Project Excalibur - Knowledge

1340: 705: 1236: 1798:. These systems used short and medium-range missiles equipped with nuclear warheads to attack incoming enemy ICBM warheads. The constantly changing concepts reflect their creation during a period of rapid changes in the opposing force as the Soviet ICBM fleet was expanded. The interceptor missiles had a limited range, less than 500 miles (800 km), so interceptor bases had to be spread across the United States. Since the Soviet warheads could be aimed at any target, adding a single ICBM, which were becoming increasingly inexpensive in the 1960s, would (theoretically) require another interceptor at every base to counter it. 304:(LANL) for weapons tests on entirely new concepts. Chapline was given the go-ahead to plan for a new test dedicated to the X-ray laser concept. In the DNA tests, the reentry vehicle had to be retrieved for study after the test, which demanded the complex system of protective doors and other techniques that made these tests very expensive. For the X-ray laser test, all of this could be ignored, as the laser was designed to be destroyed in the explosion. This allowed the laser to be placed at the top of the vertical access shaft, which greatly lowered the cost of the test from the typical $ 40 353:. His program, known as XRASER for "X-Ray laser", eventually grew to about 40,000 lines of code. He received his master's degree in 1976 and took a full-time job at the lab, intending to lead the development of a working laser. The idea was to use the lab's powerful fusion lasers as an energy source, as Hagelstein and Wood had suggested in their review paper. Hagelstein used XRASER to simulate about 45 such concepts before he found one that appeared to work. These used the lasers to heat metal foils and give off X-rays, but by the late 1970s, none of these experiments had been successful. 1568:. As it does, its temperature drops, eventually reaching a point where the electrons can reconnect to nuclei. The cooling process causes the bulk of the plasma to reach this temperature at roughly the same time. Once reconnected to nuclei, the electrons lose energy through the normal process of releasing photons. Although rapid, this release process is slower than the reconnection process. This results in a brief period where there are a large number of atoms with the electrons in the high-energy just-reconnected state, causing a population inversion. 1900:

difficulties of this problem became clear, the concept evolved into the "ascent phase" attack, which used more sensitive seekers which allowed the attack to continue after the ICBM's motor had stopped firing and the warhead bus was still ascending. In all of these studies, the system would require an enormous amount of weight to be lifted into orbit, typically hundreds of millions of pounds, well beyond any reasonable projections of US capability. The US Air Force repeatedly studied these various plans and rejected them all as essentially impossible.

1909: 1303:. They first presented this to Abrahamson in October and followed up with a March 1988 meeting with Reagan and his aides. The new concept used a fleet of about a hundred thousand small independent rockets weighing about 5 pounds (2.3 kg) each to destroy the missiles or warheads by colliding with them, no explosive required. Because they were independent, attacking them would require an equally huge number of interceptors. Better yet, the entire system could be developed in a few years and would cost $ 10 1421: 451:(KrF). It went on to describe the battle-station concept in which a single bomb would be surrounded by laser rods that could destroy as many as fifty missiles, and stated that "X-Ray lasers based on the successful Dauphin test are so small that a single payload bay on the Space Shuttle could carry to orbit a number sufficient to stop a Soviet nuclear weapons attack." This was the first in a series of such articles in this and other sources based on a "steady leak of top secret information". 1831: 838:

had to intercept the missiles when they were above the majority of the atmosphere. Additionally, all of the systems relied on using infrared tracking of the missiles, as radar tracking could be easily rendered unreliable using a wide variety of countermeasures. Thus, the interception had to take place in the period where the missile motor was still firing. This left only a brief period in which the directed energy weapons could be used.

22: 374: 1386:... Teller got a warm reception but that is all. I had the feeling he confused the president." In particular, he notes Teller's opening comment about "Third generation, third generation!" as being a point of confusion. Keyworth was later quoted as calling the meeting "a disaster". Others report that Teller's bypassing of official channels to arrange the meeting angered Caspar Weinberger and other members of the Department of Defense. 74:. A single ICBM could carry as many as a dozen warheads, so dozens of defense missiles were required per attacking missile. A single Excalibur device contained up to fifty lasers and could potentially destroy a corresponding number of missiles, with all of the warheads still on board. A single Excalibur could thus destroy dozens of ICBMs and hundreds of warheads for the cost of a single nuclear bomb, dramatically reversing the 321: 1407:

before that point. Reagan refused to back down on this issue, as did Gorbachev. Reagan attempted one last time to break the logjam, asking if he would really "turn down a historic opportunity because of a single word" ("laboratory"). Gorbachev said it was a matter of principle; if the US continued real-world testing while the Soviets agreed to dismantle their weapons, he would return to Moscow to be considered a fool.

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zero option" for intermediate-range missiles but then countered with an additional offer to eliminate fifty percent of all nuclear-armed missiles. Reagan then countered with an offer to eliminate all such missiles within ten years, as long as the US was free to deploy defensive systems after that period. At that point, Gorbachev offered to eliminate all nuclear weapons of any sort within that same time period.

6117: 1158:, of the various space-based weapons. Even relatively low-intensity laser light could damage these devices, blinding their optics and rendering the weapons unable to track their targets. Given the light weight of the Excalibur-type weapons, the Soviets could rapidly pop-up such a device just prior to launching an attack, and blind all the SDI assets in the region even with a low-powered weapon. 1993:

weapon would have less time to shoot at other targets. Excalibur's zero dwell time rendered these ineffective. Thus, the primary way to defeat an Excalibur weapon is to use the atmosphere to block the progress of the beams. This can be accomplished using a missile that burns out while still in the atmosphere, thereby denying Excalibur the tracking system information needed for targeting.

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missiles because the only way to address this would be to build many more weapons so more would be available in the remaining short time window. At that point, it no longer had any advantage over the other systems, while still having all of the technical risks. The report concluded that the X-ray laser would "offer no prospect of being a useful component" of a BMD system.

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burning out just as the missile was reaching the upper atmosphere. If the warheads were quickly separated at that point, the defense would have to shoot at the individual warheads, thus facing the same poor cost-exchange ratios that had made the earlier ABM systems effectively useless. And once the rocket had stopped firing, tracking would be far more difficult.

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with the concept, Teller went on to promote Brilliant Pebbles using arguments he had previously dismissed when raised about Excalibur; among them, he now stressed that the system did not place or explode nuclear weapons in space. When critics said the idea fell prey to the issues raised by the Union of Concerned Scientists, Teller simply ignored them.

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site was pumped into a vacuum. When the active warhead fired, the X-rays traveled down the tunnel to hit the target warhead. To protect the target from the blast itself, huge metal doors slammed shut in the tunnel in the short time between the X-rays arriving and the blast wave behind it. Such tests had been carried out continuously since the 1970s.

1963:, some 3,000 kilometers (1,900 mi) from the Arctic Ocean, the curvature of the Earth meant an Excalibur's laser beam would have a long path-length through the atmosphere. To obtain a shorter atmospheric path-length, Excalibur would have to climb much higher, during which time the target missile would be able to release its warheads. 60:, which would orbit in space. During an attack, the device would be detonated, with the X-rays released focused by each laser to destroy multiple incoming target missiles. Because the system would be deployed above the Earth's atmosphere, the X-rays could reach missiles thousands of kilometers away, providing protection over a wide area. 438:

credibility when these concepts failed to pan out. To avoid this, Roy Woodruff, the associate director of the weapons section, went with them to ensure the two did not oversell the concept. In meetings with various congressional groups, Teller and Wood explained the technology but refused to give dates on when it might be available.

1292: 883:, exactly two years after Reagan's speech. Once again the test appeared to be successful, and unnamed researchers at the lab were reported to have said the brightness of the beam had been increased six orders of magnitude (i.e. between one and ten million times), a huge advance that would pave the way for a weapon. 1843:

It also led to the possibility of designing a bomb specifically to increase the X-ray release, which could be made so powerful the rapid deposit of energy on a metal surface would cause it to explosively vaporize. At ranges on the order of 10 miles (16 km), this would have enough energy to destroy a warhead.

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most of the photons being released naturally through conventional emissions in random directions will simply exit the medium. Only those photons that happen to be released traveling down the long axis of the medium have a reasonable chance of stimulating another release. A suitable lasing medium would have an

914:, LLNL's new deputy associate director, set a much more cautious tone, stating that while the lasing action had been demonstrated, "what we have not proven is whether you can make a militarily useful X-ray laser. It's a research program where a lot of the physics and engineering issues are still being examined 1223:. Nuckolls gave Woodruff the position as an assistant associate director for treaty verification efforts, a position of some importance as SDI began to wind down while at the same time new treaties made such verification efforts important. Nevertheless, in 1990 Woodruff left to take a position at Los Alamos. 273:(DNA), where the burst of X-rays produced by the nuclear reactions were allowed to travel down a long tunnel while the blast itself was cut off by large doors that slammed shut as the explosion approached. These tests were used to investigate the effects of X-rays from exoatmospheric nuclear explosions on 1478:, with all of its electrons in their lowest possible state. But due to the surrounding environment adding energy, the electrons will be found in a range of energies at any given instant. Electrons that are not in the lowest possible energy state are known as "excited", as are the atoms that contain them. 1992:

to deposit enough energy on the target to destroy it, often on the order of several seconds. The Soviets could force this to be much longer through simple measures like polishing the missile mirror-smooth or spinning the rocket to spread out the energy. This would require more dwell time and thus the

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For practical reasons, submarines could salvo their missiles only over a period of minutes, which meant each one could launch only perhaps one or two Excaliburs before Soviet missiles were already on their way. Additionally, the launch would reveal the location of the submarine, leaving it a "sitting

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platforms on submarines patrolling off the Soviet coastline. When a launch was detected, the missiles would be launched upward and then fire as they left the atmosphere. This plan also suffered from several problems. Most notable was the issue of timing; the Soviet missiles would be firing for only a

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The Excalibur concept appeared to represent an enormous leap in BMD capability. By focusing the output of a nuclear explosion's X-rays, the range and effective power of BMD were greatly enhanced. A single Excalibur could attack multiple targets across hundreds or even thousands of kilometers. Because

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kJ/cm would need to hit it. The laser is essentially a focusing device, taking the radiation falling along the length of the rod and turning some small amount of it into a beam traveling out the end. One can consider the effect as increasing the brightness of the X-rays falling on the target compared

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that reflect some of the output back into the medium. This greatly increases the number of photons in the medium and increases the chance that any given atom will be stimulated. More importantly, as the mirrors reflect only those photons traveling in a particular direction, and the stimulated photons

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As Woodruff had feared, the result was to seriously erode the reputation of LLNL in the government. John Harvey, LLNL's director for advanced strategic systems, found that when he visited Washington he was asked: "what's the next lie that's going to come out?" Brown later commented: "I'm not inclined

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The report also noted that the energy requirements for a directed energy weapon used as a BMD asset was much higher than the energy needed for the same weapon to be used against those assets. This meant even if the SDI weapons could be successfully developed, they could be attacked by similar weapons

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arms limitations talks. Teller said Super-Excalibur would be so powerful the US should not seriously negotiate on any sort of even footing and that the talks should be delayed because they included limits or outright bans on underground testing, which would make further work on Super-Excalibur almost

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One of the key claims for the Excalibur concept was that a small number of weapons would be enough to counter a large Soviet fleet, whereas the other space-based systems would require huge fleets of satellites. The report singled out Excalibur as particularly vulnerable to the problem of quick-firing

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The report said this could be countered by simply increasing the thrust of the missile. Existing missiles fired for about three to four minutes, with at least half of that taking place outside the atmosphere. They showed it was possible to reduce this to about a minute, timing things so the motor was

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reflectors when they were illuminated by the lasers. Maenchen noted that the reflectors themselves could give off their own signals when heated by the bomb, and unless they were separately calibrated, there was no way to know if the signal was from the laser or the bomb. This calibration had not been

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On 22 December 1983, Teller wrote a letter on LLNL letterhead to Keyworth saying the system had concluded its scientific phase and was now "entering engineering phase". When Woodruff learned of the letter he stormed into Teller's office and demanded a retraction. Teller refused, so Woodruff wrote his

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Bethe remained an opponent of ABM systems, and when he heard of the Excalibur effort he arranged a trip to LLNL to grill them on the concept. In a two-day series of meetings in February 1983, Hagelstein managed to convince Bethe the physics was sound. Bethe remained convinced the idea was unlikely to

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September meeting with the president without the rest of the High Frontier group. Teller said recent advances in Soviet weapons would soon put them in a position to threaten the US and they needed to build Excalibur without delay. Without Woodruff to temper his comments, Teller told the president the

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for comment. They responded with another report stating the concept "had no technical merit and should be rejected". In spite of this review, the High Frontier book was widely distributed and quickly found followers. This led to a curious situation in early 1982, later known as the "laser wars", with

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At one of the Heritage Foundation meetings, Graham said there was a serious problem with the Excalibur concept, noting that if the Soviets launched a missile at the satellite, the US had only two choices – they could allow the missile to hit Excalibur and destroy it, or it could defend

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Hagelstein soon returned to the civilian side of the X-ray laser development, initially developing a concept in which the lab's fusion lasers would produce a plasma whose photons would pump another material. This was initially based on fluorine gas confined inside a chromium foil film. This proved to

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scholarship. Teller was on the Hertz board, and Hagelstein soon had an interview with Lowell Wood. Hagelstein won the scholarship, and Wood then went on to offer him a summer position at LLNL. He had never heard of the lab, and Wood explained they were working on lasers, fusion, and similar concepts.

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Bloembergen, N; Patel, C. K. N; Avizonis, P; Clem, R. G; Hertzberg, A; Johnson, T. H; Marshall, T; Miller, R. B; Morrow, W. E; Salpeter, E. E; Sessler, A. M; Sullivan, J. D; Wyant, J. C; Yariv, A; Zare, R. N; Glass, A. J; Hebel, L. C; Pake, G. E; May, M. M; Panofsky, W. K; Schawlow, A. L; Townes, C.

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Stevens' overview of known parameters calls this claim into question; he calculates that the effective range of the weapon would be on the order of 3,000 kilometers (1,900 mi), while working backward, Wood and Teller's own statements put the upper limit around 10,000 kilometers (6,200 mi).

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When first proposed, the plan was to place enough Excaliburs in orbit so at least one would be over the Soviet Union at all times. But it was soon noted that this allowed the Excalibur platforms to be directly attacked; in this situation, the Excalibur would either have to allow itself to absorb the

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Stimulated emission occurs when an excited electron can drop by the same amount of energy as a passing photon. This causes a second photon to be emitted, closely matching the original's energy, momentum, and phase. Now there are two photons, doubling the chance that they will cause the same reaction

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Others debate Excalibur's role in SDI from the start. Park suggests that Reagan's "kitchen cabinet" was pushing for some sort of action on BMD even before this period. Charles Townes suggested the key impetus to move forward was not Teller, but a presentation by the Joint Chiefs of Staff made only a

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article by Patrick Tyler noted "Only Ronald Reagan could tell us if Edward Teller was the key influence on his decision to challenge American scientists to invent new defenses that would make nuclear weapons 'obsolete,' and so far the president isn't saying. But there is no doubt that Teller's views

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In 1986, it was reported that the SDIO saw Excalibur primarily as an anti-satellite weapon, and perhaps useful as a discrimination tool to tell warheads from decoys. This, along with the results from the most recent tests, made it clear it was no longer considered to be useful as a BMD weapon on its

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scheduled for December 1985. After the problems with the earlier tests were noted, Los Alamos had suggested LLNL design a new sensor for this shot. LLNL refused, saying this would delay the test about six months and would have "unfavorable political repercussions for the program". Instead, Goldstone

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In July, Miller went to Washington to brief the SDI Office (SDIO) on their progress. While the instrumentation concerns had been publicly reported on multiple occasions by this point, he failed to mention these issues. Several sources noted this, one saying they "were furious because Miller used the

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Teller was apoplectic, and threatened to resign from the Science Council. He ultimately agreed to a second review by LLNL. This review was even more critical of the concept, stating that, due to energy limits, the system would be useful only against missiles at short range and that would limit it to

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had been appointed to the position as Reagan's science advisor at the suggestion of Teller. He was present at the first meeting with the Heritage group, and a few days later at a White House staff meeting he was quoted expressing his concerns that the concepts had "very difficult technical aspects".

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Meanwhile, Teller continued to attack Graham's interceptor-based concept, as did other members of the group. There had been extensive studies on BAMBI in the 1960s and every few years since. These invariably reported the concept was simply too grandiose to work. Graham, seeing the others outmaneuver

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be too difficult to manufacture, so a system more like the earlier Soviet concepts was developed. The laser would deposit enough energy in a selenium wire to cause 24 of the electrons to be ionized, leaving behind 10 electrons that would be pumped by collisions with the free electrons in the plasma.

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After the Diablo Hawk failure, Hagelstein reviewed Chapline's idea and came up with a new concept that should be much more efficient. Chapline had used a lightweight material, a fiber taken from a local weed, but Hagelstein suggested using a metal rod instead. Although initially skeptical, Wood came

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During high-altitude tests in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it was noticed that the burst of X-rays from a nuclear explosion were free to travel long distances, unlike low altitude bursts where the air interacted with the X-rays within a few tens of meters. This led to new and unexpected effects.

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Lacking either of these effects, the X-ray laser has to rely entirely on stimulation as the photons travel through the medium only once. To increase the odds that any given photon causes stimulation, and to focus the output, X-ray lasers are designed to be very long and skinny. In this arrangement,

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The process of gaining and losing energy is normally random, so under typical conditions, a large group of atoms is unlikely to be in a suitable state for this reaction. Lasers depend on some sort of setup that results in many electrons being in the desired states, a condition known as a population

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was highly critical of the program and Teller's role within it. His works have generally ascribed the entire basis for SDI to Teller's overselling of the Excalibur concept, convincing Reagan a credible defensive system was only a few years away. According to Broad, "Over the protests of colleagues,

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In spite of all of these red flag issues, and the decades-long string of Air Force and DARPA reports suggesting the concept just would not work, Reagan once again enthusiastically embraced their latest concept. By 1989 the weight of each pebble had grown to 100 pounds (45 kg) and the cost of a

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Brilliant Pebbles was essentially an updated version of the Project BAMBI concepts Graham had been suggesting in 1981. At that time, Teller had continually derided the idea as "outlandish" and used his influence to ensure the concept did not receive serious attention. Ignoring his previous concerns

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at the urging of the Department of Energy. This report apparently had no effect. The story became known within the labs, and the way Batzel retaliated against Woodruff became a major point of concern among the employees. A number of scientists in the lab were so upset at his treatment they wrote an

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Wood used this line of argument during congressional meetings on SDI as an argument to keep funding Excalibur. He was then asked to expand on the possibility of a Soviet version of Excalibur and what a US response might be. Wood said X-ray lasers could be used against any object in space, including

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Starting in late 1985 and through 1986, a series of events turned opinion against Excalibur. One of the many arguments used to support Excalibur, and SDI as a whole, was the suggestion that the Soviets were working on the same ideas. In particular, they said the Soviets published numerous papers on

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Faced with the twin problems of the original experiments apparently failing and the publication of a report showing that it could be easily defeated even if it worked, Teller and Wood responded by announcing the Excalibur Plus concept, which would be a thousand times more powerful than the original

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After a year of presentations from The Heritage Foundation and others, on 23 March 1983 Reagan went on television and announced that he was calling "upon the scientific community who gave us nuclear weapons to turn their great talents to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of

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In early 1983, before many of these reports had been returned, Reagan decided to announce what would become SDI. Few people were told of this decision and even Keyworth learned of it only a few weeks before it was going to be announced. When he showed a draft of the speech to Reis, Reis said it was

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In the meantime, while Keyworth continued to support the concepts publicly, he was careful not to make statements that sounded like outright support. He spoke of the promise of the systems and their potential. But when asked about Excalibur after receiving the Frieman report, he was much more blunt

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At the time, Teller was stumped. At the next meeting, he and Wood had an answer, apparently Teller's own concept. Instead of being based on satellites, Excalibur would be placed in submarines and "pop-up" when the Soviets launched their missiles. This would also bypass another serious concern, that

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puts it, "Anyone who knows Teller's record recognizes that he is invariably optimistic about even the most improbable technological schemes." Although this salesmanship had little effect in US military circles, it proved to be a continual annoyance in Congress, having a negative effect on the lab's

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as an energy source, on 13 July 1984 the system worked for the first time. The team calculated that the system produced laser amplification of about 700, which they considered to be strong evidence of lasing. Dennis Matthews presented the success at the October 1984 American Physical Society Plasma

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Although chlorine atoms are reported to have such a state, a dedicated X-ray laser using this technique does not appear in the literature. While atoms with such a state are unknown, metastable inner-shell molecular state molecules often have energy levels in the X-ray region and have been used for

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There was the possibility that a powerful enough laser could reach further into the atmosphere, perhaps as deep as 30 kilometers (19 mi) altitude if it was bright enough. In this case, there would be so many X-ray photons all the air between the battle station and the target missiles would be

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The use of X-ray based attacks in earlier generation BMD systems had led to work to counter these attacks. In the US, these were carried out by placing a warhead (or parts of it) in a cavern connected by a long tunnel to a second cavern where an active warhead was placed. Before firing, the entire

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to increase the electron energy to a blue-green or ultraviolet frequency. The electrons then rapidly lose energy until they reach the metastable energy level in the deep red. This results in a brief period where a large number of electrons lie at this medium energy level, resulting in a population

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million and then began to rapidly reverse. The March 1988 budget ended development as a weapon system, and the original R group was shut down. In the 1990 budget, Congress eliminated it as a separate item. X-ray laser research continued at LLNL, but as a purely scientific project, not as a weapons

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When he learned that Teller and Wood had made another presentation to Abrahamson, on 19 October 1985 he resigned his position and asked to be moved. At the time he said little about it, although there was widespread speculation in the press over why he had quit the program. The lab dismissed press

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Several months later, physicists at Los Alamos reviewed the Cottage results and noted the same problem Maenchen had mentioned earlier. They added such calibration to a test they were already carrying out and found that the results were indeed as bad as Maenchen has suggested. The targets contained

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The Union of Concerned Scientists presented a criticism of Excalibur in 1984 as part of a major report on the entire SDI concept. They noted that a key problem for all the directed energy weapons is that they work only in space, as the atmosphere quickly disperses the beams. This meant the systems

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spacecraft. What was mounted on this spacecraft remains unclear, but either a prototype Skif-DF or a mockup was part of the system. According to interviews conducted years later, mounting the Skif laser on the Polyus was more for propaganda purposes than as an effective defense technology, as the

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Finally, another problem was aiming the lasing rods before firing. For maximum performance, the laser rods needed to be long and skinny, but this would make them less robust mechanically. Moving them to point at their targets would cause them to bend, and some time would be required to allow this

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about a 1 mile (1.6 km) wide and as much as ten miles long. Previous missiles had to get within a few hundred yards (meters) to be effective, but with Spartan, one or two missiles could be used to attack a warhead anywhere within this cloud of material. This also greatly reduced the accuracy

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At this point SDI came into the negotiations. Gorbachev would consider such a move only if the US limited their SDI efforts to the laboratory for ten years. Excalibur, which Teller's letter of only a few days earlier once again said was ready to enter engineering, would need to be tested in space

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initially considered the issue of the destabilizing effect of intermediate-range missiles in Europe. As both proposed various ideas to eliminate them, they quickly began to ratchet up the numbers and types of weapons being considered. Gorbachev started with his acceptance of Reagan's 1981 "double

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In particular, Broad points to the meeting between Teller and Reagan in September 1982 as the key moment in SDI's creation. Years later, Broad described the meeting this way: "For half an hour, Teller deployed X-ray lasers all over the Oval Office, reducing hundreds of incoming Soviet missiles to

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This statement was quickly turned against him; if Excalibur could destroy a Soviet SDI system, then a Soviet Excalibur could do the same to theirs. Instead of ending the threat of nuclear weapons, Excalibur appeared to end the threat of SDI. More worryingly, when one considered such scenarios, it

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Woodruff went to Harold Weaver, head of the Berkeley-based lab oversight committee, to tell his side of the story. He learned that the group had already investigated, by sending a liaison to meet with Batzel, but had not bothered to talk to Woodruff. He attempted to explain his concerns about the

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At this point, no detailed theoretical work on the concepts had been carried out, let alone any practical tests. In spite of this, Teller once again used LLNL letterhead to write to several politicians telling them of the great advance. This time Teller copied Batzel, but not Woodruff. Once again

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Super-Excalibur would be so powerful it would be able to burn through the atmosphere, thereby countering the concerns about fast-firing missiles. The extra power also meant it could be divided up into more beams, making a single weapon able to be directed into as many as a hundred thousand beams.

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Reagan had long been deeply critical of current nuclear doctrine, which he and his aides derided as a "mutual suicide pact". He was extremely interested in the Heritage group's proposals. While he made no overt moves at the time, he spent a significant amount of time in 1982 gathering information

2197:"Third generation weapon" was a term Teller used to describe nuclear weapons that focused their output at particular targets, as opposed to traditional designs where the energy was released in all directions. The term was not widely used by others in the field, although it appears in later works. 1883:

before the warheads have separated. This destroys all the warheads with a single attack, rendering MIRV superfluous. Additionally, attacking during this phase allows the interceptors to track their targets using the large heat signature of the booster motor. These can be seen at distances on the

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It was later revealed that a letter submitted by Ray Kidder for inclusion in the report had been removed. Kidder strongly agreed with Woodruff's version of events and said Woodruff's attempt to send letters "provided a frank, objective and balanced description of the Program as it existed at the

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At this point Woodruff, who had attempted to rein in Teller and Wood's continual overselling of the project, finally had enough. He filed a grievance with LLNL management, complaining that Teller and Wood "undercut my management responsibility for the X-ray laser program" and had repeatedly made

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interview in 1988, Teller attempted to walk out rather than answer questions about the lab's treatment of a fellow worker who questioned the results. Further tests revealed additional problems, and in 1988 the budget was cut dramatically. The project officially continued until 1992 when its last

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The GAO report stated that they found a wide variety of opinions on the X-ray laser project, but Teller and Wood were "essentially off the scale on the optimistic side". They noted that Woodruff's attempts to correct these statements were blocked and that his complaints about the lab's behavior

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The success of the Dauphin test presented a potential new solution to the BMD problem. The X-ray laser offered the possibility that many laser beams could be generated from a single nuclear weapon in orbit, meaning a single weapon would destroy many ICBMs. This would blunt the attack to such an

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Hagelstein published his PhD thesis in January 1981 on the "Physics of Short-wavelength-laser Design". In contrast to Chapline and Wood's earlier work which focused on civilian applications, the thesis' introduction mentions several potential uses, even weapons taken from science fiction works.

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had been funding low-level research into high-frequency lasers since the 1960s. By late 1976 they had all but given up on them. They commissioned a report by Physical Dynamics, which outlined possible uses of such a laser, including space-based weapons. None of these seemed promising, and DARPA

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The basic concept continued to be studied through the 1960s and 1970s. A serious problem was that the interceptor missiles had to be very fast to reach the ICBM before its motor stopped firing, which required a larger motor on the interceptor, meaning higher weight to launch into orbit. As the

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is needed to provide the energy required to produce an X-ray laser. Delivering so much energy to the lasing medium invariably means it will be vaporized, but the entire reaction occurs so rapidly this is not necessarily a problem. It does imply such systems will be inherently one-shot devices.

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The report was completed in eighteen months, but due to the classified contents, it required about another seven months to clear the censors before the redacted version was released to the public in June 1987. The report, "The Science and Technology of Directed Energy Weapons", stated that the

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The exact material of the lasing medium has not been specified. The only direct statement from one of the researchers was by Chapline, who described the medium on the original Diablo Hawk test being "an organic pith material" from a weed growing on a vacant lot in Walnut Creek, a town a short

1142:

that would be easier to develop. The movement of space-based assets in well-known orbital paths also made them much easier to attack and exposed to attack for longer times compared to the same systems being used to attack ICBMs, whose initial positions were unknown and disappeared in minutes.

752:

On the same day the president was giving his speech, the Department of Defense was presenting its report to the Senate on the progress of DARPA's ongoing beam weapon research. The director of the Directed Energy Program said that while they offered promise, their "relative immaturity" made it

225:

had been studying the X-ray laser concept through the 1970s. Chapline was a member of Teller's speculative-project "O-Group" and began to discuss the concept with fellow O-Group member Lowell Wood, Teller's protégé. The two collaborated on a major review of the X-ray laser field in 1975. They

1623:

s description shows multiple lasing rods embedded in a plastic matrix forming a cylinder around the bomb and tracking device, meaning each device would be able to attack a single target. The accompanying text, however, describes it as having several aimable modules, perhaps four. Most other

176:. This caused spots to appear on X-ray film in the direction of the layers and none in other directions. The announcement caused great excitement, but it was soon overshadowed by the fact that no other labs could reproduce the results, and the announcement was soon forgotten. In 1974, the 1519:

An X-ray laser works in the same general fashion as a ruby laser, but at much higher energy levels. The main problem in producing such a device is that the probability of any given transition between energy states depends on the cube of the energy. Comparing a ruby laser that operates at

660:

million a year over six years they could decide whether the concept was feasible. They said a weapon could not possibly be ready before the mid-1990s, at the very earliest. In its final report, the panel concluded that the system simply could not be thought of as a military technology.

2000:

ICBM which utilized a higher-thrust engine burn following take-off, and flew a relatively flat ballistic trajectory, both characteristics intended to complicate space-based sensor acquisition and interception. The Topol fires its engine for only 150 seconds, about half the time of the

1895:

launched from orbiting platforms to attack Soviet ICBMs as they launched. To keep enough BAMBI interceptors within the range of the Soviet missiles while the interceptor's launch platforms continued to move in orbit, an enormous number of platforms and missiles would be required.

1149:

The high energy-to-weight ratio of nuclear explosive devices driving the directed energy beam weapons permits their use as "pop-up" devices. For this reason, the X-ray laser, if successfully developed, would constitute a particularly serious threat against space-based assets of a

753:

difficult to know if they would ever be used, and in any event would be unlikely to have any effect until the "1990s or beyond". The Undersecretary of Defense, Richard DeLauer, later said these weapons were at least two decades away and development would have "staggering" costs.

1066:

used a new reflector consisting of hydrogen gas which would address the calibration concerns. The new instruments demonstrated that the output of the lasers was at best ten percent of what the theoretical predictions required, and at worst, had produced no laser output at all.

528:

itself by shooting down the missile, which would also destroy Excalibur. In either case, a single missile would destroy the station, which invalidated the entire concept of the system in terms of having a single weapon that would destroy a large portion of the Soviet fleet.

926:

that glowed when heated and produced spurious results. On top of this, Livermore scientists studying the results noted that the explosion created sound waves in the rod before the lasing was complete, ruining the focus of the laser. A new lasing medium would be required.

1208:

resulted in him becoming what the lab insider called a "nonperson" in which longtime colleagues stopped talking to him. But the report also generally agreed with the lab on most other points, and then went on to accuse Woodruff of falsely stating he was a member of

1778:

suggested their short flight times would make it difficult to arrange an interception. The same report noted that the longer flight times of long-range missiles made this task simpler, despite various technical difficulties due to higher speeds and altitudes.

644:

The formation of this panel apparently worried Teller, who suspected they would not agree with his assessments of Excalibur's viability. In response, he stepped up his fundraising efforts, spending a considerable time in 1982 in Washington lobbying for a

2057:. In both of its appearances, Excalibur is presented as a gigantic, ground-based laser system that utilises mirror satellites to direct its laser beam; the device was originally designed to counter ICBMs, but was repurposed into an anti-aircraft weapon. 346:

Hagelstein arrived in May 1975, but nearly left when he found the area to be "disgusting" and immediately surmised they were working on weapons research when he saw the barbed wire and armed guards. He stayed on only because he met interesting people.

1394:

as a whole. In a 1999 interview with Hey, Teller himself would suggest that he had little to do with the president's decision to announce SDI. He also did not want to talk about the X-ray laser and said he did not even recognize the name "Excalibur".

1097:

to study the various weapons concepts independent of the labs. Keyworth and Abrahamson both agreed with this idea, giving the team complete access to classified materials as required. The APS panel took almost a year to form, and was co-chaired by

1080:

When the news broke, Teller blamed Woodruff, saying he had not been "a constructive member of the team". Teller continued to say the tests were actually a success, but that he was prevented from telling the real story due to government secrecy.

255:"I instantly put together the ideas I had gotten from Sobelman's talk with the results of the experiment, and in five minutes came up with the general idea of something that would most likely work to make an X-ray laser with a nuclear device." 124:

began to raise concerns about the test results. Teller and Wood continued to state the program was proceeding well, even after a critical test in 1985 demonstrated it was not working as expected. This led to significant criticism within the US

1036:

about Excalibur. He explained the actual state of the program, saying it was "still in its infancy" and that developing it completely "might require 100 to 1200 more nuclear tests and could easily require ten to twenty more years". DeWitt and

1967:

completely ionized and there would still be enough X-rays left over to destroy the missile. This process, known as "bleaching", would require an extremely bright laser, more than ten billion times brighter than the original Excalibur system.

1555:

Instead, X-ray lasers rely on the speed of various reactions to create the population inversion. When heated beyond a certain energy level, electrons dissociate from their atoms entirely, producing a gas of nuclei and electrons known as a

968:

million to him, taking it from other programs. As one official noted, "Do you really want to challenge someone who says he's talked to the President? Do you really want to risk your status by asking Reagan if that's what he really said?"

1987:

Excalibur worked during the boost phase and aimed at the booster itself. This meant the X-ray hardening techniques developed for warheads did not protect them. Other SDI weapons, like the Space Based Laser, required a certain amount of

1424:

A ruby laser is a very simple device, consisting of the ruby (right), flash tube (left-center), and casing (top). An X-ray laser is similar in concept, with the ruby replaced by one or more metal rods, and the flash tube by a nuclear

1378:

have been important, and his fellow physicists speak with increasing certainty about the private advice they believe Teller has been giving to Reagan about a new generation of super weapons potentially as significant as the H-bomb."

803:

Shortly after, LLNL scientist George Maenchen circulated a memo noting that the instrument used to measure the laser output was subject to interactions with the explosion. The system worked by measuring the brightness of a series of

994:. Miller replaced him as associate director. A few months later, Woodruff began receiving condolences from other members of the lab. When he asked why, he was told that Batzel had said he resigned his position due to stress and a 2024:

used missiles. These were abandoned, but with the announcement of SDI they were repurposed as anti-satellite weapons, with Skif being used against low-orbit objects and Kaskad against higher altitude and geostationary targets.

935:

was carried out on 26 and 27 September and came to the same conclusion. It now appeared there was no conclusive evidence that any lasing had been seen in any of the tests, and if it had, it was simply not powerful enough.

591: 280:

After a few weeks of work, he came up with a testable concept. At this time the DNA was making plans for another of its X-ray effects tests, and Chapline's device could easily be tested in the same "shot". The test shot,

2230:

of an inch across. A standard 20 foot (6.1 m) length thus has an aspect ratio of (20 x 12) / (5/8) = 384. Thus the required aspect ratio of a laser medium is more on the order of an extremely thin fibre than common

1077:, was carried out on 18 April 1987. This test demonstrated that the focusing in both this test and Labquark appeared to be an illusion; the beam had not narrowed and was not focused enough for long-range interceptions. 432:

This presented a problem. As fellow LLNL physicist Hugh DeWitt put it, "It has long been known that Teller and Wood are extreme technological optimists and super salesmen for hypothetical new weapons systems," or as

952:

million in order to carry out additional underground testing the next year, which would roughly double the Excalibur budget for 1986. He said this was needed because the Soviets were stepping up their own research.

828:

of Los Alamos, which stated they "doubted the existence of the X-ray laser had been demonstrated and that Livermore managers were losing their credibility because of their failure to stand up to Teller and Wood."

749:

rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete." Many historical overviews place much of the impetus for this speech directly on Teller and Wood's presentations, and thus indirectly on Hagelstein's work.

930:

Livermore ordered an independent review of the program by Joseph Nilsen, who delivered a report on 27 June 1985 agreeing the system was not working. Given the gravity of the situation, a further review by the

1381:

Others give less credence to Teller's persuasive capabilities; Ray Pollock, who was present at the meeting, described in a 1986 letter that "I sat in on the mid-September 1982 meeting Teller had in the Oval

2037:. One of the statements is that Polyus would be the basis for deployment of nuclear "mines" which might be fired from outside the range of the SDI components and reach the United States within six minutes. 1809:

in the 1960s, the cost-exchange ratio became so one-sided there was no effective defense that could not be overwhelmed with little effort. This is precisely what the US did when the Soviets installed their

460: 365:. Both lasers worked, but Hagelstein's design was much more powerful. The lab soon decided to move forward with Hagelstein's version, forming the "R Program", led by another O-Group member, Tom Weaver. 1390:

few weeks before his speech that suggested shifting some development funding to defensive systems. Reagan mentioned this during the speech introducing SDI. Nigel Hey points to Robert McFarlane and the

1182:

April 1987 letter about it to Gardner. When they asked for people to sign the cover letter, they were "practically stampeded" by volunteers. This was one of many signs of growing turmoil in the labs.

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The basic concept would require one or more lasing rods arranged into a module along with a tracking camera. These would be arranged on a framework surrounding the nuclear weapon in the center.

863:"the size of an executive desk which applied this technology could potentially shoot down the entire Soviet land-based missile force if it were to be launched into the module's field of view." 1295:

Brilliant Pebbles replaced Excalibur as LLNL's contribution to the SDI efforts, becoming the centerpiece of post-SDI programs until the majority of original SDI concepts were canceled in 1993.

960:

September 1985 meeting to review the status of the programs. Roy Woodruff was there to present LLNL's status. Teller arrived in the middle of the meeting and said Reagan had agreed that $ 100

656:

In June 1982, the Frieman panel asked LLNL to review their own progress. Led by Woodruff, the lab returned a fairly conservative review. They suggested that if they were provided $ 150–$ 200

3534: 2119:

There is significant confusion in various sources about whether Excalibur+ and Super Excalibur refer to a single design, or two. Coffey and Stevens are examples of these different views.

1936:

could carry multiple Excaliburs into orbit in a single sortie. Super Excalibur, a later design, would theoretically be able to shoot down the entire Soviet missile fleet singlehandedly.

1624:

descriptions show multiple modules arranged around the bomb that can be separately aimed, which more closely follows the suggestions of there being several dozen such lasers per device.

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An illustration depicting Excalibur firing at three nearby targets. In most descriptions, each could fire at dozens of targets, which would be hundreds or thousands of kilometers away.

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Depending on whose version of the events you read, the nearly complete disarmament of all strategic weapons may have foundered due to Reagan's desire to continue developing Excalibur.

1940:

attack or sacrifice itself to shoot down the attacker. In either case, the Excalibur platform would likely be destroyed, allowing a subsequent and larger attack to occur unhindered.

1193:

wire, which resulted in a standing ovation by the other scientists. The press, now largely turned against SDI, made it a major issue they came to refer to as the "Woodruff Affair".

1959:

Another challenge was geometric in nature. For missiles launched close to the submarines, the laser would be shining through only the uppermost atmosphere. For ICBMs launched from

501:

wrote an article on "Opportunities and Imperatives in Ballistic Missile Defense", which was to be published later that year in Strategic Review. Their concept, known simply as the

824:

August 1984 test used different methods to measure the laser output, and these suggested that little or no lasing was taking place. George Miller received a "caustic" letter from

429:

million. In February 1981, Teller and Wood traveled to Washington to present the technology to the policy makers and request greater financial support to pursue the development.

1339: 551:

him after the first meetings, left the group and formed "High Frontier Inc.", publishing a glossy book on the topic in March 1982. Before publication, he had sent a copy to the

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Excalibur. Soon after, they added Super-Excalibur, which was another thousand times more powerful than Excalibur Plus, making it a trillion times as bright as the bomb itself.

5449: 250:

devices. This review contained the calculations that demonstrated both the rapid reaction times needed in such a device and the extremely high energies required for pumping.

4373: 1661: 1170:

February 1987, Batzel gave him a memo saying any problems he had were his own making. His final appeal, to the university president David Gardner, was likewise turned down.

1011:

X-ray lasers until 1977 when they suddenly stopped. They argued this was because they had also begun a military X-ray laser program, and were now classifying their reports.

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but had since gone on to become a major critic of the bomb industry, and especially ABM systems. He wrote several seminal articles in the 1960s highly critical of the

447:

carried an article on the ongoing work. It described the Dauphin shot in some detail, going on to mention the earlier 1978 test, but incorrectly ascribing that to a

1863:

needed for the missile's guidance system; the earlier Zeus had a maximum effective range of about 75 miles (121 km) due to the limits of the resolution of the

1739: 1681: 688:'s efforts to build an ABM system, demonstrating that any such system was relatively inexpensive to defeat and would simply prompt the Soviets to build more ICBMs. 486:". This required dozens of large satellites carrying many small, relatively simple missiles which would be launched at the ICBMs and track them like a conventional 161:, is the same as that of their visible-light counterparts. There were discussions of such devices as early as 1960, the year the first ruby laser was demonstrated. 1027:, the remaining Soviet Excaliburs would then blunt the enfeebled response. Miller immediately sent a letter countering Wood's statements, but the damage was done. 126: 2325: 1979:

to decrease, offsetting this improvement. Whether it was possible to meet the performance requirements within these competing limitations was never demonstrated.

1583:

Finally, another complication is that there is no effective mirror for X-ray frequency light. In a common laser, the lasing medium is normally placed between two

1398:

There is considerable debate on whether or not Excalibur had a direct effect on the failure of the Reykjavík Summit. During the October 1986 meeting, Reagan and

784:

test series. Instrumentation again proved to be a problem and no good results were obtained. The identical experiment was carried out on 16 December 1983 in the

3972: 4266: 2761: 1459:. The energy levels depend on the structure of the nucleus, so they vary from element to element. Electrons can gain or lose energy by absorbing or emitting a 1073:, carried out on 20 September 1986. This was apparently successful, suggesting the major problems with focusing had been addressed. A follow-up focusing test, 1571:

To produce the required conditions, a huge amount of energy needs to be delivered extremely rapidly. It has been demonstrated that something on the order of 1

6152: 5646: 4452: 6092: 1133:

in energy (100 times). In contrast, the report's section on Excalibur suggested it was not clear it could ever work even in theory and was summarized thus:

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Mt for a single laser to deposit enough energy on the booster to be sure to destroy it at that range. Using best-case scenarios for both values, about 10

1616:, along with those in optics-related journals, contain broad outlines of the underlying concepts and outline possible ways to build an Excalibur system. 1137:

Nuclear explosion pumped X-ray lasers require validation of many of the physical concepts before their application to strategic defense can be evaluated.

516:

Graham was able to garner interest from other Republican supporters and formed a group who would help advocate for his concept. The group was chaired by

502: 1745:

less than one. In the worst-case scenario, with the widest dispersion angle and the lowest enhancement, the pump weapon would have to be approximately 1

1204:(GAO). Brown later said Teller's version of events was "politically motivated exaggerations aimed at distorting national policy and funding decisions". 547:". Graham and Wallop were not represented and the group apparently dismissed their concepts. The same group met with the president another three times. 800:, the lab's director. Batzel rebuffed Woodruff's complaints, saying Teller was meeting the president as a private citizen, not on behalf of Livermore. 704: 357:

to support the idea and successfully argued that both concepts be tested in Chapline's shot. The critical test was carried out on 14 November 1980 as

4863: 1227:

to call it an earthshattering report, but what has happened has created a lot of questions about the objectivity and reliability of the laboratory."

425:

extent that any US response would be overwhelming in comparison. Even if the Soviets launched a full-scale attack, it would limit US casualties to 30

3078: 5273: 4332:

Cocke, C. L.; Curnutte, Basil; Macdonald, J. R. (8 May 1972). "Metastable X-Ray Emitters Produced in Beam-Foil Excitation of Fast Chlorine Beams".

3545: 2290: 1757:

distance away from Livermore. Various sources describe the later tests using metals; selenium, zinc and aluminum have been mentioned specifically.

1166:

During the later half of 1987, Woodruff found that no work was being assigned to him. With little to do, the lab threatened to cut his salary. On 2

4952: 2151:

This basic line of reasoning, "but the Soviets are doing it", had been used repeatedly over the previous decades. It was used, sometimes based on

466:

chaired the efforts that would eventually present the basis for SDI to Reagan; Excalibur was one of the three major concepts studied by the group.

1884:

order of thousands of miles, although they would be below the horizon for a ground-based sensor and thus require sensors being located in orbit.

983:

which appeared the same day. Teller refused to talk about the matter, while Woodruff simply pointed reporters to a statement put out by the lab.

129:. In 1987, the infighting became public, leading to an investigation on whether LLNL had misled the government about the Excalibur concept. In a 1196:

The press articles on the topic, which were generally more widespread in California newspapers, came to the attention of California Congressman

6142: 5785: 638: 6022: 4603: 3655: 1971:

deformation to disappear. Complicating the issue was that the rods needed to be as skinny as possible to focus the output, a concept known as

692:

be able to stop a Soviet attack, especially if they designed their systems knowing such a system existed. He soon co-authored a report by the

3005: 2351: 1948:

few minutes, during which time the US had to detect the launch, order a counter-launch, and then wait for the missiles to climb to altitude.

198:

In June 1977, two well-known Soviet researchers, Igor Sobel'man, and Vladilen Letokhov, displayed a film exposed to the output of plasmas of

4233: 3895: 2060:

The Excalibur weapon also appears in 2019 film 'Rim of the World', where four teens use Excalibur to save the world from an alien invasion.

1319:

billion. It remained the centerpiece of the US BMD efforts into 1991 when the numbers were further cut to somewhere between 750 and 1,000.

574:

system would be ready for deployment in five years and that it was time to talk about "assured survival" instead of "assured destruction".

1122:

technologies in question were at least a decade away from the stage where it could be clearly stated whether or not they would even work.

3133: 5521: 2637: 1502:

where electrons will remain for a slightly longer period if they are first excited to even higher energy. This is accomplished through

1474:

Electrons will naturally release photons if there is an unoccupied lower energy state. An isolated atom would normally be found in the

5163: 1259:

quoted George Maenchen as stating "All these claims are totally false. They lie in the realm of pure fantasy." The stories prompted a

5094: 649:-level effort to bring the system to production as soon as possible. While he was not part of the Frieman panel, he was part of the 5412: 5997: 5324: 3504: 1552:, to carry out the reaction. A suitable substance with a metastable state in the X-ray region is unknown in the open literature. 1391: 618: 478:

to begin exploring the idea of missile defense, and in the years since had become a strong advocate of what was earlier known as

214:

when he said he was observing lasing in a calcium plasma. As with earlier announcements, these results were met with skepticism.

906:

Commenting on the results, Wood set an optimistic tone saying, "Where we stand between inception and production I can't tell you

4200: 1632:

to the X-rays released by the bomb itself. The enhancement of the brightness compared to the unfocused output from the bomb is

1324: 891: 776:

Only a few days after Reagan's speech, on 26 March 1983, the second test of Hagelstein's design was carried out as part of the

297: 33: 4821: 2097:

Visible-spectrum gas lasers that were optically pumped by nuclear weapons had been developed and tested, and it is likely the

1277:, had already been planned but was ultimately canceled. In total, ten underground tests were used in the development program. 910:... I am much more optimistic now about the utility of X-ray lasers in strategic defense than when we started." In contrast, 539:

January 1982. Planned to last 15 minutes, the meeting went on for an hour. Present were Teller, Bendetsen, William Wilson and

419: 6157: 5972: 5908: 5811: 5726: 5705: 5673: 5627: 5604: 5583: 5400: 5379: 5350: 5307: 5235: 5214: 5193: 5129: 5083: 5062: 4906: 4857: 4079: 3611: 3339: 3177: 3127: 2604: 1880: 1713:

If a typical ICBM is 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) in diameter, at a distance of 1,000 kilometers (620 mi) represents a

1482:

in other atoms. As long as there is a large population of atoms with electrons in the matching energy state, the result is a

1129:, for instance, where the panel was able to offer specific information on the required improvements, calling for two or more 5679: 3345: 2701: 816:

concepts. Given the constant stream of news about Excalibur, they added a laser to one of their own underground tests, shot

3637: 666: 524:. The group invited the laser lobby to join them to plan a strategy to introduce these concepts to the incoming president. 4556: 4369:"Detection of accelerated large water cluster ions and electrosprayed biomolecules with passivated solid state detectors" 718: 289:

series. However, the instrumentation on Chapline's device failed, and there was no way to know if the system had worked.

6121: 5554: 1811: 1463:

with the same energy as the difference between two allowable energy states. This is why different elements have unique

443: 4295: 2317: 2129:

Neither is nearly enough to make it effective when fired from stationary orbit at ~36,000 kilometers (22,000 mi).

2005:, and has no bus, the warhead is released seconds after the engine stops. This makes it far more difficult to attack. 1189:, who then turned it over to the newspapers. Woodruff was visiting Los Alamos when the first stories came in over the 948:

Shortly after the Cottage test, Teller once again met with Reagan. He petitioned the President for an additional $ 100

673:

and told reporters the concept was probably unusable. In 1985, he quit the position and returned to private industry.

6066: 4258: 3964: 1186: 812:

By this time, Los Alamos had begun developing nuclear anti-missile weapons of its own, updated versions of the 1960s

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interview with Teller, but when they began to question him on Woodruff, Teller attempted to rip off the microphone.

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warhead. Due to the large volume in which the system was effective, it could be used against warheads hidden among

6084: 4456: 1535:

million times less likely. To provide the same total output energy, one needs a similar increase in input energy.

513:

and Teller in forming what became known as the "laser lobby", advocating the building of laser-based BMD systems.

6137: 3960: 2548: 2185: 2110:

A Department of Defense backgrounder report has a diagram showing such an MX-like missile firing for 180 seconds.

2047: 1953: 1835: 1125:

Some of the systems appeared to be theoretically possible but needed more development. This was the case for the

117:, where Reagan refused to give up the possibility of proof-testing SDI technology with nuclear testing in space. 1356:

Teller misled the highest officials of the United States Government into the deadly folly known as Star Wars ."

184:

plasma created by a pulse of laser light, but, once again, the results were regarded skeptically by other labs.

4788: 4398: 1956:

to conclude that "the practicality of a global scheme involving pop-up X-ray lasers of this type is doubtful."

1360:

radioactive chaff, while Reagan, gazing up ecstatically, saw a crystal shield, covering the Last Hope of Man."

609:

suggested Keyworth form an independent group to study the feasibility of such a system. The work was passed to

406:

presented their evidence of lasing in carbon using a much smaller laser and confined the plasma using magnets.

301: 265:

Chapline attended a meeting where Sobel'man's work on X-ray lasers was presented. He had learned of the unique

121: 4662: 1770:

The US Army ran an ongoing BMD program dating from the 1940s. This was initially concerned with shooting down

986:

Woodruff found himself banished to a windowless room he called "Gorky West", referring to the Russian city of

973:"optimistic, technically incorrect statements regarding this research to the nation's highest policy-makers". 3570: 1511:

inversion. At that point any one of the atoms can emit a photon at that energy, starting the chain reaction.

1049:

to complain that LLNL's objection to ongoing talks of a nuclear test ban rested solely on the X-ray program.

693: 1255:

own. By the late 1980s, the entire concept was being derided in the press and by other members of the lab;

1235: 911: 895: 106: 4844: 3862:

Strategic Defense Initiative program: accuracy of statements concerning DOE's X-ray laser research program

3070: 650: 247: 5777: 5246: 2997: 2294: 1887:

DARPA had considered this concept starting in the late 1950s, and by the early 1960s had settled on the

4943: 1976: 1023:; Soviet Excaliburs would destroy US defenses while their ICBMs attacked the US missile fleet in their 1020: 532:

nuclear weapons in space were outlawed and it was unlikely the government or public would allow these.

5736:

Ritson, David (August 1987). "The Nuclear-Pumped X-ray Laser; A weapon for the twenty-first century".

5054:

Star Warriors: a penetrating look into the lives of the young scientists behind our space age weaponry

470:

By this time, LLNL was not the only group lobbying the government about space-based weapons. In 1979,

2998:"Reagan Science Adviser Keyworth Quits: 'Star Wars' Advocate to Form Industrial Intelligence Company" 1612: 1328: 1201: 1173:

In response, in April 1987 Woodruff filed two official grievances. This prompted a private review by

1090: 859:

Instead of dozens of Excalibur weapons in pop-up launchers, Teller suggested that a single weapon in

45: 6014: 1721:(sr). Estimates of the dispersion angles from the Excalibur lasers were from 10 to 10. Estimates of 1635: 964:

million should be turned over to Excalibur. Without questioning this, Abrahamson then assigned $ 100

696:

outlining objections to the concept, the simplest being that the Soviets could simply overwhelm it.

5537: 2160: 2156: 1996:

The Soviets conceived of a wide array of responses during the SDI era. In 1997 Russia deployed the

1002:

overselling of the technology, but as Weaver later put it, "we were bamboozled by the laboratory."

741:

or resign. Keyworth did neither, prompting Reis to resign a short time later, taking a position at

328: 266: 110: 886:

Teller immediately wrote another letter touting the success of the concept. This time he wrote to

4644:

A Historical Evaluation of the U12t Tunnel, Nevada Test Site, Nye County, Nevada, Volume 6 of 6.

4225: 3906: 2152: 940:

old view graphs on the experiment, which did not take into account the new disturbing findings".

641:(SAIC). Keyworth gave them a year to study the issues, and did not interfere with their process. 594:

Keyworth was skeptical of High Frontier's concepts, but eventually came to support them publicly.

565: 521: 177: 141: 102: 1455:

orbiting in shells around it. Electrons can be found in many discrete energy states, defined by

1363:

This basic telling of the story is recounted in other contemporary sources; in their biography,

2069: 1103: 932: 598: 448: 270: 63: 6054: 5962: 3117: 2594: 1686: 5485: 2621: 1154:

A specific concern, in this case, was the susceptibility of the optics, and especially their

867:

Woodruff asked to send a counterpoint letter, only to have Batzel refuse to let him send it.

738: 173: 5008: 3930: 2240:

The Spartan, the longest-range US ABM, had a maximum range of about 450 miles (720 km).

1299:

With Excalibur effectively dead, in 1987 Teller and Wood began pitching Wood's new concept,

5867: 5830: 5745: 5497: 5425: 5367: 5257: 5155: 5140: 5020: 4985: 4894: 4382: 4341: 1892: 1724: 1666: 1440: 1099: 1062: 676:

Teller's continual presence in Washington soon came to the attention of his former friend,

487: 403: 1323:

indirectly canceled the project on 13 May 1993 when the SDI office was reorganized as the

8: 2053: 2029: 1802: 1707: 1434: 1130: 1126: 880: 860: 327:(right) and George Maenchen (left) at the world's first X-ray laser prior to the Dauphin 324: 192: 86: 82: 75: 5871: 5834: 5749: 5501: 5429: 5371: 5261: 5159: 5024: 4989: 4898: 4386: 4345: 1838:

such as this Kingfish shot of Operation Fishbowl inspired the concept of X-rays attacks.

114: 113:

through the early 1980s suggested progress was being made, and this influenced the 1986

5991: 5761: 5572: 5464: 5318: 5296: 3664:, p. 42. (Foerstel incorrectly gives Congressman Markey's first name as "Joseph"). 1867:

systems, beyond this it did not have enough accuracy to stay within its lethal radius.

1174: 1032: 977:

speculation that it was punishment due to a critical review in the influential journal

789: 614: 560: 362: 239: 165: 5269: 3905:. Ypsilanti, Michigan: Eastern Michigan University, Physics Department. Archived from 6062: 5968: 5934: 5904: 5883: 5846: 5807: 5722: 5701: 5669: 5623: 5616: 5600: 5579: 5546: 5513: 5472: 5441: 5396: 5375: 5346: 5303: 5231: 5210: 5189: 5125: 5079: 5058: 5036: 4902: 4853: 4645: 4394: 4075: 4069: 3607: 3335: 3173: 3123: 2600: 2034: 1913: 1819: 1795: 1588:

will be released in the same direction, this causes the output to be highly focused.

1561: 1542:

nm transition, the electron will remain in the state for about 10 seconds. Without a

1456: 1399: 1367:, Blumberg and Panos essentially make the same statement, as does Robert Park in his 1320: 1300: 1286: 1145:

The report noted this was particularly true of pop-up X-ray lasers. They noted that:

1094: 978: 781: 757: 646: 286: 227: 5765: 5073: 4192: 2171:

article in 1981 prompted Soviet X-ray laser developments, which demonstrated only 20

1057:

While this was taking place in the press, LLNL was preparing for another test shot,

717:

from various sources on whether or not the system was possible. Reports by both the

5875: 5838: 5753: 5509: 5505: 5433: 5265: 5048: 5032: 5028: 4993: 4390: 4349: 2633: 2629: 2540: 1791: 1606: 1557: 1546:

to extend this time, this means there is only this fleeting time, much less than a

1543: 1499: 1197: 1190: 825: 761: 510: 498: 471: 342: 334: 309: 169: 67: 4817: 1219:

Batzel had already decided to retire by this time, and his position was filled by

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This led Teller to suggest a "pop-up" mode where an Excalibur would be placed on

1855: 1503: 1487: 1374: 1155: 987: 813: 760:

formed the Strategic Defense Initiative Office in April 1984, appointing General

653:, and appeared at their meetings to continue pressuring for further development. 590: 544: 399: 274: 222: 5342:

The Star Wars Enigma: Behind the Scenes of the Cold War Race for Missile Defense

4353: 3628: 2088:

The later "Super Excalibur" concept theoretically supported thousands of lasers.

6038: 4564: 4287: 2002: 1917: 1847: 1483: 1448: 1369: 1209: 1042: 995: 634: 622: 610: 517: 506: 494: 463: 434: 243: 57: 1908: 1879:

A potential solution to the problem of MIRV is to attack the ICBMs during the

1604:

Although most details of the Excalibur concept remain classified, articles in

809:

carried out, rendering the results of all of these tests effectively useless.

726: 349:

Hagelstein was given the task of simulating the X-ray laser process on LLNL's

6131: 6050: 5938: 5773: 5596:

A Shield in Space? Technology, Politics, and the Strategic Defense Initiative

5517: 5445: 5040: 4998: 4973: 2534: 1933: 1920: 1584: 1565: 1538:

Another problem is that the excited states are extremely short-lived: for a 1

1348: 1247: 1239: 1220: 709: 479: 475: 394: 378: 350: 98: 90: 49: 5858:

Smith, R. Jeffery (22 November 1985). "Experts Cast Doubts on X-ray Laser".

5550: 5476: 5437: 2012:

began development of two space-based platforms not unlike the SDI concepts;

1420: 238:

where a conventional laser's longer wavelength did not provide the required

5887: 5850: 5821:

Smith, R. Jeffery (8 November 1985). "Experts Cast Doubts on X-ray Laser".

5803:

Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940

3603:

Foreign Relations of the United States: 1964–1968: National Security Policy

1593: 1548: 1475: 1468: 1178: 1024: 797: 630: 552: 540: 164:

The first announcement of a successful X-ray laser was made in 1972 by the

5467:(7 August 1989). "New Director Shifts Balance of Power at Livermore Lab". 2163:

and was a major reason for the strong support of earlier ABM systems like

1822:

fleet, they could overwhelm the A-35 without adding a single new missile.

93:'s "O-Group" in LLNL. After a successful test in 1980, in 1981 Teller and 4789:"Did Star Wars Help End the Cold War? Soviet Response to the SDI Program" 2045:

A similar laser weapon, also named Excalibur, appears in the video games

2009: 1714: 1243: 1107: 606: 483: 211: 94: 41: 5206:

Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War

1015:

Soviet Excaliburs, referring to this use as a "counter-defensive" role.

721:

and the White House's own Science Council would feed into this process.

665:

those missiles launched from locations close to the United States, like

191:

dropped funding for X-ray laser research in favor of the more promising

6059:

Science and Technology Advice to the President, Congress, and Judiciary

4649: 3891: 2138:

One SDIO official noted that Teller's claims of Soviet research were "5

1960: 1830: 1771: 1742: 1507: 1495: 1261: 1118:. The sixteen other members of the panel were similarly distinguished. 1038: 887: 730: 677: 131: 1683:

is the efficiency of conversion from bomb X-rays to laser X-rays, and

556:

the House supporting Teller and the Senate supporting Wallop's group.

5757: 1783: 1775: 1718: 1524: 1111: 1046: 805: 158: 4368: 2544: 1291: 1185:

In October 1987, someone sent a copy of Woodruff's grievance to the

459: 2352:"'Star Wars' X-Ray Laser Weapon Dies as Its Final Test Is Canceled" 1924: 1464: 1452: 381:

provided the energy needed for Hagelstein's successful X-ray laser.

231: 207: 199: 181: 37: 21: 5996:. Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress. September 1985. 4945:

ABM Research and Development at Bell Laboratories, Project History

4818:"Russia Approves Topol-M; Warns Missile Could Defeat U.S. Defense" 4097:"How Edward Teller Learned to Love The Nuclear-Pumped X-Ray Laser" 3865:(Technical report). United States General Accounting Office. 1988. 3578: 2101:

article is confusing these earlier tests with the 1978 X-ray test.

157:

The conceptual basis of short-wavelength lasers, using X-rays and

101:

about the concept. These talks, combined with strong support from

16:

Anti-missile system using an X-ray laser powered by a nuclear bomb

5075:

Teller's War: The Top-Secret Story Behind the Star Wars Deception

3409: 3407: 1997: 899: 685: 409: 203: 81:

The basic concept behind Excalibur was conceived in the 1970s by

1531:

nm, this means the X-ray transition is 694, or a little over 334

373: 6116: 4042:(Technical report). Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 2574: 2164: 1815: 1787: 1460: 923: 742: 734: 681: 6085:"Strategic defense of X-ray initiative – X-ray laser research" 4974:"APS Study: Science and Technology of Directed Energy Weapons" 4746: 4744: 3404: 3248: 1858:. When decoys are deployed along with the warhead they form a 4374:

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B

3119:

Let Me Explain: Eugene G. Fubini's Life in Defense of America

2217: 1903: 1864: 1429: 991: 626: 569:

that he did not have access to the president. This led to a 4

277:. He realized this was a perfect way to pump an X-ray laser. 235: 187: 5967:. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 58, 157–158. 5899:. In Fleck, James; Faulkner, Wendy; Williams, Robin (eds.). 4004: 4002: 2942: 2940: 2938: 2936: 2911: 2909: 2907: 2905: 2865: 2863: 2819: 2817: 2815: 2813: 2675: 2673: 2671: 1019:

appeared the best use of such a system would be to launch a

582:

million a year "over the next several years" to develop it.

5545:(Technical report). Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 4741: 4705: 4158: 3099: 3097: 3095: 1944: 1806: 71: 52:. The concept involved packing large numbers of expendable 5363:

Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism in the Post-9/11 World

3672: 3670: 3028: 3026: 3024: 3022: 1932:

the system was both small and relatively lightweight, the

1627:

In order to damage the airframe of an ICBM, an estimated 3

1527:

to a hypothetical soft X-ray laser that might operate at 1

320: 4626: 4604:"History of Russia's Anti-ballistic Missile (ABM) System" 4488: 4486: 4134: 4021: 4019: 4017: 3999: 3464: 3462: 3460: 3207: 3205: 3203: 3201: 2979: 2977: 2975: 2933: 2902: 2860: 2810: 2668: 1851: 482:(Ballistic Missile Boost Intercept), but now updated as " 338: 5993:

Anti-Satellite Weapons, Countermeasures and Arms Control

4423: 4421: 4419: 4417: 4415: 4315: 4313: 3447: 3445: 3443: 3441: 3439: 3364: 3362: 3236: 3092: 2973: 2971: 2969: 2967: 2965: 2963: 2961: 2959: 2957: 2955: 2848: 1093:(APS) approached Keyworth with the idea of setting up a 1084: 832: 771: 308:

million needed in a DNA shot. Given the schedule at the

5539:

The ABM debate: strategic defense and national security

4170: 3667: 3426: 3424: 3422: 3019: 2838: 2836: 2834: 2832: 2788: 2786: 2784: 2782: 2504: 2502: 4920: 4918: 4756: 4586: 4584: 4582: 4515: 4513: 4483: 4331: 4112: 4110: 4051: 4049: 4014: 3941: 3728: 3703: 3701: 3699: 3697: 3457: 3226: 3224: 3222: 3220: 3198: 2735: 2733: 2731: 2658: 2656: 2654: 2406: 2404: 2379: 2377: 764:

as its head. Early estimates were for a budget of $ 26

420:

Strategic Defense Initiative § Space-based lasers

285:, was carried out on 13 September 1978 as part of the 242:, and as a sort of flashbulb for taking images of the 5927:

Executive Intelligence Review: Science and Technology

5920:"Status of the x-ray laser: the exclusive real story" 4768: 4695: 4693: 4498: 4433: 4412: 4310: 4146: 4122: 3828: 3826: 3824: 3822: 3820: 3771: 3769: 3767: 3483: 3481: 3479: 3477: 3436: 3392: 3359: 3310: 3269: 3267: 3265: 3263: 3186: 2952: 2596:

To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon's Secret War Plans

2453: 2451: 1727: 1689: 1669: 1638: 956:

Later that year, Abrahamson, head of SDIO, called a 6

4537: 3843: 3841: 3630:

Reminiscing About the Early Years of the X-Ray Laser

3419: 3169:

Misguided Missiles: Canada, the Cruise and Star Wars

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insisted, "loose marbles", a euphemism for insanity.

226:

suggested such a device would be a powerful tool in

168:. Researchers spread thin layers of copper atoms on 4915: 4729: 4717: 4579: 4525: 4510: 4471: 4107: 4046: 3987: 3694: 3682: 3300: 3298: 3296: 3294: 3217: 2921: 2728: 2716: 2651: 2401: 2389: 2374: 1069:Focusing was the primary concern of the next test, 6055:"The Dilemmas of Decision-Making from AIDS to SDI" 5665:Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud 5615: 5571: 5411: 5295: 4690: 3869: 3817: 3781: 3764: 3740: 3718: 3716: 3474: 3279: 3260: 2760:(Technical report). Rand Corporation. p. 12. 2271: 1774:-like targets, but an early study on the topic by 1733: 1698: 1675: 1655: 1486:that releases a burst of single-frequency, highly 1315:small fleet of 4,600 of them had ballooned to $ 55 1030:Shortly thereafter, Hugh DeWitt wrote a letter to 66:(ABM) systems of the time only attacked the enemy 4453:"Choosing Different Rebar Sizes for Your Project" 4071:Edward Teller: Giant of The Golden Age of Physics 3838: 3805: 3793: 3752: 3636:. 8th International Conference on X-Rays Lasers. 2887: 2875: 2428: 2416: 2259: 2028:Some of these systems were tested in 1987 on the 1365:Edward Teller: Giant of The Golden Age of Physics 849: 712:delivers the 23 March 1983 speech initiating SDI. 441:Only days later, the 23 February 1981 edition of 6129: 5117: 3606:. Government Printing Office. pp. 487–489. 3413: 3291: 3254: 2580: 1494:inversion. An easy to understand example is the 875:Super-Excalibur was tested on the 23 March 1985 637:, vice president of military science contractor 5778:"Scientists Dispute Test of X-Ray Laser Weapon" 3903:Ethical Issues in Physics: Workshop Proceedings 3713: 2142:percent information and 95 percent conjecture". 1560:. Plasma is a gas, and its energy causes it to 898:. Nitze was about to begin negotiations on the 737:. He suggested Keyworth demand a review by the 5227:Toxic Mix?: A Handbook of Science and Politics 3071:"Weinberger Sees End of 'Mutual Suicide Pact'" 1782:This led to a series of systems starting with 1161: 639:Science Applications International Corporation 217: 5256:. Vol. 218, no. 3. pp. 21–31. 5009:"Weird Science: Livermore's X-Ray laser flap" 4067: 3886: 3884: 3544:. 1 December 1958. p. 27. Archived from 1741:vary from about 10 to 10; that is, they have 1268:Funding for Excalibur peaked in 1987 at $ 349 6153:Nuclear weapons program of the United States 6061:. Transaction Publishers. pp. 255–261. 5901:Exploring Expertise: Issues and Perspectives 5618:Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended 5463: 4886: 4040:A Brief History of Ballistic Missile Defense 3334:(Technical report). DIANE. 1984. p. 7. 3242: 1334: 312:, their test would have to wait until 1980. 5359: 5245:Garwin, Richard; Bethe, Hans (March 1968). 5244: 4852:. The Heritage Foundation. pp. 39–40. 4750: 4711: 4220: 4218: 3068: 3032: 2592: 1280: 535:The group first met with the president on 8 509:placed in orbit. They were later joined by 337:was in an undergraduate physics program at 105:, helped Reagan ultimately to announce the 5592: 5202: 5141:"Directed Energy Missile Defence in Space" 4074:. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. 4037: 3881: 3103: 2946: 2915: 2869: 2854: 2823: 2679: 2532: 1904:Excalibur's promise and development issues 796:own, only to be ordered not to send it by 792:series. This test showed gain and lasing. 633:, former director of LANL, and chaired by 6083:Thomsen, Dietrich E. (14 December 1985). 5290: 5185:American Arsenal: A Century of Waging War 4997: 4941: 4663:"Amendments to the FY-70 Defense Budgets" 4632: 4140: 3599: 3165: 1891:concept, Project BAMBI. BAMBI used small 820:, also part of the Fusileer series. The 2 625:, Nobel winner as the co-inventor of the 152: 5894: 5799: 5223: 5118:Bulkeley, Rip; Spinardi, Graham (1986). 4890:Energiya-Buran: The Soviet Space Shuttle 4366: 4253: 4251: 4215: 4068:Blumberg, Stanley; Panos, Louis (1990). 4008: 3965:"'Brilliant Pebbles'? No, Loose Marbles" 3947: 3676: 3661: 3498: 3496: 3468: 3331:Directed energy missile defense in space 3211: 2691: 2536:Physics of short-wavelength-laser design 2315: 1907: 1829: 1765: 1432:rely on two physical phenomena to work, 1419: 1338: 1290: 1234: 1200:Brown triggered an investigation by the 703: 589: 578:reported that Teller had asked for $ 200 559:Later that summer, Teller complained to 458: 372: 319: 172:and then heated them with pulses from a 78:that had previously doomed ABM systems. 20: 5960: 5917: 5639:"Study Assails Idea of Missile Defense" 5613: 5593:Lakoff, Sanford; York, Herbert (1989). 5298:Edward Teller, the Real Dr. Strangelove 4842: 4762: 4187: 4185: 4176: 4164: 3959: 3535:"Soviets Flight Testing Nuclear Bomber" 3398: 3368: 2692:Robinson, Clarence (23 February 1981). 2277: 2008:In 1976, the organization now known as 1392:United States National Security Council 619:Office of Science and Technology Policy 6130: 6025:from the original on 13 September 2014 5857: 5772: 5735: 5693: 5483: 5320:Ballistic Missile Defense Technologies 5181: 5138: 5095:"'Star Wars' Traced To Eisenhower Era" 4786: 4492: 4477: 4038:Cirincione, Joseph (1 February 2000). 4025: 3896:"Physics and the Classified Community" 3626: 3451: 3316: 3273: 3192: 3153: 3115: 3069:Gerstenzang, James (10 October 1985). 2983: 2842: 2804: 2722: 2619: 2593:Kaku, Michio; Axelrod, Daniel (1987). 2349: 2345: 2343: 2283: 2265: 1874: 1825: 1325:Ballistic Missile Defense Organization 680:. Bethe had worked with Teller on the 617:and now the assistant director of the 298:Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 34:Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 6143:Cold War weapons of the United States 5820: 5714: 5557:from the original on 15 February 2023 5535: 5409: 5388: 5121:Space Weapons: Deterrence or Delusion 5092: 5071: 5047: 4774: 4699: 4660: 4543: 4504: 4439: 4427: 4319: 4248: 4236:from the original on 18 February 2017 4152: 4128: 4094: 3993: 3890: 3811: 3643:from the original on 21 December 2016 3515:from the original on 6 September 2017 3502: 3493: 3430: 3230: 3056: 3044: 2995: 2792: 2568: 2520: 2508: 2493: 2481: 2469: 2457: 2410: 2395: 2383: 2040: 1846:This concept formed the basis of the 1347:Throughout SDI's history, journalist 1085:APS report on directed energy weapons 1005: 990:where Soviet dissidents were sent on 833:Concerned Scientists present concerns 772:Further tests, instrumentation issues 667:submarine-launched ballistic missiles 5918:Stevens, Charles (4 November 1988). 5661: 5636: 5569: 5169:from the original on 4 November 2013 5006: 4846:Missile Defense for the 21st Century 4590: 4182: 3847: 3832: 3799: 3707: 3688: 3487: 3304: 2927: 2739: 2662: 2422: 2075: 1327:(BMDO) and focused their efforts on 1052: 890:, the head negotiator of START, and 40:–era research program to develop an 6043:Nuclear Strategy and World Security 5338: 5323:. 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He formed a panel including 341:in 1974 when he applied for a 302:Los Alamos National Laboratory 97:began talks with US president 1: 5139:Carter, Ashton (April 1984). 4668:. In Bennett, M. Todd (ed.). 4608:Union of Concerned Scientists 2620:DeWitt, Hugh (October 1988). 2247: 2153:fake stories leaked the press 1506:, using the white light of a 1242:was a regular visitor at the 694:Union of Concerned Scientists 120:Researchers at Livermore and 6158:Strategic Defense Initiative 5880:10.1126/science.230.4728.923 5843:10.1126/science.230.4726.646 5302:. Harvard University Press. 5203:FitzGerald, Frances (2001). 5124:. Rowman & Littlefield. 4787:Podvig, Pavel (March 2013). 4395:10.1016/0168-583x(96)00043-2 3414:Bulkeley & Spinardi 1986 3255:Bulkeley & Spinardi 1986 2622:"X-ray laser hype confirmed" 2581:Bulkeley & Spinardi 1986 2252: 1952:duck". These issues led the 1599: 1106:for his work on lasers, and 896:US National Security Council 107:Strategic Defense Initiative 70:after they were released by 7: 5668:. Oxford University Press. 5418:Optics & Photonics News 5360:Hafemeister, David (2016). 4354:10.1103/physrevlett.28.1233 3382:"Teller's telltale letters" 2063: 1162:Woodruff affair, GAO report 651:White House Science Council 292:Congress directed that $ 10 248:inertial confinement fusion 218:First attempts at Livermore 10: 6176: 5800:Schwartz, Stephen (2011). 5395:. New York: Plenum Press. 5224:Foerstel, Herbert (2010). 4942:Bell Labs (October 1975). 4263:Imagine the Universe, NASA 2539:(Technical report). LLNL. 2207:high-energy X-ray sources. 1975:, but doing so caused the 1410: 1329:theater ballistic missiles 1284: 756:The Secretary of Defense, 520:and was provided space at 417: 147: 5897:"Nuclear Weapons Experts" 5895:Spinardi, Graham (2016). 4978:Reviews of Modern Physics 4893:. Springer. p. 282. 4843:Canavan, Gregory (2003). 3166:Rosenblum, Simon (1985). 1613:Reviews of Modern Physics 1415: 1335:Teller, SDI and Reykjavík 1202:General Accounting Office 1091:American Physical Society 296:million be given to both 267:underground nuclear tests 111:underground nuclear tests 85:and further developed by 46:ballistic missile defense 6041:; Hellman, Sven (1984). 5410:Hecht, Jeff (May 2008). 5209:. Simon & Schuster. 5182:Coffey, Patrick (2013). 5078:. Simon & Schuster. 5057:. Simon & Schuster. 4999:10.1103/RevModPhys.59.S1 4972:H; York, H (July 1987). 4259:"Atoms and Light Energy" 2754:Space Weapons Earth Wars 2157:nuclear powered aircraft 1916:": X-rays released by a 1818:; by adding MIRV to the 1699:{\displaystyle d\theta } 1596:on the order of 10,000. 1281:Brilliant Pebbles begins 329:underground nuclear test 6148:Directed-energy weapons 5961:Waldman, Harry (1988). 5438:10.1364/OPN.19.5.000026 5072:Broad, William (1992). 4334:Physical Review Letters 3033:Garwin & Bethe 1968 1273:program. Another test, 1110:, who had invented the 522:The Heritage Foundation 180:announced lasing in an 178:University of Paris-Sud 109:(SDI) in 1983. Further 103:The Heritage Foundation 6138:Anti-ballistic weapons 5715:Reiss, Edward (1992). 5614:Matlock, Jack (2004). 4661:Laird, Melvin (2011). 4288:"The First Ruby Laser" 3116:Fubini, David (2009). 3104:Lakoff & York 1989 2855:Lakoff & York 1989 2161:flying saucer aircraft 2070:Directed-energy weapon 1928: 1839: 1760: 1735: 1700: 1677: 1657: 1426: 1344: 1296: 1251: 1152: 1139: 1104:Nobel Prize in Physics 788:shot of the following 713: 699: 599:George A. Keyworth, II 595: 467: 449:krypton fluoride laser 410:Teller in Washington, 382: 331: 271:Defense Nuclear Agency 269:made on behalf of the 257: 153:Conceptual development 64:Anti-ballistic missile 26: 5964:The Dictionary of SDI 5697:Nuclear-Pumped Lasers 5694:Prelas, Mark (2015). 5662:Park, Robert (2002). 2293:. CNN. Archived from 1911: 1893:heat-seeking missiles 1833: 1766:Missile-based systems 1736: 1734:{\displaystyle \eta } 1701: 1678: 1676:{\displaystyle \eta } 1658: 1447:An atom is made of a 1423: 1342: 1294: 1238: 1147: 1135: 739:Joint Chiefs of Staff 719:Department of Defense 707: 593: 462: 376: 323: 253: 174:neodymium glass laser 24: 6124:at Wikimedia Commons 5776:(12 November 1985). 5570:Kent, Glenn (2008). 5465:Heppenheimer, Thomas 5389:Hecht, Jeff (1984). 3894:(July 17–18, 1993). 1973:geometric broadening 1725: 1687: 1667: 1636: 1562:adiabatically expand 1441:population inversion 1100:Nicolaas Bloembergen 1063:Operation Charioteer 729:", referring to the 605:Shortly thereafter, 488:heat seeking missile 404:Princeton University 127:weapons laboratories 5872:1985Sci...230..923S 5835:1985Sci...230..646S 5750:1987Natur.328..487R 5502:1987BuAtS..43h..20H 5430:2008OptPN..19R..26H 5372:2016nptp.book.....H 5339:Hey, Nigel (2006). 5262:1968SciAm.218c..21G 5254:Scientific American 5160:1984STIN...8510095C 5025:1988BuAtS..44f...7B 4990:1987RvMP...59....1B 4899:2007ebss.book.....H 4672:. pp. 41, 54. 4610:. 27 October 2002. 4387:1996NIMPB.114..185B 4346:1972PhRvL..28.1233C 4230:Quantum Physics 130 4167:, pp. 229–232. 3937:: 5. November 1988. 3737:, pp. S10–S12. 3551:on 16 December 2017 3388:: 4. November 1988. 2054:Ace Combat Infinity 2016:was armed with a CO 1875:Boost-phase attacks 1826:X-ray based attacks 1803:cost-exchange ratio 1498:, where there is a 1435:stimulated emission 1131:orders of magnitude 1127:free electron laser 1102:, who won the 1981 881:Operation Grenadier 861:geostationary orbit 325:George Chapline Jr. 193:free electron laser 87:Peter L. Hagelstein 83:George Chapline Jr. 76:cost-exchange ratio 5643:The New York Times 5099:The New York Times 4567:on August 27, 2016 3969:The New York Times 3581:on 2 December 2006 3509:The New York Times 2700:. pp. 25–27. 2356:The New York Times 2297:on 19 January 2008 2184:Or as congressman 2041:In popular culture 1929: 1840: 1731: 1696: 1673: 1653: 1427: 1353:The New York Times 1345: 1297: 1257:The New York Times 1252: 1175:John S. Foster Jr. 1033:The New York Times 1006:Increased scrutiny 790:Operation Fusileer 714: 615:Lincoln Laboratory 613:, formerly of the 596: 561:William F. Buckley 474:had been asked by 468: 383: 363:Operation Guardian 332: 240:optical resolution 166:University of Utah 27: 6122:Project Excalibur 6120:Media related to 5974:978-0-8420-2295-8 5910:978-1-349-13693-3 5829:(4726): 646–648. 5813:978-0-8157-2294-6 5782:Los Angeles Times 5744:(6130): 487–490. 5728:978-0-521-41097-7 5707:978-3-319-19845-3 5675:978-0-19-860443-3 5629:978-1-58836-425-8 5606:978-0-520-06650-2 5585:978-0-8330-4452-5 5402:978-0-306-41546-3 5381:978-3-319-25367-1 5352:978-1-57488-981-9 5345:. Potomac Books. 5309:978-0-674-01669-9 5237:978-0-313-36234-7 5216:978-0-7432-0377-7 5195:978-0-19-995974-7 5131:978-0-7456-0271-4 5085:978-0-671-70106-2 5064:978-0-671-62820-8 4908:978-0-387-73984-7 4859:978-0-89195-261-9 4193:"How Lasers Work" 4081:978-0-684-19042-6 4011:, pp. 81–82. 3613:978-0-16-051033-5 3341:978-1-4289-2366-9 3243:Heppenheimer 1989 3179:978-0-88862-698-1 3129:978-0-86534-561-4 3075:Los Angeles Times 3002:Los Angeles Times 2606:978-0-921689-06-5 2076:Explanatory notes 2035:political capital 1977:diffraction limit 1820:Minuteman missile 1796:Safeguard Program 1753:kt are required. 1564:according to the 1457:quantum mechanics 1400:Mikhail Gorbachev 1321:President Clinton 1301:Brilliant Pebbles 1287:Brilliant Pebbles 1095:blue-ribbon panel 1053:Focusing failures 782:Operation Phalanx 758:Caspar Weinberger 647:Manhattan Project 503:Space Based Laser 287:Operation Cresset 246:process in their 228:materials science 170:microscope slides 144:, was cancelled. 30:Project Excalibur 6165: 6119: 6104: 6102: 6100: 6079: 6077: 6075: 6046: 6034: 6032: 6030: 6008: 6006: 6005: 5978: 5957: 5955: 5953: 5947: 5924: 5914: 5891: 5854: 5817: 5796: 5794: 5793: 5769: 5758:10.1038/328487a0 5732: 5711: 5690: 5688: 5687: 5658: 5656: 5654: 5633: 5622:. Random House. 5621: 5610: 5589: 5577: 5566: 5564: 5562: 5544: 5532: 5530: 5529: 5480: 5460: 5458: 5457: 5415: 5406: 5385: 5356: 5335: 5333: 5332: 5313: 5301: 5292:Goodchild, Peter 5287: 5285: 5284: 5278: 5251: 5241: 5220: 5199: 5178: 5176: 5174: 5168: 5145: 5135: 5114: 5112: 5110: 5089: 5068: 5044: 5003: 5001: 4967: 4965: 4963: 4957: 4950: 4928: 4922: 4913: 4912: 4884: 4878: 4877: 4875: 4874: 4868: 4851: 4840: 4834: 4833: 4831: 4829: 4814: 4808: 4807: 4805: 4804: 4784: 4778: 4772: 4766: 4760: 4754: 4751:Hafemeister 2016 4748: 4739: 4733: 4727: 4721: 4715: 4712:Hafemeister 2016 4709: 4703: 4697: 4688: 4687: 4685: 4684: 4678: 4667: 4658: 4652: 4642: 4636: 4630: 4624: 4623: 4621: 4619: 4600: 4594: 4588: 4577: 4576: 4574: 4572: 4563:. Archived from 4553: 4547: 4541: 4535: 4529: 4523: 4517: 4508: 4502: 4496: 4490: 4481: 4475: 4469: 4468: 4466: 4464: 4449: 4443: 4437: 4431: 4425: 4410: 4409: 4407: 4406: 4364: 4358: 4357: 4329: 4323: 4317: 4308: 4307: 4305: 4303: 4284: 4278: 4277: 4275: 4274: 4255: 4246: 4245: 4243: 4241: 4222: 4213: 4212: 4210: 4208: 4189: 4180: 4174: 4168: 4162: 4156: 4150: 4144: 4138: 4132: 4126: 4120: 4114: 4105: 4104: 4092: 4086: 4085: 4065: 4059: 4053: 4044: 4043: 4035: 4029: 4023: 4012: 4006: 3997: 3991: 3985: 3984: 3982: 3980: 3963:(17 June 1989). 3961:Bennett, Charles 3957: 3951: 3945: 3939: 3938: 3927: 3921: 3920: 3918: 3917: 3911: 3900: 3888: 3879: 3873: 3867: 3866: 3857: 3851: 3845: 3836: 3830: 3815: 3809: 3803: 3797: 3791: 3785: 3779: 3773: 3762: 3756: 3750: 3744: 3738: 3732: 3726: 3720: 3711: 3705: 3692: 3686: 3680: 3674: 3665: 3659: 3653: 3652: 3650: 3648: 3642: 3635: 3624: 3618: 3617: 3597: 3591: 3590: 3588: 3586: 3567: 3561: 3560: 3558: 3556: 3550: 3539: 3531: 3525: 3524: 3522: 3520: 3500: 3491: 3485: 3472: 3466: 3455: 3449: 3434: 3428: 3417: 3411: 3402: 3396: 3390: 3389: 3378: 3372: 3366: 3357: 3356: 3354: 3353: 3326: 3320: 3314: 3308: 3302: 3289: 3283: 3277: 3271: 3258: 3252: 3246: 3240: 3234: 3228: 3215: 3209: 3196: 3190: 3184: 3183: 3163: 3157: 3151: 3145: 3144: 3142: 3141: 3113: 3107: 3101: 3090: 3089: 3087: 3086: 3066: 3060: 3054: 3048: 3042: 3036: 3030: 3017: 3016: 3014: 3013: 2993: 2987: 2981: 2950: 2944: 2931: 2925: 2919: 2913: 2900: 2894: 2885: 2879: 2873: 2867: 2858: 2852: 2846: 2840: 2827: 2821: 2808: 2802: 2796: 2790: 2777: 2776: 2774: 2772: 2766: 2759: 2749: 2743: 2737: 2726: 2720: 2714: 2713: 2711: 2709: 2689: 2683: 2677: 2666: 2660: 2649: 2648: 2646: 2645: 2617: 2611: 2610: 2590: 2584: 2578: 2572: 2566: 2560: 2559: 2557: 2556: 2530: 2524: 2518: 2512: 2506: 2497: 2491: 2485: 2479: 2473: 2467: 2461: 2455: 2426: 2420: 2414: 2408: 2399: 2393: 2387: 2381: 2372: 2371: 2369: 2367: 2347: 2338: 2337: 2335: 2333: 2313: 2307: 2306: 2304: 2302: 2287: 2281: 2275: 2269: 2263: 2241: 2238: 2232: 2229: 2228: 2224: 2214: 2208: 2204: 2198: 2195: 2189: 2182: 2176: 2174: 2149: 2143: 2141: 2136: 2130: 2126: 2120: 2117: 2111: 2108: 2102: 2095: 2089: 2086: 1850:missile and its 1794:and finally the 1752: 1748: 1740: 1738: 1737: 1732: 1708:dispersion angle 1705: 1703: 1702: 1697: 1682: 1680: 1679: 1674: 1662: 1660: 1659: 1654: 1646: 1630: 1574: 1544:metastable state 1541: 1534: 1530: 1523: 1500:metastable state 1488:collimated light 1451:and a number of 1385: 1318: 1306: 1271: 1250:in January 1989. 1198:George Brown Jr. 1191:Associated Press 1169: 1156:optical coatings 967: 963: 959: 951: 917: 912:George H. Miller 909: 892:Robert McFarlane 823: 767: 762:James Abrahamson 659: 586:Early skepticism 581: 572: 538: 511:Harrison Schmidt 499:Angelo Codevilla 493:That same year, 472:Daniel O. Graham 428: 369:Renewed interest 343:Hertz Foundation 335:Peter Hagelstein 310:Nevada Test Site 307: 295: 275:reentry vehicles 261: 260:—George Chapline 115:Reykjavík Summit 68:nuclear warheads 56:lasers around a 55: 6175: 6174: 6168: 6167: 6166: 6164: 6163: 6162: 6128: 6127: 6112: 6107: 6098: 6096: 6082: 6073: 6071: 6069: 6049: 6039:Rotblat, Joseph 6037: 6028: 6026: 6012: 6003: 6001: 5990: 5986: 5984:Further reading 5981: 5975: 5951: 5949: 5945: 5922: 5911: 5814: 5791: 5789: 5729: 5708: 5685: 5683: 5676: 5652: 5650: 5630: 5607: 5586: 5560: 5558: 5542: 5527: 5525: 5455: 5453: 5403: 5382: 5353: 5330: 5328: 5310: 5282: 5280: 5276: 5249: 5238: 5217: 5196: 5172: 5170: 5166: 5143: 5132: 5108: 5106: 5086: 5065: 4961: 4959: 4955: 4948: 4937: 4932: 4931: 4923: 4916: 4909: 4885: 4881: 4872: 4870: 4866: 4860: 4849: 4841: 4837: 4827: 4825: 4816: 4815: 4811: 4802: 4800: 4785: 4781: 4773: 4769: 4761: 4757: 4749: 4742: 4734: 4730: 4722: 4718: 4710: 4706: 4698: 4691: 4682: 4680: 4676: 4665: 4659: 4655: 4643: 4639: 4631: 4627: 4617: 4615: 4602: 4601: 4597: 4589: 4580: 4570: 4568: 4561:astronautix.com 4555: 4554: 4550: 4542: 4538: 4530: 4526: 4518: 4511: 4503: 4499: 4491: 4484: 4476: 4472: 4462: 4460: 4451: 4450: 4446: 4438: 4434: 4426: 4413: 4404: 4402: 4365: 4361: 4330: 4326: 4318: 4311: 4301: 4299: 4286: 4285: 4281: 4272: 4270: 4257: 4256: 4249: 4239: 4237: 4224: 4223: 4216: 4206: 4204: 4191: 4190: 4183: 4175: 4171: 4163: 4159: 4151: 4147: 4139: 4135: 4127: 4123: 4115: 4108: 4101:Washington Post 4093: 4089: 4082: 4066: 4062: 4054: 4047: 4036: 4032: 4024: 4015: 4007: 4000: 3992: 3988: 3978: 3976: 3958: 3954: 3946: 3942: 3929: 3928: 3924: 3915: 3913: 3909: 3898: 3889: 3882: 3874: 3870: 3859: 3858: 3854: 3846: 3839: 3831: 3818: 3810: 3806: 3798: 3794: 3786: 3782: 3774: 3765: 3757: 3753: 3745: 3741: 3733: 3729: 3721: 3714: 3706: 3695: 3687: 3683: 3675: 3668: 3660: 3656: 3646: 3644: 3640: 3633: 3625: 3621: 3614: 3598: 3594: 3584: 3582: 3569: 3568: 3564: 3554: 3552: 3548: 3537: 3533: 3532: 3528: 3518: 3516: 3501: 3494: 3486: 3475: 3467: 3458: 3450: 3437: 3429: 3420: 3412: 3405: 3397: 3393: 3380: 3379: 3375: 3367: 3360: 3351: 3349: 3342: 3328: 3327: 3323: 3315: 3311: 3303: 3292: 3284: 3280: 3272: 3261: 3253: 3249: 3241: 3237: 3229: 3218: 3210: 3199: 3191: 3187: 3180: 3164: 3160: 3152: 3148: 3139: 3137: 3130: 3114: 3110: 3102: 3093: 3084: 3082: 3067: 3063: 3055: 3051: 3043: 3039: 3031: 3020: 3011: 3009: 2994: 2990: 2982: 2953: 2947:FitzGerald 2001 2945: 2934: 2926: 2922: 2916:FitzGerald 2001 2914: 2903: 2895: 2888: 2880: 2876: 2870:FitzGerald 2001 2868: 2861: 2853: 2849: 2841: 2830: 2824:FitzGerald 2001 2822: 2811: 2803: 2799: 2791: 2780: 2770: 2768: 2764: 2757: 2751: 2750: 2746: 2738: 2729: 2721: 2717: 2707: 2705: 2690: 2686: 2680:FitzGerald 2001 2678: 2669: 2661: 2652: 2643: 2641: 2618: 2614: 2607: 2591: 2587: 2579: 2575: 2567: 2563: 2554: 2552: 2545:10.2172/6502037 2531: 2527: 2519: 2515: 2507: 2500: 2492: 2488: 2480: 2476: 2468: 2464: 2456: 2429: 2421: 2417: 2409: 2402: 2394: 2390: 2382: 2375: 2365: 2363: 2348: 2341: 2331: 2329: 2314: 2310: 2300: 2298: 2289: 2288: 2284: 2276: 2272: 2264: 2260: 2255: 2250: 2245: 2244: 2239: 2235: 2226: 2222: 2221: 2215: 2211: 2205: 2201: 2196: 2192: 2186:Charles Bennett 2183: 2179: 2172: 2150: 2146: 2139: 2137: 2133: 2127: 2123: 2118: 2114: 2109: 2105: 2096: 2092: 2087: 2083: 2078: 2066: 2043: 2019: 1985: 1983:Countermeasures 1906: 1877: 1828: 1768: 1763: 1750: 1746: 1726: 1723: 1722: 1688: 1685: 1684: 1668: 1665: 1664: 1642: 1637: 1634: 1633: 1628: 1602: 1585:partial mirrors 1572: 1539: 1532: 1528: 1521: 1517: 1504:optical pumping 1418: 1413: 1383: 1375:Washington Post 1337: 1316: 1304: 1289: 1283: 1269: 1233: 1167: 1164: 1115: 1087: 1055: 1008: 965: 961: 957: 949: 946: 944:Woodruff leaves 915: 907: 873: 852: 835: 821: 814:Casaba/Howitzer 774: 765: 702: 657: 588: 579: 570: 545:Kitchen Cabinet 536: 507:chemical lasers 457: 426: 422: 416: 400:Szymon Suckewer 371: 318: 316:Dauphin success 305: 293: 263: 259: 223:George Chapline 220: 155: 150: 142:Operation Julin 89:, both part of 53: 17: 12: 11: 5: 6173: 6172: 6161: 6160: 6155: 6150: 6145: 6140: 6126: 6125: 6111: 6110:External links 6108: 6106: 6105: 6080: 6067: 6051:Perlman, David 6047: 6035: 6010: 5987: 5985: 5982: 5980: 5979: 5973: 5958: 5915: 5909: 5892: 5855: 5818: 5812: 5797: 5774:Scheer, Robert 5770: 5733: 5727: 5712: 5706: 5691: 5674: 5659: 5634: 5628: 5611: 5605: 5590: 5584: 5567: 5533: 5481: 5461: 5407: 5401: 5386: 5380: 5357: 5351: 5336: 5314: 5308: 5288: 5242: 5236: 5221: 5215: 5200: 5194: 5179: 5136: 5130: 5115: 5090: 5084: 5069: 5063: 5049:Broad, William 5045: 5004: 4968: 4938: 4936: 4933: 4930: 4929: 4927:, p. 144. 4914: 4907: 4879: 4858: 4835: 4809: 4793:Russian Forces 4779: 4777:, p. 648. 4767: 4755: 4753:, p. 132. 4740: 4738:, p. 153. 4728: 4726:, p. 152. 4716: 4714:, p. 131. 4704: 4689: 4653: 4637: 4635:, p. 1.1. 4633:Bell Labs 1975 4625: 4595: 4578: 4548: 4536: 4534:, p. S62. 4524: 4522:, p. S63. 4509: 4507:, p. 127. 4497: 4495:, p. 487. 4482: 4470: 4459:on 8 June 2020 4444: 4442:, p. 119. 4432: 4430:, p. 118. 4411: 4381:(1): 185–190. 4359: 4324: 4322:, p. 117. 4309: 4279: 4247: 4214: 4181: 4179:, p. 235. 4169: 4157: 4155:, p. 132. 4145: 4143:, p. 343. 4141:Goodchild 2004 4133: 4131:, p. 646. 4121: 4119:, p. 103. 4106: 4087: 4080: 4060: 4058:, p. 102. 4045: 4030: 4028:, p. 268. 4013: 3998: 3986: 3952: 3940: 3922: 3880: 3878:, p. 158. 3868: 3852: 3837: 3816: 3804: 3792: 3790:, p. S15. 3780: 3778:, p. S16. 3763: 3751: 3749:, p. S11. 3739: 3727: 3712: 3710:, p. 188. 3693: 3691:, p. 187. 3681: 3679:, p. 260. 3666: 3654: 3619: 3612: 3592: 3562: 3526: 3492: 3473: 3456: 3454:, p. 923. 3435: 3433:, p. 647. 3418: 3403: 3391: 3373: 3358: 3340: 3321: 3319:, p. 115. 3309: 3290: 3288:, p. 145. 3278: 3259: 3247: 3235: 3216: 3197: 3195:, p. 157. 3185: 3178: 3158: 3146: 3128: 3108: 3091: 3061: 3059:, p. 125. 3049: 3047:, p. 124. 3037: 3018: 2988: 2986:, p. 158. 2951: 2949:, p. 144. 2932: 2930:, p. 184. 2920: 2918:, p. 141. 2901: 2886: 2874: 2872:, p. 142. 2859: 2847: 2828: 2826:, p. 135. 2809: 2797: 2795:, p. 122. 2778: 2744: 2742:, p. 186. 2727: 2715: 2684: 2682:, p. 129. 2667: 2665:, p. 185. 2650: 2612: 2605: 2585: 2583:, p. 179. 2573: 2571:, p. 119. 2561: 2525: 2523:, p. 118. 2513: 2511:, p. 101. 2498: 2496:, p. 105. 2486: 2484:, p. 111. 2474: 2472:, p. 109. 2462: 2427: 2415: 2413:, p. 125. 2400: 2398:, p. 124. 2388: 2386:, p. 123. 2373: 2339: 2308: 2282: 2270: 2257: 2256: 2254: 2251: 2249: 2246: 2243: 2242: 2233: 2209: 2199: 2190: 2177: 2144: 2131: 2121: 2112: 2103: 2090: 2080: 2079: 2077: 2074: 2073: 2072: 2065: 2062: 2042: 2039: 2017: 1984: 1981: 1918:nuclear device 1905: 1902: 1876: 1873: 1848:LIM-49 Spartan 1827: 1824: 1767: 1764: 1762: 1759: 1730: 1695: 1692: 1672: 1652: 1649: 1645: 1641: 1601: 1598: 1516: 1513: 1484:chain reaction 1417: 1414: 1412: 1409: 1370:Voodoo Science 1336: 1333: 1285:Main article: 1282: 1279: 1232: 1231:Excalibur ends 1229: 1210:Phi Beta Kappa 1163: 1160: 1113: 1086: 1083: 1054: 1051: 1043:Edward Kennedy 1041:then wrote to 1007: 1004: 996:midlife crisis 992:internal exile 945: 942: 894:, head of the 872: 869: 851: 848: 834: 831: 773: 770: 701: 698: 635:Edward Frieman 623:Charles Townes 611:Victor H. Reis 587: 584: 518:Karl Bendetsen 495:Malcolm Wallop 464:Karl Bendetsen 456: 453: 415: 408: 370: 367: 351:supercomputers 317: 314: 252: 244:nuclear fusion 219: 216: 154: 151: 149: 146: 136:planned test, 58:nuclear device 48:(BMD) for the 15: 9: 6: 4: 3: 2: 6171: 6170: 6159: 6156: 6154: 6151: 6149: 6146: 6144: 6141: 6139: 6136: 6135: 6133: 6123: 6118: 6114: 6113: 6094: 6090: 6086: 6081: 6070: 6068:1-56000-829-6 6064: 6060: 6056: 6052: 6048: 6044: 6040: 6036: 6024: 6020: 6016: 6011: 5999: 5995: 5994: 5989: 5988: 5976: 5970: 5966: 5965: 5959: 5944: 5940: 5936: 5933:(44): 18–23. 5932: 5928: 5921: 5916: 5912: 5906: 5902: 5898: 5893: 5889: 5885: 5881: 5877: 5873: 5869: 5866:(4728): 923. 5865: 5861: 5856: 5852: 5848: 5844: 5840: 5836: 5832: 5828: 5824: 5819: 5815: 5809: 5805: 5804: 5798: 5787: 5783: 5779: 5775: 5771: 5767: 5763: 5759: 5755: 5751: 5747: 5743: 5739: 5734: 5730: 5724: 5720: 5719: 5713: 5709: 5703: 5699: 5698: 5692: 5681: 5677: 5671: 5667: 5666: 5660: 5648: 5644: 5640: 5635: 5631: 5625: 5620: 5619: 5612: 5608: 5602: 5598: 5597: 5591: 5587: 5581: 5576: 5575: 5568: 5556: 5552: 5548: 5541: 5540: 5534: 5523: 5519: 5515: 5511: 5507: 5503: 5499: 5495: 5491: 5487: 5482: 5478: 5474: 5470: 5469:The Scientist 5466: 5462: 5451: 5447: 5443: 5439: 5435: 5431: 5427: 5423: 5419: 5414: 5408: 5404: 5398: 5394: 5393: 5387: 5383: 5377: 5373: 5369: 5365: 5364: 5358: 5354: 5348: 5344: 5343: 5337: 5326: 5322: 5321: 5315: 5311: 5305: 5300: 5299: 5293: 5289: 5275: 5271: 5267: 5263: 5259: 5255: 5248: 5243: 5239: 5233: 5229: 5228: 5222: 5218: 5212: 5208: 5207: 5201: 5197: 5191: 5187: 5186: 5180: 5165: 5161: 5157: 5153: 5149: 5142: 5137: 5133: 5127: 5123: 5122: 5116: 5104: 5100: 5096: 5091: 5087: 5081: 5077: 5076: 5070: 5066: 5060: 5056: 5055: 5050: 5046: 5042: 5038: 5034: 5030: 5026: 5022: 5018: 5014: 5010: 5005: 5000: 4995: 4991: 4987: 4983: 4979: 4975: 4969: 4954: 4947: 4946: 4940: 4939: 4926: 4921: 4919: 4910: 4904: 4900: 4896: 4892: 4891: 4883: 4865: 4861: 4855: 4848: 4847: 4839: 4823: 4819: 4813: 4798: 4794: 4790: 4783: 4776: 4771: 4765:, p. 20. 4764: 4759: 4752: 4747: 4745: 4737: 4732: 4725: 4720: 4713: 4708: 4701: 4696: 4694: 4675: 4671: 4664: 4657: 4651: 4647: 4641: 4634: 4629: 4613: 4609: 4605: 4599: 4593:, p. 49. 4592: 4587: 4585: 4583: 4566: 4562: 4558: 4557:"Spartan ABM" 4552: 4546:, p. 29. 4545: 4540: 4533: 4528: 4521: 4516: 4514: 4506: 4501: 4494: 4489: 4487: 4479: 4474: 4458: 4454: 4448: 4441: 4436: 4429: 4424: 4422: 4420: 4418: 4416: 4400: 4396: 4392: 4388: 4384: 4380: 4376: 4375: 4370: 4363: 4355: 4351: 4347: 4343: 4339: 4335: 4328: 4321: 4316: 4314: 4297: 4293: 4289: 4283: 4268: 4264: 4260: 4254: 4252: 4235: 4231: 4227: 4221: 4219: 4202: 4198: 4194: 4188: 4186: 4178: 4173: 4166: 4161: 4154: 4149: 4142: 4137: 4130: 4125: 4118: 4113: 4111: 4102: 4098: 4091: 4083: 4077: 4073: 4072: 4064: 4057: 4052: 4050: 4041: 4034: 4027: 4022: 4020: 4018: 4010: 4009:Schwartz 2011 4005: 4003: 3996:, p. 80. 3995: 3990: 3974: 3970: 3966: 3962: 3956: 3950:, p. 43. 3949: 3948:Foerstel 2010 3944: 3936: 3932: 3926: 3912:on 2020-10-27 3908: 3904: 3897: 3893: 3887: 3885: 3877: 3872: 3864: 3863: 3856: 3849: 3844: 3842: 3835:, p. 13. 3834: 3829: 3827: 3825: 3823: 3821: 3813: 3808: 3801: 3796: 3789: 3784: 3777: 3772: 3770: 3768: 3761:, p. 12. 3760: 3755: 3748: 3743: 3736: 3731: 3724: 3719: 3717: 3709: 3704: 3702: 3700: 3698: 3690: 3685: 3678: 3677:Spinardi 2016 3673: 3671: 3663: 3662:Foerstel 2010 3658: 3639: 3632: 3631: 3623: 3615: 3609: 3605: 3604: 3596: 3580: 3576: 3572: 3566: 3547: 3543: 3542:Aviation Week 3536: 3530: 3514: 3510: 3506: 3499: 3497: 3490:, p. 12. 3489: 3484: 3482: 3480: 3478: 3471:, p. 42. 3470: 3469:Foerstel 2010 3465: 3463: 3461: 3453: 3448: 3446: 3444: 3442: 3440: 3432: 3427: 3425: 3423: 3416:, p. 98. 3415: 3410: 3408: 3401:, p. 23. 3400: 3395: 3387: 3383: 3377: 3371:, p. 19. 3370: 3365: 3363: 3347: 3343: 3337: 3333: 3332: 3325: 3318: 3313: 3306: 3301: 3299: 3297: 3295: 3287: 3282: 3275: 3270: 3268: 3266: 3264: 3257:, p. 97. 3256: 3251: 3244: 3239: 3233:, p. 79. 3232: 3227: 3225: 3223: 3221: 3214:, p. 41. 3213: 3212:Foerstel 2010 3208: 3206: 3204: 3202: 3194: 3189: 3181: 3175: 3171: 3170: 3162: 3156:, p. 14. 3155: 3150: 3135: 3131: 3125: 3121: 3120: 3112: 3106:, p. 15. 3105: 3100: 3098: 3096: 3080: 3076: 3072: 3065: 3058: 3053: 3046: 3041: 3034: 3029: 3027: 3025: 3023: 3007: 3003: 2999: 2992: 2985: 2980: 2978: 2976: 2974: 2972: 2970: 2968: 2966: 2964: 2962: 2960: 2958: 2956: 2948: 2943: 2941: 2939: 2937: 2929: 2924: 2917: 2912: 2910: 2908: 2906: 2899:, p. 81. 2898: 2893: 2891: 2884:, p. 80. 2883: 2878: 2871: 2866: 2864: 2857:, p. 14. 2856: 2851: 2845:, p. 22. 2844: 2839: 2837: 2835: 2833: 2825: 2820: 2818: 2816: 2814: 2807:, p. 21. 2806: 2801: 2794: 2789: 2787: 2785: 2783: 2763: 2756: 2755: 2748: 2741: 2736: 2734: 2732: 2724: 2719: 2703: 2699: 2695: 2688: 2681: 2676: 2674: 2672: 2664: 2659: 2657: 2655: 2639: 2635: 2631: 2627: 2623: 2616: 2608: 2602: 2598: 2597: 2589: 2582: 2577: 2570: 2565: 2550: 2546: 2542: 2538: 2537: 2529: 2522: 2517: 2510: 2505: 2503: 2495: 2490: 2483: 2478: 2471: 2466: 2459: 2454: 2452: 2450: 2448: 2446: 2444: 2442: 2440: 2438: 2436: 2434: 2432: 2424: 2419: 2412: 2407: 2405: 2397: 2392: 2385: 2380: 2378: 2361: 2357: 2353: 2346: 2344: 2327: 2323: 2319: 2312: 2296: 2292: 2286: 2279: 2274: 2267: 2262: 2258: 2237: 2219: 2213: 2203: 2194: 2187: 2181: 2175:kJ of output. 2170: 2169:Aviation Week 2166: 2162: 2158: 2154: 2148: 2135: 2125: 2116: 2107: 2100: 2099:Aviation Week 2094: 2085: 2081: 2071: 2068: 2067: 2061: 2058: 2056: 2055: 2050: 2049: 2038: 2036: 2031: 2026: 2023: 2015: 2011: 2006: 2004: 1999: 1994: 1991: 1980: 1978: 1974: 1968: 1964: 1962: 1957: 1955: 1949: 1946: 1941: 1937: 1935: 1934:Space Shuttle 1926: 1922: 1919: 1915: 1910: 1901: 1897: 1894: 1890: 1885: 1882: 1872: 1868: 1866: 1861: 1857: 1853: 1849: 1844: 1837: 1832: 1823: 1821: 1817: 1813: 1808: 1804: 1799: 1797: 1793: 1789: 1785: 1780: 1777: 1773: 1758: 1754: 1744: 1728: 1720: 1716: 1711: 1709: 1693: 1690: 1670: 1650: 1647: 1643: 1639: 1625: 1622: 1617: 1615: 1614: 1609: 1608: 1597: 1595: 1589: 1586: 1581: 1578: 1569: 1567: 1566:ideal gas law 1563: 1559: 1553: 1551: 1550: 1545: 1536: 1526: 1512: 1509: 1505: 1501: 1497: 1491: 1489: 1485: 1479: 1477: 1472: 1470: 1466: 1462: 1458: 1454: 1450: 1445: 1443: 1442: 1437: 1436: 1431: 1422: 1408: 1404: 1401: 1396: 1393: 1387: 1379: 1376: 1372: 1371: 1366: 1361: 1357: 1354: 1350: 1349:William Broad 1341: 1332: 1330: 1326: 1322: 1312: 1308: 1302: 1293: 1288: 1278: 1276: 1266: 1264: 1263: 1258: 1249: 1248:Ronald Reagan 1245: 1241: 1240:Edward Teller 1237: 1228: 1224: 1222: 1221:John Nuckolls 1217: 1213: 1211: 1205: 1203: 1199: 1194: 1192: 1188: 1183: 1180: 1176: 1171: 1159: 1157: 1151: 1146: 1143: 1138: 1134: 1132: 1128: 1123: 1119: 1117: 1109: 1105: 1101: 1096: 1092: 1082: 1078: 1076: 1072: 1067: 1064: 1060: 1050: 1048: 1044: 1040: 1035: 1034: 1028: 1026: 1025:missile silos 1022: 1016: 1012: 1003: 999: 997: 993: 989: 984: 982: 981: 974: 970: 954: 941: 937: 934: 928: 925: 919: 913: 904: 901: 897: 893: 889: 884: 882: 878: 868: 864: 862: 856: 847: 843: 839: 830: 827: 826:Paul Robinson 819: 815: 810: 807: 801: 799: 793: 791: 787: 783: 779: 769: 763: 759: 754: 750: 746: 744: 740: 736: 732: 728: 722: 720: 711: 710:Ronald Reagan 706: 697: 695: 689: 687: 683: 679: 674: 670: 668: 662: 654: 652: 648: 642: 640: 636: 632: 628: 624: 620: 616: 612: 608: 603: 600: 592: 583: 577: 576:Aviation Week 568: 567: 562: 557: 554: 548: 546: 542: 533: 529: 525: 523: 519: 514: 512: 508: 505:, used large 504: 500: 497:and his aide 496: 491: 489: 485: 481: 480:Project BAMBI 477: 476:Ronald Reagan 473: 465: 461: 455:High Frontier 452: 450: 446: 445: 439: 436: 430: 421: 413: 407: 405: 401: 396: 395:Novette laser 391: 387: 380: 379:Novette laser 375: 366: 364: 360: 354: 352: 347: 344: 340: 336: 330: 326: 322: 313: 311: 303: 299: 290: 288: 284: 278: 276: 272: 268: 262: 256: 251: 249: 245: 241: 237: 233: 230:, for making 229: 224: 215: 213: 209: 205: 201: 196: 194: 189: 185: 183: 179: 175: 171: 167: 162: 160: 145: 143: 139: 134: 133: 128: 123: 118: 116: 112: 108: 104: 100: 99:Ronald Reagan 96: 92: 91:Edward Teller 88: 84: 79: 77: 73: 69: 65: 61: 59: 51: 50:United States 47: 43: 39: 35: 31: 23: 19: 6097:. Retrieved 6089:Science News 6088: 6072:. Retrieved 6058: 6042: 6027:. Retrieved 6019:The Guardian 6018: 6009:OTA-ISC-285. 6002:. Retrieved 5992: 5963: 5950:. Retrieved 5930: 5926: 5903:. Springer. 5900: 5863: 5859: 5826: 5822: 5802: 5790:. Retrieved 5781: 5741: 5737: 5717: 5700:. Springer. 5696: 5684:. Retrieved 5664: 5651:. Retrieved 5642: 5617: 5595: 5573: 5559:. Retrieved 5538: 5526:. Retrieved 5496:(8): 20–28. 5493: 5489: 5468: 5454:. Retrieved 5421: 5417: 5391: 5366:. Springer. 5362: 5341: 5329:. Retrieved 5319: 5297: 5281:. Retrieved 5253: 5230:. ABC-CLIO. 5226: 5205: 5184: 5171:. Retrieved 5151: 5147: 5120: 5107:. Retrieved 5098: 5074: 5053: 5016: 5012: 4981: 4977: 4960:. Retrieved 4944: 4935:Bibliography 4889: 4882: 4871:. Retrieved 4845: 4838: 4826:. Retrieved 4812: 4801:. Retrieved 4792: 4782: 4770: 4763:Stevens 1988 4758: 4731: 4719: 4707: 4681:. Retrieved 4669: 4656: 4640: 4628: 4616:. Retrieved 4607: 4598: 4569:. Retrieved 4565:the original 4560: 4551: 4539: 4527: 4500: 4473: 4461:. Retrieved 4457:the original 4447: 4435: 4403:. Retrieved 4378: 4372: 4362: 4340:(19): 1233. 4337: 4333: 4327: 4300:. Retrieved 4291: 4282: 4271:. Retrieved 4262: 4238:. Retrieved 4229: 4205:. Retrieved 4196: 4177:Matlock 2004 4172: 4165:Matlock 2004 4160: 4148: 4136: 4124: 4100: 4090: 4070: 4063: 4039: 4033: 3989: 3977:. Retrieved 3968: 3955: 3943: 3934: 3925: 3914:. Retrieved 3907:the original 3902: 3871: 3861: 3855: 3850:, p. 8. 3807: 3802:, p. 9. 3795: 3783: 3754: 3742: 3730: 3684: 3657: 3645:. Retrieved 3629: 3622: 3602: 3595: 3583:. Retrieved 3579:the original 3574: 3565: 3553:. Retrieved 3546:the original 3541: 3529: 3517:. Retrieved 3508: 3399:Stevens 1988 3394: 3385: 3376: 3369:Stevens 1988 3350:. Retrieved 3330: 3324: 3312: 3281: 3250: 3238: 3188: 3168: 3161: 3149: 3138:. Retrieved 3118: 3111: 3083:. Retrieved 3074: 3064: 3052: 3040: 3010:. Retrieved 3001: 2991: 2923: 2877: 2850: 2800: 2769:. Retrieved 2753: 2747: 2725:, p. 9. 2718: 2706:. Retrieved 2697: 2687: 2642:. Retrieved 2625: 2615: 2595: 2588: 2576: 2564: 2553:. Retrieved 2535: 2528: 2516: 2489: 2477: 2465: 2425:, p. 7. 2418: 2391: 2364:. Retrieved 2355: 2330:. Retrieved 2321: 2311: 2299:. Retrieved 2295:the original 2285: 2278:Waldman 1988 2273: 2261: 2236: 2212: 2202: 2193: 2180: 2168: 2147: 2134: 2124: 2115: 2106: 2098: 2093: 2084: 2059: 2052: 2046: 2044: 2027: 2021: 2020:laser while 2013: 2007: 1995: 1989: 1986: 1972: 1969: 1965: 1958: 1950: 1942: 1938: 1930: 1898: 1886: 1878: 1869: 1859: 1856:radar decoys 1845: 1841: 1800: 1781: 1769: 1755: 1712: 1626: 1620: 1618: 1611: 1605: 1603: 1594:aspect ratio 1590: 1582: 1576: 1570: 1554: 1547: 1537: 1518: 1515:X-ray lasers 1492: 1480: 1476:ground state 1473: 1469:spectroscopy 1446: 1439: 1433: 1428: 1405: 1397: 1388: 1380: 1368: 1364: 1362: 1358: 1352: 1346: 1313: 1309: 1298: 1274: 1267: 1260: 1256: 1253: 1225: 1218: 1214: 1206: 1195: 1184: 1179:George Dacey 1172: 1165: 1153: 1148: 1144: 1140: 1136: 1124: 1120: 1089:In 1984 the 1088: 1079: 1074: 1070: 1068: 1061:, a part of 1058: 1056: 1031: 1029: 1021:first strike 1017: 1013: 1009: 1000: 985: 979: 975: 971: 955: 947: 938: 929: 920: 905: 903:impossible. 885: 876: 874: 871:Cottage test 865: 857: 853: 844: 840: 836: 817: 811: 802: 798:Roger Batzel 794: 785: 780:shot in the 777: 775: 755: 751: 747: 723: 715: 690: 675: 671: 663: 655: 643: 631:Harold Agnew 604: 597: 575: 564: 558: 553:US Air Force 549: 541:Joseph Coors 534: 530: 526: 515: 492: 469: 442: 440: 431: 423: 411: 392: 388: 384: 358: 355: 348: 333: 291: 282: 279: 264: 258: 254: 221: 197: 186: 163: 156: 137: 130: 119: 80: 62: 44:system as a 29: 28: 18: 5653:8 September 5561:13 December 5188:. OUP USA. 5109:8 September 5019:(6): 7–13. 4962:13 December 4493:Ritson 1987 4478:Ritson 1987 4026:Coffey 2013 3892:Howes, Ruth 3519:8 September 3452:Smith 1985b 3317:Prelas 2015 3274:Scheer 1985 3193:Coffey 2013 3154:Prelas 2015 2984:Coffey 2013 2843:Herken 1987 2805:Herken 1987 2771:26 February 2723:Prelas 2015 2366:8 September 2266:Carter 1984 2010:NPO Energia 1881:boost phase 1860:threat tube 1834:Studies of 1715:solid angle 1244:White House 1108:Kumar Patel 629:and laser, 607:Edwin Meese 566:Firing Line 484:Smart Rocks 435:Robert Park 300:(LLNL) and 283:Diablo Hawk 212:Novosibirsk 95:Lowell Wood 42:X-ray laser 6132:Categories 6004:2008-10-09 5792:2017-06-04 5686:2017-09-08 5528:2020-10-01 5456:2017-06-16 5331:2008-10-09 5283:2017-06-03 4873:2017-12-10 4803:2017-07-02 4775:Smith 1985 4700:Broad 1986 4683:2014-10-27 4544:Jayne 1969 4505:Hecht 1984 4440:Hecht 1984 4428:Hecht 1984 4405:2020-07-21 4320:Hecht 1984 4273:2017-06-20 4153:Hecht 1984 4129:Smith 1985 3994:Reiss 1992 3916:2020-11-06 3812:Broad 1992 3431:Smith 1985 3352:2020-10-07 3231:Reiss 1992 3140:2018-11-20 3085:2019-07-23 3057:Broad 1985 3045:Broad 1985 3012:2017-06-03 2793:Broad 1985 2644:2020-09-28 2569:Broad 1985 2555:2019-07-30 2521:Broad 1985 2509:Broad 1985 2494:Broad 1985 2482:Broad 1985 2470:Broad 1985 2458:Hecht 2008 2411:Hecht 1984 2396:Hecht 1984 2384:Hecht 1984 2248:References 1990:dwell time 1961:Kazakhstan 1923:the steel 1914:rope trick 1743:laser gain 1508:flash lamp 1496:ruby laser 1275:Greenwater 1262:60 Minutes 1039:Ray Kidder 888:Paul Nitze 731:quack cure 708:President 678:Hans Bethe 418:See also: 361:, part of 159:gamma rays 138:Greenwater 132:60 Minutes 122:Los Alamos 6099:8 October 6074:8 October 6029:8 October 5939:0273-6314 5518:220821655 5446:1047-6938 5424:(5): 26. 5173:8 October 5154:: 24–28. 5041:472955622 4984:(3): S1. 4591:Kent 2008 4292:Laserfest 3848:Blum 1988 3833:Blum 1988 3800:Blum 1988 3708:Park 2002 3689:Park 2002 3488:Blum 1988 3305:Mohr 1984 2928:Park 2002 2740:Park 2002 2663:Park 2002 2423:Blum 1988 2253:Citations 1925:guy-wires 1784:Nike Zeus 1776:Bell Labs 1729:η 1719:steradian 1694:θ 1671:η 1651:θ 1640:η 1600:Excalibur 1465:spectrums 1453:electrons 1059:Goldstone 1047:Ed Markey 806:beryllium 232:holograms 6093:Archived 6053:(1995). 6023:Archived 5998:Archived 5943:Archived 5888:17739208 5851:17797283 5786:Archived 5766:37629267 5680:Archived 5647:Archived 5578:. RAND. 5555:Archived 5551:19300718 5522:Archived 5477:18316428 5450:Archived 5325:Archived 5294:(2004). 5274:Archived 5164:Archived 5103:Archived 5051:(1985). 4953:Archived 4925:Hey 2006 4864:Archived 4822:Archived 4797:Archived 4736:OTA 1985 4724:OTA 1985 4674:Archived 4612:Archived 4532:APS 1987 4520:APS 1987 4399:Archived 4296:Archived 4267:Archived 4234:Archived 4226:"LASERs" 4201:Archived 4117:Hey 2006 4056:Hey 2006 3973:Archived 3876:Hey 2006 3788:APS 1987 3776:APS 1987 3759:APS 1987 3747:APS 1987 3735:APS 1987 3723:APS 1987 3638:Archived 3513:Archived 3346:Archived 3286:Hey 2006 3134:Archived 3079:Archived 3006:Archived 2897:Hey 2006 2882:Hey 2006 2762:Archived 2702:Archived 2638:Archived 2549:Archived 2360:Archived 2326:Archived 2322:CBS News 2231:objects. 2064:See also 1792:Sentinel 1663:, where 1577:per atom 1071:Labquark 879:shot of 727:Laetrile 543:of the " 208:titanium 200:chlorine 182:aluminum 38:Cold War 5952:30 July 5868:Bibcode 5860:Science 5831:Bibcode 5823:Science 5746:Bibcode 5498:Bibcode 5426:Bibcode 5368:Bibcode 5258:Bibcode 5156:Bibcode 5021:Bibcode 4986:Bibcode 4895:Bibcode 4650:1010606 4383:Bibcode 4342:Bibcode 3979:30 July 3647:4 April 3585:12 July 3555:18 July 2708:4 April 2225:⁄ 1998:Topol-M 1814:around 1786:, then 1706:is the 1621:Nature' 1449:nucleus 1411:Physics 1216:time". 1075:Delamar 980:Science 877:Cottage 686:US Army 414:"leaks" 359:Dauphin 236:viruses 204:calcium 148:History 36:(LLNL) 6065: 5971: 5937: 5907: 5886: 5849: 5810: 5764: 5738:Nature 5725: 5704: 5672: 5626: 5603: 5582: 5549: 5516: 5475: 5444: 5399: 5378: 5349: 5306: 5234: 5213: 5192: 5128: 5082: 5061: 5039: 4905: 4856: 4828:23 May 4648: 4618:1 June 4571:1 June 4463:8 June 4302:1 June 4240:1 June 4207:1 June 4078: 3610: 3338: 3176: 3126: 2628:: 52. 2603: 2332:1 June 2301:14 May 2173: 2167:. 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