Kenny@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA (11/23/83)
From: Kevin Kenny <Kenny@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA> Having seen several transactions regarding the development of space-based X-ray lasers, I've got a few questions of the group. The description of the device mentions that the driver is a megaton-size nuclear device. Is the altitude at which the device is deployed sufficient to obviate EMP effects? How transparent is the atmosphere at X-ray wavelengths? Could the device be used against ground targets? What about aircraft at altitudes of, say, 10,000 meters?
robertm@dartvax.UUCP (Robert P. Munafo) (12/01/83)
Another point : Since the X-rays can't go through the atmosphere, they can't destroy low-flying (Cruise) missiles.
els@pur-phy.UUCP (Eric Strobel) (12/01/83)
As far as I've heard, the driving device is DEFINITELY NOT megaton-size!
An x-ray laser has already been tested (in fact several of them), and a test
using a megaton-range device would be in blatant violation of the SALT treaty.
The device used is most likely one of the 3rd generation of nuclear explosives,
similar to the neutron bomb. These are low-yield (~typical of tactical devices)
and are designed to enhance energy output in some band, at the expense of output
in other forms. The neutron bomb is sort of the prototypical example of the
3rd generation devices.
els[Eric Strobel]
decvax!pur-ee!physics:elsfair@dual.UUCP (Erik E. Fair) (12/05/83)
If space based X-ray lasers are going to be driven by nuclear explosions,
I would worry more about the EMP effects on the local control circutry,
than on the longer range effects. Also, how long can you run such a laser
with A/H-bombs for fuel?
Erik E. Fair {ucbvax,amd70,zehntel,unisoft}!dual!fair
Dual Systems Corporation, Berkeley, Californiamwe@astrovax.UUCP (12/07/83)
The X-ray lasers currently under consideration are strictly one shot weapons.
You get one pencil of radiation for each copper bar you vaporize in the
explosion. Hopefully you could put more than one copper bar around each
warhead, but they would all have to be locked on and tracking simultaneously.
The real problem with this approach is that Russian countermeasures will
almost certainly be much less expensive than the sattelites, and the arms
race is after all an economic struggle...
Two of the suggested couter-measures are first the obvious anti-sattelite
missile, to be fired minutes before your attack, or second a sort of
umbrella that deploys in front of each of your missiles as it leaves the
atmosphere. The MIT defense analysis group claims that there are as many
as twenty different workable counter-measures. They also claim that we don't
have the required tracking and pointing technology now to make the system
workable.
--
Web Ewell Princeton Univ. Astrophysics
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