unlike others, which would have to shoot-look-shoot. However, that doesn't take into consideration the logistics of how one would continually shoot the ABL. That's a heavy requirement of your chemicals. How much do you need for one shot? For two? For five minutes' worth? And how would the aircraft fly with that type of dangerous load on-board?

Drunks, Butts Test Pain Ray; Paris Hilton Next?

I have a story in Wired News today about the Air Force’s Active Denial System (or ‘pain beam’) and why it is still not in service -- despite all those years of development, and all those calls for it in Iraq. The big problem is not with the technology, which seems to work fine. The problem is getting people to accept it. Everyone is still worried the millimeter-wave beam is going to give them cancer, melt their eyeballs or make them sterile.

The Air Force has done a lot of safety testing on the Active Denial System. They have done every sort of test you could think of – and many you would never imagine. Thanks to Ed Hammond of the Sunshine Project, I received a hefty stash of all 14 sets of protocols for ADS testing involving humans which he acquired using the FoIA. There are some amazing ones in there.

F-WR-2002-0024-H - Effects of Ethanol on Millimeter-Wave-Induced Pain translates roughly into “let’s see if a guy can stand the pain if we give him enough vodkas.” FWR-2002-0023 Facial sensitivity and eye aversion response says that earlier trials included testing the pain beam on subjects buttocks; and FWR-2004-0029-H: Effects of Active Denial System Exposures on the Performance of Military Working Dog Teams involved putting a trained attack dog and its handler in front of the beam and seeing what happened when the animal was exposed to sudden, intense pain. Down, boy, down...

The beam has been tested thousands of times, and the bottom line is the same – apart from very occasional blisters (seven in ten thousand exposures), all the ADS does is hurt a lot. Earlier concerns about zippers and spectacles seem to have been settled. But the Pentagon are hugely defensive about it. Perhaps it’s coincidence, but since those FoIA documents went out the Joint Non-lethal Weapons Program updated their web site’s section on the ADS. The best bit is the new video here. If you ignore the Pentagon PR blather and move to a point 1 minute 19 seconds in you can see the actual effects of the beam, but only for 8 seconds, and again at 1 min 40 for 6 seconds.

And this is the problem. Tests conducted in secrecy without independent observers are not going to convince people: it amounts to "It’s safe because we say it is. Trust us." The ADS must not simply be safe and effective, it must be seen to be safe and effective, preferably by as many people as possible. And that means television.

Which is where my own modest proposal comes in. It’s inspired by F-BR-2006-0018-H: Effects of Exposure to 400-W, 95-GHz Millimeter Wave Energy on Non-Stationary Humans:

Adult volunteers…will be asked to traverse a course as quickly as possible. At the end of this course they must then unlock a door (a subtask requiring some degree of fine motor skills) in order to exit the course (complete the task). During commission of this task, subjects will be targeted by the small-beam diameter, 400-W, 95-GHz device.

In other words, you try to get through the obstacle course (described as ‘maze-like”) while being zapped one or more pain beams. It’s a valid test of the beam’s ability to prevent people from getting through a perimeter fence or similar, but it's also got a neat competitive element. It's already using cameras, and it has a sort of gameshow format, with post-zapping interviews:

Subject performance during all of the trials will be videotaped. After each trial, subjects will be asked for a self-report of "hits" and the perceived effectiveness of those hits utilizing a pain scale.

Reality television which involves suffering has been huge recently. We’ve seen a rash of programs like Big Brother (which did more damage to George Galloway's reputationthan the Senate Committee) and Survivor in which contestants endure appalling experiences for big prizes. We used to laugh at the Japanese humiliation-show Endurance, but the UK's biggest hit du jour is I'm A Celebrity Get me Out of Here, in which D-list celebs try to boost their flagging ratings by eating caterpillars and even more disgusting delicacies .

So why not turn the ADS testing into a live show? That way millions of people could see for themselves exactly what the pain beam does. Familiarity would dispel all the myths about it, and thorough medical examinations (and perhaps the odd lawsuit) would settle any questions its safety once and for all. Even better, because it's a matter of the nation's defence, we can rope in anyone we want from the worlds of sport, entertainment and politics to ensure we get the ratings:

Dear Minor But Irritating Celebrity,

You have been selected by national poll to participate in a project vital to National Security. You are therefore required to report at the address attached on the stated date. Filming starts at 20:00 Saturday, and your attendance is mandatory and will be enforced. It'll hurt, but it's in a good cause.

You could vote for people to be included because you want to see how tough they really are, because they absolutely deserve it -- or just because it would be fun to see them get zapped. Unlike other non-lethal weapons like rubber bullets and tear gas, ADS is equally safe on a 250 lb althete or a 110 lb heiress. Pacemakers, piercings, prosthetic joints, pregnancy or silicone implants are no obstacle to competing -- the whole point of the ADS is that everybody is fair game. And it won't leave any bruises, marks or damage a hair.

Whichever celebrity gets furthest in the trial is the winner that week, and gets to go on all the chat shows and talk about their experiences and have their picture in all the magazines. (Heat would be sort of appropriate). Picking the planet's most egotistical and driven individuals should ensure that the beam really does work against highly motivated opponents, which previous tests have not necessarily proven.

As for a title - how about calling it "No Pain No Gain"?

I'll settle for 2%, Mr Murdoch...

-- David Hambling

Lasers Blowing Up

There's a bit of a magic number, when it comes to lasers. A threshold at which beams of coherent light stop being tools for welding or analysis... and start becoming weapons. That level is generally considered to be around 100 kilowatts.

For years, solid state, electric lasers could only operate at a tiny fraction of that 100 kw mark. But the beams are getting stronger. Take Bob Yamamoto's Solid State Heat Capacity Laser, at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. In March, 2005, it hit 45 kw, a new record -- and more than triple what it could do just three years before.

Now, in a new pair of papers provided to Defense Tech, Yamamoto reveals that his laser has hit 67 kw of average power during short bursts -- a 50% jump in a little more than a year. In other words, a battlefield-strength laser is just about in reach. The Livermore crew has even started designing a "gatling-gun"-style prototype, that uses clear, garnet slabs instead of bullets for ammunition.

(There are still a bunch of other hurdles to jump to get to a laser weapon -- like generating enough electricity to make it work, and cooling the thing down. But beam strength is one of the tallest obstacles.)

Yamamoto's team isn't the only one trying to put together a military-ready machine. Textron Systems and Northrop Grumman beat the Livermore crew out for $90 million worth of Defense Department grant money to build a 100 kilowatt laser by 2009. And these systems won't just be stronger than today's lasers. They'll be more compact, too -- maybe even ready for a prototype weapon.

Airport Defense: Lasers, Microwaves

Cheap, low-tech, easy-to-use, and utterly lethal, shoulder-fired missiles have become a terrorist weapon of choice, killing more than 640 people in 35 attacks on civilian jets. And so far, countermeasures have proven too finicky and too expensive to widely deploy. So the Department of Homeland Security is trying out instead a pair of new defenses, seemingly straight of science fiction: laser guns and microwave blasters.

The Department will spend $4.1 million to test out Raytheon's "Vigilant Eagle" system, which relies a series of microwave pulses to throw off a missile's guidance package. A series of passive infrared trackers, installed around an airport, would look out for missile exhaust. When these sensors detect a launch, data about the missile's trajectory is sent to a control center, which in turn tells a billboard-size microwave array where to blast.

How exactly this is done without disrupting a plane's avionics system has never been fully explained to me. Which may be why DHS is also sinking nearly $2 million into a study of Northrop Grumman's laser-based, "SkyGuard" defense, as well.

The system is a modification of the company's Tactical High Energy Laser, which successfully blasted dozens of Katyusha rockets and mortars out of the air during military testing. The laser, powered by vats of toxic chemicals, was considered too cumbersome for battlefield use. A permanent set-up an airport might be a different story, however.

DHS has spent nearly four years and $239 million to adapt the military's series of countermeasures to civilian jets. But most commercial carriers have been unwilling to pay for the systems, which could cost $50 billion over ten years to install and maintain. So far, Fedex is the only big flier to invest heavily in the defenses, agreeing to outfit 11 of its planes with the countermeasures.

Ground-based systems -- even ones based on ray guns -- might prove more palatable to the airline industry. Sure, the technology is less proven than the jet-based defenses. But eventually, the microwave and laser blasters could prove "more reliable," Daniel Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute, tells Bloomberg News. "It is easier to be on the ground where you can have an infinite power supply. Aircraft are only vulnerable below a certain altitude, when they are taking off and landing. For most airports you can place them on towers where you can cover landing and takeoff routes."

Raytheon and Northrop have 18 months to prove their futuristic systems are ready to handle the job.

UPDATE 4:18 PM: In case you're wondering -- no, this is not the 300-oven death ray.

(Big ups: CP)

Chinese Laser vs. U.S. Sats?

"China has fired high-power lasers at U.S. spy satellites flying over its territory in... a test of Chinese ability to blind the spacecraft," Defense News is reporting. And, at least in theory, those lasers might be able temporarily take offline America's most powerful orbiting spies, like the giant electro-optical Keyhole spacecraft or radar-based satellites like the Lacrosse.

Now, the article is a little short on details. "It remains unclear how many times the ground-based laser was tested against U.S. spacecraft or whether it was successful," the story says.

And there's a touch of hyperbole in the piece. According to the article, a recent Pentagon report "acknowledge[d] China has the ability to blind U.S. satellites, thanks to a powerful ground-based laser." That's not exactly right. What the report actually says isn't quite so definitive:

Evidence exists that China is improving its situational awareness in space, which will give it the ability to track and identify most satellites. Such capability will allow for the deconfliction of Chinese satellites, and would also be required for offensive actions. At least one of the satellite attack systems appears to be a groundbased laser designed to damage or blind imaging satellites.

Nevertheless, citing unnamed "top officials," the trade journal asserts that "China not only has the [anti-satellite] capability, but has exercised it. It is not clear when China first used lasers to attack American satellites. Sources would only say that there have been several tests over the past several years."

Within the U.S. military, there's a contingent that's been worried for years about China arming up like this. The other day, I was talking to an Air Force colonel, about the Pentagon's plans for "prompt global strike" -- the ability to launch, in a matter of hours, a bolt-from-the-blue attack against an enemy thousands and thousands of miles away. Some in the armed forces talk about the strikes as a way to take out an Iranian nuclear facility, a terrorist chieftain, or a North Korean missile on the launchpad. But this colonel had a different target in mind for the instant attack: a Chinese "anti-satellite, ground-based laser wreak[ing] havoc with our constellation."

If China really is pursuing such a weapon, it wouldn't be the only country looking at lasers to interfere with enemy eyes above the sky. In a 1997 test, the U.S. fired a chemical laser at a satellite orbiting 420 kilometers above the Earth. The "laser apparently had technical difficulties," according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, "but the results of the test were startling."

A lower-power (30-watt) laser intended for alignment of the system and tracking of the satellite was the primary laser source used during the test, and it appeared that this lower-power laser was sufficiently powerful itself to blind the satellite temporarily, although it could not destroy the sensor.

These days, the Air Force's Starfire Optical Range is shooting lasers in the sky, trying to figure out how best to correct for atmospheric interference. Astronomers looking into the heavens will be the most immediate beneficiaries. But Starfire could help out anti-satellite weaponeers, too. These days, ground-based lasers aren't powerful enough -- or good enough at traveling through the air -- to permanently take out a satellite; the best the beams might be able to do is blind the thing, temporarily. That could change, if Starfire (or its Chinese equivalent) does its job right.

UPDATE 10:12 AM: Color Theresea Hitchens, the Center for Defense Information's resident spacewar guru, "not convinced – nor impressed."

The folks quoted in this story are neither space nor China experts -- and those folks are easy to find. And there is the odd timing: just as Griffin goes to China, over the earlier objections of Rummy and the P-gon. Statements like "China's burgeoning antisatellite capabilities..." -- who SAYS? Even the P-gon hasn't gone that far in its reports on Chinese Military Power.

All that said, I would NOT be surprised if the Chinese were testing a Ground-Based Laser. So are we, at Starfire Optical Range. If they lased U.S. satellites though, how do we know they were trying to blind them rather than TRACK them -- since we say Starfire is using lasers only to track sats? China doesn't have all that great tracking ability, and it needs it, not just to track our stuff but their own. There isn't any real way to tell, I don't think, what the INTENT behind such lasing would be.

NOT that it is a good thing -- lasing other people's sats without their consent, or at least specific statements of your intent to do only tracking, in peacetime ought to be off the playing field, hence the need for a code of conduct of some sort in space operations.

Finally, with regard to laser blinding -- it is not as easy as it sounds to "blind" an optical satellite with a laser. I'm no physicist, but as I understand it, imaging satellites usually work in several wavelengths, meaning first of all you'd have to have lasers in all the colors that match those wavelengths to blind the sat, not just one single wavelength laser beam. Secondly, because of the way imaging sats work, taking pictures of strips of the Earth using strips of pixels, you'd have to figure out how to blind all the pixels -- which apparently is so hard as to be well nigh impossible. And I note that as far as I know, we haven't gotten that far with Starfire, so what makes us so sure the Chinese are ahead of us there?

If you ask me, the story raises more questions than answers.

Lasers Speak to Subs

Communicating with subs underwater is beyond tough. Sound moves through seawater in very strange ways, with water temperature, salinity, and density speeding up and slowing things down -- garbling conversations in the process. Electromagnetic transmissions (like radio) are no better -- the sea has some funky electrical conductivity. During the Cold War, sub authority Joe Buff notes, the Navy managed to get super-simple, one-way messages to its subs, with a pair of giant (28-mile!) extremely low frequency transmitters, based in the Midwest. But those transmitters were shut down, a few years back.

The Navy's new idea is to get specially-tuned lasers to handle the job, instead. The service has handed out a pair of small business innovation research contracts to Bothell, WA's Aculight Corporation and Bedford, MA-based Q-Peak to build blue-green, quick-burst lasers for transmitting messages across the deep. Acluight, for example, wants to use a combination of semiconductor and fiber lasers to produce a low power beam (around 10 watts) at about 532nm spectrum range. The idea is to get pulses as quick as half a nanosecond, repeating as much as 10 million times per second.

Blue-green lasers have been discussed for a while as potential sub-talkers, with good reason. Seawater has a lot of organic junk floating around inside, which makes it "turbid" -- "nearly opaque to light over much of any distance," Buff explains.

Blue-green light's frequency is best at penetrating through this turbidity, given the mix of sizes in microns of the particles and other stuff that prevents seawater from being transparent. (Of course, some areas such as the Bahamas are famous for the clarity of their water, but this is very much the exception, not the rule, globally speaking.) This same turbidity is essential to giving submarines their invisibility while submerged, so it's a double edged sword.

Pain Ray, R.I.P.?

For years, the Air Force Research Lab, along with the Joint Nonlethal Weapons Directorate, has been working on a microwave-like pain ray, to keep potential rioters at bay. And for years, we've been hearing that this so-called "Active Denial System" -- which penetrates 1/64th of inch beneath the skin, activating pain receptors, and sparking serious burning feelings -- was just about ready to ship to Iraq.

But that prospect -- already growing more remote, because of concerns about speed and reliable tests -- just got downright distant. Because now, the Secretary of the Air Force wants to try out systems like the pain ray "on American citizens in crowd-control situations before they are used on the battlefield," the AP reports. And we all know: zapping home-growing protesters is not going to happen any time in the near future.

Domestic use would make it easier to avoid questions in the international community over any possible safety concerns, said Secretary Michael Wynne.

"If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation," said Wynne. "(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press."

The Air Force has funded research into nonlethal weapons, but he said the service isn't likely to spend more money on development until injury issues are reviewed by medical experts and resolved.

Last year, as New Scientist noted, Active Denial System testers "banned glasses and contact lenses to prevent possible eye damage to the subjects, and in the second and third tests removed any metallic objects such as coins and keys to stop hot spots being created on the skin." But the real concern, at least in the military, was that the thing was too slow for use, not too dangerous. (After all, one of the primarily corwd control devices today is the decidedly-lethal M-16.) Several units in Iraq from requested the pain ray, ASAP. Pentagon poobahs majorly boosted the long-term budget for Active Denial and other "less-lethal" weapons. After 9300 test shots, for many, the only question was whether to use the system at sea, on land, or in the air.

So what happens to Active Denial now? My guess is that we're on our way to an old-fashioned, intra-service smackdown. Maybe the big wigs will even zap each other, in the process.

(Big ups: RC)

Lasers: Israel's Rocket Defense?

It was, perhaps, the most successful laser gun in the history of energy weapons. Now, it could just prove to be the key to Israel's defense. Maybe.

In the early part of this decade, the Israeli and American militaries worked with Northrop Grumman to build the Tactical High Energy Laser, or THEL. During tests at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the chemical-powered energy weapon blasted out of the sky 28 Katyusha rockets -- just like the ones now assaulting Israel. Another 18 artillery shells and mortars were successfully zapped, as well. No other laser has ever come close to building up that kind of track record. (Here's a video of some of the shoot-downs.)

"All my career, I've been interested in fielding lasers," Jeff Sollee, a veteran Northrop laser scientist, told Defense Tech earlier this year. "THEL was as close as they come."

But generating the THEL's megawatts of laser power required hundreds of gallons of toxic chemicals — ethylene, nitrogen trifluoride. The weapons grew bulky; one proposed small-scale version was supposed to be kept in a mere eight cargo containers, each 40 feet long. A mobile THEL, on just a couple of trucks, proved to be too complex, and too expensive to contemplate. Worse, after a few shots, the lasers would have to be resupplied with a fresh batch of reactants. The logistics of hauling those toxins either through the air or across a battlefield made generals shiver. Israel eventually dropped out of the program. Then America did, too, turning its focus instead to solid-state, electric lasers.

Now, Northrop is pushing an upgraded THEL, under the name SkyGuard. The system is being pushed for airport defense, to keep jetliners safe from shoulder-fired missiles (kind of like this microwave-based missile-zapper from Raytheon I reported on last year).

But "Northrop executives have pitched [the] laser system in meetings with Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Amir Peretz," the Wall Street Journal reports. "Based on Israel's expression of interest in the laser technology, he said, Northrop has begun the process of applying for an export license."

SkyGuard is about a quarter the size of the original THEL, although not much smaller than the eight-container proposal. Northrop claims that the system's exhaust is mostly helium and steam, and requires a "keep out zone" of only 30 meters, Aerospace Daily notes. The price: maybe $200 million, plus $1,000 per shot.

Raytheon is also pitching Israel on air defense, too -- but not the microwave system. A few years back, the company began modifying its Phalanx 4,500 round-per-minute gun, originally designed for ship defense, to knock down mortars.

The WSJ says that "six batteries currently are deployed in Iraq." And from the reports I've heard, the Phalanxes are performing rather well, with several confirmed kills. Presumably, the systems could be shipped to Israel in fairly short order. The laser-based Skyguard is still very much on the drawing board, however. So Israel would still have to wait quite a while for its speed-of-light defense.

(Big ups: BB)

UPDATE 7/18/06 11:13 AM: According to a company spokesperson, Northrop thinks it can squeeze Skyguard "into the equivalent of three standard, 20-foot ISO containers" -- much less than the eight contemplated before.

Fringe Science? I'll Take Vegas!

Last year, I got a strange call. That’s not surprising, because I get lots of strange calls. But this one was strange because the person on the other end of the phone was asking me for investment advice, and since I can’t quite balance my checkbook, I’m a strange person to be offering financial tips to anyone.

“Whaddya think of this firm Ionatron?” the man asked, introducing himself as vice president of a boutique investment firm in California. He didn’t know much about defense or the Pentagon, but he was really interested in investing in this weapons firm, which he thought had big potential.

For those who don’t know about Tucson-based Ionatron, I first advise reading up on Tesla coils. Once you understand what a Tesla coil is, you’ll be about halfway toward understanding Iontraon, a company that claims to have pioneered a weapon that will shoot lightning bolts (Noah has written some excellent posts on Ionatron here and, most recently, here). When newspapers talk about Ionatron, they usually start by talking about Buck Rogers guns or Star Trek phasers. I prefer to begin by talking about Tesla coils, which shoot sparks a few feet. Legions of would-be inventors, up to an including those in Ionatron, have dreamt of extending those sparks out to tens of meters, or even miles.

I took an hour out of my day to explain to this guy all the reasons why Ionatron, even if its technology pans out, was not likely to be equipping the Army with handheld lightning guns anytime soon. There were some basic practicalities. For example, ionizing the air to make the lightning bolt go at any great distance is really hard. The power sources needed to break down the air and shoot the lightning are pretty bulky. And finally, electricity, as we all learn in grade school, likes to travel in the most efficient manner possible. That means if lightning were ever shot out of a handheld device, you’d need a way to ensure it doesn’t hit the guy holding it, or the unlucky buddy next to him. Good luck.

Okay, those are the scientific barriers, but then there are the bureaucratic considerations. The Pentagon doesn’t one day throw down all its tried and true guns in favor of some fancy static electricity. There’s an entire acquisition process that takes years, and sometimes decades, to field a weapon. So, even if you’ve really perfected the lightning gun, it’ll be quite some time before the first soldier ever lays his hands on it. Finally, you have to ask, are lightning bolts really any better than good old-fashioned bullets? Not always, is likely the answer.

I said all this, but I could tell the guy wasn’t listening, because I wasn’t telling him what he wanted to hear. “Well,” he finally said, “if there’s even one in a hundred shot that Ionatron is really on to something, then it’s worth my relatively small investment.”

Then I realized the problem: I was on the phone with a true believer. There was nothing I could say that this guy would listen to—his logic was that of the hardened gambler. It’s also the same argument that explains the nearly obsessive support among some in the Pentagon for the hafnium bomb, a notional weapon based on an experiment that violated the laws of physics. As I write in my new book, Imaginary Weapons: A Journey Through the Pentagon’s Scientific Underworld, the true believers grasp on to the most perverse logic: Any chance that a weapon might work warrants investment if the payoff is high enough. In the case of the hafnium bomb, the Pentagon figured that tens of millions of dollars was worth the investment if the result was a weapon that could revolutionize warfare.

But the problem in this argument, like with most fringe science, is that if you follow it to its logical conclusion, you’ll only invest in failures. It’s like arguing that rather than putting money in your 401K, you should invest in slot machines, because the investment is low and the payoff is high. Almost all fringe science is high-risk, high payoff, so by the logic of the true believers, you should invest in all fringe science.

People often ask me: what’s your favorite example of fringe science? I usually tell them, “It’s the Tesla lightning gun.” Not because it’s fringe per se (Tesla coils exist and work), but because every few years, someone modifies a Tesla coil, declares it the next great weapon, and boom, the Pentagon gives them some money. So, will Ionatron buck the trend (or Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems) and invent a really cool weapon? Heck if I know, but the chance that the Pentagon will anytime this decade buy a lightning weapon in mass quantities is so remote as to be almost nil. So, why not just go to Vegas, put your money in the slots, and have some fun.

And, heck, at least in Vegas, the drinks are free.

-- Sharon Weinberger

Pain Ray Too Slow for Iraq?

For quite a while, now, we've heard promises that a microwave-like pain ray, the Active Denial System, was on its way to Iraq. But, so far, no Iraqis have been zapped. What gives?

According to Bloomberg News, "Raytheon's new weapon, which is intended to repel hostile forces by creating a sensation of intense heat on skin, doesn't act quickly enough to be effective, said U.S. Marine Corps Col. Wade Hall, who directs the program that would test the device."

The device is scheduled to be installed on three Stryker transports headed to Iraq next year as part of a test of a range of new technologies [including sonic blasters and laser dazzlers]. If the problem isn't fixed, the Pentagon will have to decide in the next few months whether to include it...

"The primary quality I'm concerned with is timeliness," Hall said. "We need to get these capabilities to the war fighter as quickly and safely as possible. I set some pretty hard timelines. I don't let things drag out for many months."

(Big ups: Milblogs)

Bomb-Zapper, Back to Drawing Board

Now we know why ray gun maker Ionatron hasn't been talking up their bomb-frying, electricity-spewing Joint IED Neutralizer, lately. It turns out the Defense Department has turned down the machines. Ionatron's going back to the drawing board.

The company cranked out a dozen of the golf cart-esque JINs last year. Ionatron execs said the machines, which use laser pulses and electrical bursts to zap bombs, would be sent out to Iraq, pronto. But the JINs never made it.

"The U.S. government customer concluded that the JIN counter-IED technology performed well and offers great promise, but determined that the current vehicle platform should be changed," the company said in a statement, picked up by the Arizona Daily Star.

Ionatron CEO Thomas Dearmin, in a conference call with financial analysts, expressed some disappointment that the company did not receive a production contract after months of testing of the JIN system.

"We expected to be in production at this point in time," Dearmin told analysts. "All I can say is, it's more complicated than you or I thought it could be."

Dearmin said the vehicles used as platforms for the JIN test units were by necessity off-the-shelf because of the time constraints involved. Ionatron said it produced the 12 test JIN units in nine months.

Ionatron will work to adapt the system to other vehicles, possibly including existing military vehicles, he said.

"There needs to be parts and spares available, and it's a big system," Dearmin said. "We've engineered to put these on other platforms — I think there are other platforms out there that the military is comfortable with."

Ray Gunners Make Deals

Things are looking up for real-life ray gun firm Ionatron, Gene Inger and Defense Industry Daily both say.

The Tuscon company has linked up with DRS Technologies, which, among other things, is handling some of the big power and battle management systems on the Army's next generation of combat vehicles. Gene sees this as a "major door opener" to get Ionatron's man-made lightning bolts aboard the Army's tanks and fighting vehicles of the future.

But as is often the case with Ionatron, there's something not quite right here. The company has been attracting attention recently for its "Joint IED Neutralizer," a golf cart-type contraption which uses lasers and electrical bursts to blow up improvised bombs. Several JINs have been ordered up for Iraq.

But the DRS/Ionatron announcement makes no mention of this. Instead, it talks about using Ionatron's technology as a "directed-energy weapon" -- one that could be used in "defense applications relating to shipping ports and dockside protection." Similarly, the anti-bomb mission got a short shrift during a recent segment on Al Haig's infomercial program. All the talk by Ionatron execs and their cohorts was about how they could "taser people at a distance" and "disable terrorists" -- oh, and how Congress needed to cook up "legislation that authorizes" more funds for Ionatron-esque technologies.

UPDATE 12:15 PM: Gene writes in to remind us that "the JIN product (which may come along) is not [Ionatron's] core technology; as [CEO] Tom Dearmin has frequently stated... He has said JIN was a spin-off in no way contemplated by the company, but done at the behest of the" Pentagon.

Death Ray -- or Accounting Shift?

The headline is pretty spooky: "Administration Conducting Research Into Laser Weapon." And the meat of the story, on the Starfire Optical Range's plan to start lighting up satellites, can probably best be described as:

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! DEATH RAY!!!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!

Check it out:

The Bush administration is seeking to develop a powerful ground-based laser weapon that would use beams of concentrated light to destroy enemy satellites in orbit.

The largely secret project, parts of which have been made public through Air Force budget documents submitted to Congress in February, is part of a wide-ranging effort to develop space weapons, both defensive and offensive…

The laser research… would take advantage of an optical technique that uses sensors, computers and flexible mirrors to counteract the atmospheric turbulence that seems to make stars twinkle.

The weapon would essentially reverse that process, shooting focused beams of light upward with great clarity and force.

Which is all true – to a point. Gimme a sec to explain.

The Starfire range relies on some of the only useful technology to emerge from the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), or Star Wars. As Ann Finkbeiner tells the story, in the early 1980s, Air Force scientists looked into the question of correcting for atmospheric turbulence to image Soviet spy satellites. They had the idea that to shine a laser against a layer of sodium in the mesosphere (essentially the last layer of the earth's atmosphere) in order to measure the distortion from the ground up.

Measuring the atmospheric distortion allows a scientist to deform her telescope producing a clear picture. It's called adaptive optics. Think of it as looking at yourself in a funhouse mirror with glasses that are just as screwy, but precisely so in order to offset the effect of the mirror. (The pretty picture accompanying the NYT story does a good job of explaining.)

The Starfire Optical Range uses adaptive optics, mostly, to take pretty pictures of stars and the like (click here for a little astro-porn from SOR). But the same skill-set is also damn handy if you want to fire a laser through the atmosphere to fry a satellite or ballistic missile.

Hence, our little problem here.

So, am I little bothered that the Air Force is funding "atmospheric compensation/beam control experiments for application including antisatellite weapons"? Yup. "Precision aimpoint stabilization through turbulence"? That can't be good. Ditto placing the whole thing under "Advanced Weapons Technology." Unless UBL is hanging out on a space station, I can think of better ways to use the cash.

On the other hand, the NYT's science scribe, Bill Broad, isn't being fair when he calls the research a "largely secret project", accuses the Bush Administration of "seeking to develop a powerful ground-based laser weapon that would use beams of concentrated light to destroy enemy satellites in orbit" or relegates the useful applications of adaptive optics to a couple of paragraphs near the end of the story.

This is important technology research, largely conducted in the open. As Broad notes, "previously, the laser work resided in a budget category that paid for a wide variety of space efforts." What's happened here, mostly, is an accounting shift. Adaptive optics can be used for good or ill, depending on our collective wisdom as a people. There is no policy fix for stupid.

Broad is being particularly unfair to both the Air Force and critics of this particular experiment, like me, by giving the last word to an activist group warning that, if the experiment is conducted, "the barrier to weapons in space will have been destroyed."

I'd rather the Air Force not do the experiment, but this is not a death ray. In fact, other than some vague, unfocused research, the military isn't really in the death ray business anymore. Well, there is the Airborne Laser, but that is a whole other story.

-- Jeffrey Lewis

UPDATE 4:01 PM: You wanna talk real laser weapons? some of the most interesting directed energy work was outlined in Noah's article in Popular Science, "Attack at the Speed of Light," which showcases efforts by two erstwhile SDI scientsists, now competing to build much smaller lasers to tackle practical missions like shooting down mortars.

UPDATE 6:24 PM: For a completely different take, check out this paper from the Center for Defense Information.

UPDATE 05/04/06 10:42 AM: John Fleck has a great follow-up to the Starfire flap in today's Albuquerque Journal.

Hitchens explained that there long has been a sort of "gentleman's agreement" among nations not to mess with one another's satellites.

The reason is rooted in the complex calculus of nuclear deterrence. A nation with the ability to watch for enemy missile launches is less likely to accidentally start a nuclear war, she explained...

Vansuch said next year's proposed test would be the first time the Starfire technology has been used to focus an outgoing laser.

The test would be no death ray, but rather a very low power experiment. "The basic physics is what we're after," Vansuch said.

(Big ups: Larry Ahrens)

Laser Labs Go Back to the Future

George Neil and Bob Yamamoto don't remember exactly where they were when they found out that the Pentagon was canceling their laser cannon project. But they remember how they felt.

It was 1988, and Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" anti-missile effort was in its death-spiral. Their employer, the defense contractor TRW, was competing against Boeing in an increasingly rococo effort to build a Free Electron Laser, or FEL, that would knock missiles out of the sky. But, after a half-billion dollars of investment, the laser in Neil and Yamamoto's lab was peaking out at 11 watts – a tenth of what a light bulb generates, and a billionth of what the Pentagon would need. That didn't stop company executives from promising that a weapon was right around the corner. "It was like a game of liar's poker," Neil recalls. "We kept hoping some sanity would prevail. It never did."

So there was a certain amount of relief when the Pentagon finally pulled the plug – as well as anger, and regret. Both Neil and Yamamoto believed in the FEL. Given a shot, they thought, the laser really could stop a rogue missile. Along the way, the breakthroughs required in high energy physics and optics and superconductivity would have far-reaching benefits, even if an ICBM never got zapped. Neil especially hated how reckless promises and politicking and killed that chance. As news of the cancellation sank in, the two colleagues and friends each independently made a promise to himself: If I ever get to build a laser weapon again, next time, it's going to be done right.

My article in the upcoming issue of Popular Science is about Neil and Yamamoto's attempts to stick to that promise, and build lasers that could actually be used for battle.

Ironically, both men have reached back into energy weapons' history to accomplish their goals. In the vineyards of northern California, Bob Yamamoto is constructing a solid state laser with enormous crystals at its core – the same way the very first lasers did, back the 1960’s. 2,700 miles away, in the forests of southern Virginia, George Neil is putting together a modern-day FEL. It doesn’t need any sort of material whatsoever to kickstart its reaction. Instead, the machine relies on a stream of electrons – just like the laser he and Yamamoto worked on nearly a quarter-century ago.

UPDATE 11:27 AM: Here's a video of Neil's FEL at work, coring a hole in a plexiglass brick.

UPDATE 11:42 AM: For years, chemical-powered lasers were seen as the only viable alternative for weapons-strength ray guns. The most promising of those systems, the Tactical High Energy Laser, successfully shot down dozens of rockets and mortars. (this video shows it in action.) But generating the THEL's megawatts of laser power required hundreds of gallons of toxic chemicals — ethylene, nitrogen trifluoride. The weapons grew bulky (the small-scale version was only supposed to be kept in a mere right cargo containers, each 40 feet long). Worse, after a few shots, the lasers would have to be resupplied with a fresh batch of reactants. The logistics of hauling those toxins either through the air or across a battlefield made generals shiver. So, ultimately, interest swung back to solid state systems, like Yamamoto's, and, to a lesser extent, free electron lasers.

UDPATE 04/14/06 11:33 AM: I know some folks were having trouble checking out those videos. PopSci now has 'em posted in a more watchable format.

Laser Jet's Toxic Interior

It turns out those scary Air Force documents are good for something other than guiding firefighters and triggering panicked headlines. They also show just how hard it would be to actually make a laser-firing 747 work.

The $7.3 billion Airborne Laser is the Air Force's attempt to refit a commercial 747 jet with a chemical-powered laser. But it hasn't been easy -- missed deadlines, bloated budgets, you name it.

One of the bigger problems is the chemicals needed to start the laser chain-reaction aren't exactly the most stable and healthiest things to have around: 1,000 pounds of chlorine, 1,000 pounds of ammonia, 12,000 pounds of hydrogen peroxide, 220 gallons of sulphuric acid.

They're so toxic, in fact, that the Air Force documents recommend that "all personnel must be [in the] forward [part of the plane] "during taxi, takeoff, and landing." Going to the Airborne Laser's aft "in flight is only allowed during a declared emergency, and then only for the absolute minimum duration, in Level A hazmat suit."

Now, some folks out there have been pushing the Airborne Laser, hard. They really dig the idea of energy weapons, and want to see one built, finally, after decades of promising.

I think it's safe to say that anyone visiting this site has a soft spot for ray guns. But a weapon with limited range, a handful of shots, in-flight maintenance costs of $92,000 per hour, and enough chemicals that the crew has to wear hazmat suits to stay aboard? I'd rather wait for my energy weapons, thank you very much.

(Big ups: Michael)

Arrrrr!!! Pain Ray Goes A-Sailin'

I know some of you have been worried. Sure, the American military is planning to roll out a microwave-like pain ray on land. And there's talk about making an airborne model of the so-called "Active Denial System," to control unruly crowds from above. But what if the evil-doers take to the seas? How will we roast them alive, then?

Never fear. "The Active Denial System... may soon be used by the Coast Guard for port protection," Defense Tech pal Sharon Weinberger reports for Aviation Week.

Developed by the Air Force, Active Denial fires out milimeter waves -- a sort of cousin of microwaves, in the 95 GHz range. The invisible beams penetrate just a 64th of inch beneath the skin. But that's deep enough to trigger the pain receptors inside a person. Which makes folks want to run away, fast. Less-lethal weapon guru Sid Heal calls the ray the "Holy Grail of crowd control."

One of the systems was scheduled for shipment to Eglin AFB, Fla., where it's set to undergo a military utility assessment (MUA) for overwater operations, according to Sue Payton, the deputy undersecretary of Defense for advanced systems and concepts.

"The Coast Guard is very interested in how this capability would work to stop and redirect a driver of a small boat away from a port or ship," says Payton, whose office has been involved in integrating the technology into a deployable weapon...

Since the 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole, the Navy has sought ways to ward off small boats that could pose threats to po