Author: gyonas

author of Death Rays and Delusions

The Russian Nuclear Space Weapon

On By gyonas5 Comments

After Mike Turner, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, warned the public about what he called a “serious national security threat,” and the White House confirmed that the Russians are developing a “troubling anti satellite weapon,” I was motivated to add some historical perspective based on my study of directed energy weapons. 

Garin Death Ray

HG Wells was the first to invent the concept of directed energy weapons also known as death rays in his 1898 sci-fi novel “The War of the Worlds.” He was far ahead of his time. The Soviets were next to join the death ray fiction world. In the 1920s, Alexsey Tolstoy published a sci-fi novel, “Garin’s Death Ray,” that focused not just on the weapon, but also the psychology of the inventor. The novel attracted the attention of the Russian military, but the non-technical issues were prophetic. The hero of the book, Garin, described his invention of a beam weapon that was incredibly destructive, but it also had many detractors that claimed, “This invention smells of higher politics.” 

After the recent revelations, CNN published their “exclusive account” that, “Russia is attempting to develop a nuclear space weapon to destroy satellites with a massive energy wave when detonated potentially crippling a vast swath of the commercial and government satellites that would cross a dangerous Rubicon in the history of nuclear weapons, disruptions to everyday life.” The story was picked up in the European “Pravda” that reported, “The weapon has the potential to destroy entire groups of small satellites such as Space X’s Starlink used by Ukraine in the war with Russia……and Moscow perceives the U.S. statements as attempt to persuade Republicans in Congress to approve assistance for Ukraine.”

This revelation had similarities to my 2023 science fiction techno thriller “The Dragon’s CLAW” that describes a test of a secret low energy nuclear (cold fusion) weapon initially discovered at Los Alamos and stolen by the Chinese and tested for the first time on a remote island in the Pacific with surprising results. I wrote: “The results of the first trial of the Dragon’s CLAW had exceeded all of the researchers’ expectations, but not in a good way. The energy output was 10 times higher than anticipated, and it had created a giant electromagnetic pulse…revealed the existence of a new, tremendously energetic and very dangerous device…. could destroy any nation’s electric grid infrastructure and all space-based communication, along with GPS”.

I wondered if not just Tolstoy, but both CNN as well as my fiction invention were examples of imagination. Then I remembered something about the Soviet secret program I had learned from Sidney Drell, Stanford physics professor and arms control expert, when I was researching the impact of Reagan’s Star Wars program on the end of the Cold War. I documented this in my autobiographical SDI story, “Death Rays and Delusions.”  I learned from the information published in 2007 by Drell and George Shultz, former secretary of state, who was directly involved in the Reykjavik Reagan/Gorbachev summit in 1986, that the Russians were very aware and concerned about the development of nuclear driven electromagnetic weapons.  

Gorbachev was told that that the United States was developing nuclear driven directed energy weapons. He was informed that the “design concept for directed nuclear weapons, work on which began in the U.S. in the 1970s…. weapons consist in transforming part of the energy from a nuclear explosion into powerful streams of directed x-rays or electromagnetic radiation or a stream of high energy particles. No less than three tests were conducted towards the creation of directed electromagnetic radiation weapons.”

He was also told, “Full scale development of these weapons is expected to occur in the second half of the 1990s.” Gorbachev was encouraged to negotiate a “ban on nuclear testing to prevent full scale development of directed energy weapons,” and prevent “military technical superiority of the U.S. in the development of munitions of the new generation for strategic weapons is concerned.” The Soviets’ concern about the possible development of nuclear directed energy weapons continued in the 1990s as evidenced by the writings of the head of the nuclear weapon program who in 1996 called for the end of development of such weapons that he called “an evil Jinn.” 

In my novel, “The Dragon’s CLAW,” the fictional Los Alamos lab director successfully argued, “This is the ideal moment to admit that the competition over space weapons would ultimately be mutually destructive for both countries… We must draft an agreement to end all space weapons development and cooperate with energy research. The future of humanity depends on us.”

I was surprised when my fiction seemed to match some of the recent CNN revelations, but I admit that my creativity can hardly keep up with the thinking of energy weapon advocates that continue to be intrigued by new ideas related to powerful laser death rays and microwave weapons. Some claim that such energy beams are the cause of the Havana Syndrome that messes up the minds of “2000 U.S.  officials in diplomatic posts worldwide … .and a CIA panel of experts concluded some of these have as a plausible explanation a directed pulsed radio frequency energy.” A microwave expert, James Benford, stated the syndrome, “certainly fits with a microwave beam as the attacking element,” but he nor the CIA suggested who might be the supposed foreign adversary. 

I will leave it to the reader of my series of books (see projectzbooks.com), to find out what happens in the world of fictional electromagnetic brain weapons, but the technology development and its consequences continues in my next book “The Dragon’s Brain” to be published in September. My novel describes how electromagnetic energy weapons can attack not just space satellites, but also the minds of diplomats and even the entire population of the world. Who knows, where fiction ends and reality emerges, but the work of HG Wells told us to be prepared for inventions we can hardly imagine.

The importance of having a coach

On By gyonas4 Comments

I first learned about the importance of the coach during my four years rowing an eight-oar competitive racing shell at Cornell University. This story began when I was fresh out of high school in Ohio and went off to Ithaca, New York to attend college. It was September 1957, and I was not sure I was in the right place as I looked around nervously in a long Cornell University freshman registration line. Somebody walked up to me, an obviously self-confident upper classman that I assumed wanted to help me, and he said, “Want to join the Cornell crew?” 

The upper classman seemed to be an authority. He instructed me to show up at the boathouse that afternoon. I had no experience in the sport of competitive rowing, and my only activity even related to sports was playing the clarinet in the high school band at football games. Mostly out of curiosity, I showed up with several dozen others, many of whom (unlike me) appeared to know what they were doing. I soon learned that they had rowed in prep school.  Cornell was recruiting rowers for the lightweight crew, where the average weight was 150 pounds with a max of 160 pounds, so they needed to have some to come in at 145 pounds or lower. Apparently, I looked like the skinny kid that might be able to teach how to row.

We spent the next few weeks getting lessons from the experienced coach, and rowing very slowly up and down the Ithaca inlet in what was called the barge with 16 rowers in the boat. Our numbers had been reduced. The preppies were off, and what remained was a group of scruffy inexperienced kids trying to fit it to a new environment. We were a bunch of exhausted freshmen getting used to new classes and fatigue. We struggled together in a rather undistinguished craft. Many of us were getting ready to give up, but there was something about the patient, forceful, and calm instructions from that the coach that encouraged me. This was the sport for me.

Then we were introduced to a magnificent eight-oared, thin-walled, cedar shell. We rowed on Lake Cayuga until the glorious fall weather turned into freezing rain and rapidly dropping temperatures. Winter arrived, and we were assigned to the “tanks” in the campus gym. We were sitting on slides with water flowing past on two sides. Our oars had large holes in the blades, so the water resistance was as if we were on the water.

I had a lot to learn, and I was worried that I would not make the cut. Nevertheless, I was completely impressed by the coach who I believed wanted me to succeed. The coach often watched from within a foot away from my hands, carefully explaining the complex motions I had to repeat over and over again for what seemed like hours. One problem I experienced was that the skin of my hands was a bit too delicate for this sport. Before long, my hands were bloody pulp. I could barely hold a fork at the training table, but my coach never seemed to notice the blood stains on my old sweatshirt since. The mission was made clear, we had to learn to row, and learn to win. Racing would begin when the snow melted, and we would face competition on Lake Cayuga.  

I had little time nor interest in anything but rowing. I had already decided that I was not happy with studying mechanical engineering, which seemed dull. One early morning I walked down the tree-lined street to the Physics building. One of my fellow rowers had told me about a new Cornell program called Engineering Physics that offered the challenge of a more exciting set of courses.  The dean was my second experience with a respected coach. The dean told me the program would require be five years instead of four, but in addition to studying physics and engineering, the extra year would be a collection of the very best liberal arts courses at Cornell. I was instantly convinced by his description of the challenges ahead.

I got used to rowing, the training table, an early curfew, and limited time for studying. I learned how to use my time for studying efficiently, and I managed to get better grades than most of my friends in our fraternity. My grades were not fantastic, but they were up there with other crew members. I even made Dean’s list.

Eventually spring emerged and we went back on the lake with an occasional thin sheet of ice delicately cracking on the side of the shell. Then came spring vacation, where practically everybody left the campus, but the crews were told we would stay on campus and row for mile after mile in the morning and afternoon to harden up for competition.

As we first glided down the inlet toward the lake, my hands already toughened up from rowing in the tanks, I felt optimistic. Then, two weeks on the lake turned my hands back to the bloody pulps. I eventually got used to the pain in my hands because there was much more pain in the rest of my body. There was also the unbelievably mystical sweeping sound as we cut through the light waves. The soaring feeling of eight of us responding in unison to the yells of the coxswain, “up two in five” and pounding the side of the shell with wooden rods. Our coach followed in a small launch instructing all of us with a calm but convincing set of commands.

I was never particularly good at the sport, but I was totally dedicated. My coach really appreciated my total commitment and my competitive spirit. He even gave me a couple of awards, including, in my senior year, the Cornell C embroidered on a white wool crew neck sweater (that I could not put on today with a crowbar). I retired from crew after my senior year with a couple of trophy oars and a silver bowl that my coach called the “competitors cup.” When we did win some races, the losing crew would give us their shirts. (Although Yale somehow managed to avoid that custom.)

From rowing crew, I learned a lot that applied over the next several decades of working on mostly impossible challenges such as giant pulsed power machines, fusion, missile defense, death rays, and enhanced cognition, working with the government, laboratories, and industry. I believe that my most important lesson from crew was the importance of having a person I reported to that I respected and trusted. I never thought of that person as a boss but rather as my coach. We shared goals and a desire to win.

One of my favorite coaches during my career was Air Force General James Abrahamson who recruited me to be his depute and chief scientist when he was chosen to head the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, also known as Reagan’s Star Wars program. He was as new to high powered lasers as I was to the military, but we learned from and trusted each other, and he tolerated my jokes.

Recently my coach at Sandia, Al Narath passed away, and I was fortunate to attend his 90th birthday party and was able to express my feelings about him at his memorial ceremony. I knew from four years on rowing, and for the rest of my career, what it was like to have that very special coach. My coaches always made the major difference in my work. As long as we shared goals, mutual respect, trust, and open communication, I was able to contribute to my fullest to a shared success that included the entire team. I learned that crew is successful when the only outstanding person on the team is no one, but also everyone. The result was a team that shared the same beliefs, feelings for each other, and dedication that resulted in open communication and trust, which the coach shared with us. Every day after practice we all experienced a combination of exhaustion and exhilaration. When we won, we sang the Cornell Crew song together as loudly as we could: “Onward like a swallow going…. rest was made for feebler folk….and for fame of Alma Mater. Stroke, stroke, stroke.”

The Covid Defense Initiative

On By gyonas2 Comments

Today I went to my local drug store and got my latest Covid vaccine in hopes that if I am infected in the future, my symptoms will be mild. It occurred to me that after several years, we still face a continuing and evolving global heath, economic, and social threat created by the mutating respiratory virus. In the July 6, 2020 post of this blog, I proposed a multi-\layer defense system to respond to the emerging threat. I am disappointed that I have not seen a system that is as yet available. I believe that an enhanced national Covid defense program beyond what now exists for treatment and vaccination development,  should be focused on systems engineering to effectively deal with this problem. 

I believe that a coordinated effort should be initiated working with the existing bioscience community but calling for the active participation of the nation’s engineering and industrial talents. I am proposing the development of an information-based  multilayer defense approach consisting of a system of systems. The immediate need in this system is real time high-sensitivity and high-specificity virus detection system. The location and temporal detection would be coupled with a national surveillance system that tracks virus detection and syndromic data collection. With millions of ubiquitous instant inputs of data to the national surveillance and data collection system, (NSDS) the next level of defense would be coordinated to respond in order to apply immediate antiviral treatment and protect involved facilities. 

I propose that the already existing self protection respiratory protection mask approach be enhanced to include methods for detection of the virus as well as instant defeat of its activity. The first step in the development of this Smart Mask would be the inclusion of detection and location of the event. A highly specific sensor would apply nano/bio technology to collect and analyze the virus both exhaled into the mask and inhaled from the background. A miniature power source and GPS would provide this information to a smart phone, and to the surveillance system. The material in the mask can include anti viral materials as well as electrical, bio-optical, and chemical methods to defeat the virus to prevent further spread. In order to initiate the development and manufacture of Smart Mask, I propose an initial step involving existing sensor technology to identify a threat with high sensitivity but limited specificity.  This data on all respiratory diseases would be provided to the NSDS to initially develop the vital data management  and response approaches. 

In parallel with this activity, the high specificity sensor would be developed and tested in vitro with the virus. Once the needed level of specificity is achieved, the sensor would be incorporated in the initial Smart Mask and a sufficient number of masks would be manufactured  for field testing in a variety of environments using human subjects but with a non active but representative virus. The next step would involve industry to produce tests for deployment and extensive field testing, and then manufacture, distribution, and support for the capability.  The same sensor and information management  technology could be incorporated in HVAC systems to provide detection of the virus in public and private buildings, with immediate attention to school buildings.  

The proposed initiative will require secure information and data management, materials science, microelectronics, bio science, and systems engineering coordination that is already available in the national engineering community but would require a coordinating office for this Covid Defense Initiative.  

Terrorism is a wicked problem

On By gyonasLeave a comment

Seventeen years ago, I was invited to give a presentation to a group of intelligence analysts at the Joint Military Intelligence College. At that time, I was managing the Advanced Concepts Group at Sandia National Labs, and my group was focusing much of our attention on emerging threats. A current issue was what was called “the global war on terrorism.” This war began in Afghanistan in 2001 after the Al-Qaeda attack and continued for 20 years. During that period, it expanded to include Iraq in 2003 with one justification being the belief that Iraq was linked to Al-Qaeda.

The threat of terrorism was very much a major national security issue, and my presentation attempted to address these issues based on my perceived needs for intelligence analysis. I had been increasingly interested in dealing with current complex challenges, and I studied the literature of systems engineering approach to solving relevant problems. What I learned was that most of my career as an engineer and physicist had been dominated by what were called tame problems, and the national security issues of the time were best described as wicked problems that would be long in duration.

I was convinced that the current military issues were best described by a timeline beginning with a long period of increasing threat, and short period of conflict, and a much longer post conflict period of managing the threat. I thought the key to success of this challenge would be in the hands of intelligence analysts that knew how to deal with wicked not tame problems.

Tame problems had been the focus of my training and career, and are the typical challenge for analysts, engineers, and convergent thinkers. Such problems have a well-defined problem statement. For example, a tame problem is figuring out how to build a bridge. A wicked problem includes planning for the bridge, obtaining permission from the community and elected officials to build it, acquiring funding and scheduling, and working with the various individuals and agencies required to build that bridge. The bridge builders know what, where, and how to proceed with a well-defined end point of the task. They can learn from the records of other similar bridges already built and can easily try out various paper designs and choose the one most appropriate approach. They have an orderly approach to analysis, design, and implementation, but do not have the divergent thinking approach that is actually needed to complete all of the tasks involved in building the bridge.

The typical tame approach can lead to disaster if the problem is really wicked. If the problem is defined incompletely, prematurely, or influenced by desperation, ambition, fear, greed, hatred, or other emotions. Being driven to a hurried solution can lead to oversimplified solution options and an early and false belief that the problem is solved. The different perspectives, backgrounds organizations, and prejudices can lead to escalating confusion, conflicts, and paralysis.

A symptom of a wicked problem that is treated as tame is when the leader says, “Let’s get organized, put the right person in charge, get on with the solution, and get it done.”

The tame problem approach is a satisfying and coherent method of increasing knowledge.  Wicked problem solving, on the other hand, can often be characterized by frustrating alternating periods of euphoria and utter depression. So, are wicked problems just another worthless activity that is in the end a hopeless mess?

Well, maybe, but if you know the problem is truly wicked, a wicked engineering analyst can make real progress by spending a great deal of time and effort to comprehensively formulate the approach as a nonlinear spiral instead of a ladder of subsequent steps. The key is also to share the complexity with a group of creative thinkers and communicators that have a diversity of views. It’s important to share ideas frequently as the context of system issues changes and avoiding a focus on the detailed piece of the problems. Since premature belief in success will turn out to be the devil preventing group productive cooperation, the participants need to trust each other as the game changes.

I concluded that without active counterterrorism intervention, the level of terrorist violence will be low until a triggering threshold is passed, and, at some point, conflict will demand increased security emphasis.  If successful, counterterrorism actions can be taken that will lead to a cessation of combat operations. This period will be followed by a long period of stabilization and reconstruction. During the active combat period, the adversary may apply such irregular methods as assassination of leaders; hostage taking; cyber, bio chem, and infrastructure attack. The adversary may also introduce social and psychological methods such as induced chaos, exponential migration, financial attack, and race wars. The symptom of terrorist success would be a disruption of societal stability and stimulation of self-destructive behaviors.

A strength of the wicked engineering group could be the application of ubiquitous information technology, but in the hands of the terrorist, could also accelerate instabilities, so it will be necessary to take advantage of advances in complex computer modeling and simulation as well as the application of neuroscience to enhance cognition and group problem solving.

By gaining a neuro advantage over the adversary, methods of deterrence and dissuasion will become apparent. The advances in the neuro science spectrum can enhance the psychological armor, accelerate learning, cognition, and memory. Use of such methods applied against the terrorist can create confusion, fear, and loss of understanding of the rapidly changing environment. The adversary’s use of such psychological and information warfighting tools can lead to our early failure in dealing with the threat. The positive and negative implications must be understood.

At the time of my presentation, I believed that neuroscience advances in the hands of the adversary (which won’t have the same legal and moral constraints that we have) would have an important impact on the outcome. I also believed that the challenge of dealing with terrorism was open ended and there would likely never be a last move in this contest, so the happy ending to the story was not obvious.

My new novel, The Dragon’s C.L.A.W., also tackles a wicked problem. The protagonist realizes that his breakthrough invention, which has the ability to transform the world by providing clean, affordable, unlimited energy, can also be used to create a deadly weapon. I called upon my understanding of how to wrestle with wicked problems as I described how the character dealt with the conflict the dual nature of his work. Wondering how he resolves the problem? You’ll have to read the book!

Have you ever dealt with a wicked problem? How did you approach it? Did you resolve it? Comment below.