Ben Gilliland
 GET
ready to be zapped. The Americans are developing a new breed of laser guns
similar to the weapons our childhood heroes used in Star Wars.
So-called directed-energy weapons are about to be unleashed on the military
hardware market. The weapons come in three distinct forms: lasers, microwaves,and
particle beams. And their development has taken US scientists more than two
decades.
They can be deployed on the ground, in the air, at sea and in space. Some
experts claim they are likely to have an impact on warfare that rivals that
of the atomic bomb.
One of the most effective uses envisaged for the weapons is the Airborne
Laser Program, where they will be loaded on to a modified Boeing 747 and
sent to seek and destroy enemy missiles.
The guns will employ a (deep breath) megawatt-class, high-energy chemical
iodine laser to knock out threats almost as soon as they are detected. On
the ground, high-power lasers small enough for everyday use on everyday
miltary vehicles are only a few years away. Hand-held anti-personnel lasers
are just weeks away - albeit for blinding but not killing an adversary. Also
in the pipeline are microwave guns - called active denial technology- that
heat a foe's skin, causing severe pain and, hopefully, a swift
retreat.
'The good news is that directed energy exists,' says expert J Douglas Beason.
'It is being tested, and within a few years directed energy is going to be
deployed on the battlefield.' The ultimate goal would be to have these weapons
orbiting the Earth ready to be deployed at a moment's notice. However, the
technology required for such systems is still a little way off. 'Eventually,
I think it is going to happen,' claims Beason. 'But it is going to be the
generation after battlefield lasers.'
| 1.
Space-based lasers,producing over a megawatt of power, could be used to destroy
intercontinental missiles launched from Earth |
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2.
The High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System will be light enough to
fit on a fighter jet or combat vehicle, and powerful enough to fire a 150
kilowatt beam of energy
3. Ground-based laser weapon system could protect
commercial and military airfields from shoulder-launched missile attacks
4. The space-based relay mirror could form network
of Earth-orbit mirrors used to relay laser energy from one location to
another |
[Metro 12 Jan,2006]
£1bn laser surgery
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Imagine a laser so powerful that in a single instant it produces 1,000 times
more power than that generated in the entire US and potent enough to recreate
the fusion reaction of a hydrogen bomb. Well, researchers at the Lawrence
Livermore nuclear weapons laboratory in California have spent the last five
years and £1.5 billion constructing precisely that.
If the device worked it would mean scientists could conduct nuclear tests
without having to detonate a weapon. But the project, called the National
Ignition Facility, is under threat after a cut in funding from the US senate.
The device, scheduled for completion in 2009, would have used 192 lasers
targeted at a tiny fuel pellet to create a huge release of energy, but only
four of those lasers are presently working.
The cut comes as a massive blow for the project's supporters who say it is
as good as dead because, without more lasers, it cannot achieve the desired
fusion ignition
'The whole point is to achieve ignition.That's why it's called a National
Ignition Facility,' said Bob Hirschfield, a spokesman for Lawrence Livermore.
Costs for the project have ballooned since its original 1993 budget estimate
of £370 million towards a £1.9 billion total and counting - and
critics said it was diverting funds needed in other areas of research. Senator
Pete Domenici, a key detractor, said many tests could be carried out with
just four beams. All is not lost, though, and supporters hope that, as it
is so close to completion, some of the funds will be restored after they
have negotiated the final bill. 'They are almost there,' said senator Diane
Feinstein. 'It would be a total waste to stop the programme now.' |
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