Tag: Energia

It smells of higher politics

On By gyonas1 Comment

The Soviet military fascination with death ray weapons dates back to the 1920s with the publication of the science fiction novel, “Garin’s Death Ray.” The Alexi Tolstoi Garin Death Raystory about the genius inventor Garin described a weapon with pinpoint, but still incredibly destructive, capability. This prophetic novel not only predated by decades the invention of the laser, but it also quoted Garin’s detractors as claiming, “This invention smells of higher politics.”

Two of the three Nobel Prize winners in 1961 for the invention of the laser were Russians and they were instrumental in launching an enormous laser weapon program. Eventually the program struggled with many failures and was only revived in response to Reagan’s Star Wars program in 1984. This effort became a crash program to launch the Soviet Union’s laser Death Star.

On May 15, 1985, the Soviet Union for the first time tested the world’s biggest space Polyuslaunch vehicle Energia. The payload for the launch was the 80 ton Polyus experiment dedicated to the development of a space control laser weapon. Polyus was a giant risk that was characteristic of the Soviet experimental technology philosophy of try it, learn from failures, fix it and try again. The huge gamble had been in the works as a multiyear high power laser program that was already underway but became a crash program in response to Reagan’s SDI initiative.  Instead of trying to compete with their own space-based missile defense program, they decided that laser-based space control would be the most logical path to defeat the SDI. Gorbachev knew that even a minimally successful deployment and test would lead to a space weapon race with the United States. He knew that his failing economy and inferior computer and electronics technology would certainly just accelerate the Soviet path to failure. Fortunately Polyus failed to orbit because of a software problem, and a real star war was avoided.

Robot space laser weapons

On By gyonas9 Comments
Gort_Firing
Gort

Gort was a 1951 sci-fi movie robot armed with devastating laser weapons…. now a not too distant future reality. The movie was about an alien visitor who came to earth to save the global population from self-destruction using its newly developed nuclear weapons. The spread of nuclear weapons has become a frightening reality long before an alien visit or the development of laser weapons, but after many decades, high power laser weapons are now on the procurement lists of many global militaries (see https://www.google.com/amp/s/phys.org/news/2017-04-laser-weapons-edge-military.amp.) In the movie, “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” Gort, the robot, was totally controlled by the command “klaatu baruda nikto,” the control of space based lasers will be a lot more complex. Systems of military systems in an escalating scenario of increasing violence is likely to be chaotic with a totally unpredictable outcome. Is it possible for us to look to technology for some way out of this mess?

A space-based defense consisting of a constellation of high power lasers that could zap any booster to a frazzle in a matter of seconds is certainly an exciting option. Decades ago the dream of such technology was too far off for us, but the Soviets took this very seriously and developed and began to test their own giant space-based laser called Polyus.

Polyus
Polyus on Energia

On their first test in 1987, it failed to deploy and now sleeps with the fishes on the bottom of the Pacific. Nevertheless, the technology did result in the deployment of an aircraft based anti-satellite weapon (“China and Russia Advancing Anti Satellite Weapons, US Intel Chief Says”…Space.com, May, 2017.) Then the United States Air Force decided to develop their own powerful 747 based chemical laser called the Airborne Laser or ABL. After racking up a bill of $5 billion over 20 years, the ABL now rests peacefully in the Air Force bone yard in Arizona.

So what are the near term options for missile defense? We could rapidly deploy Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in South Korea. Defense against long range missiles was discussed in my second blog post.  As long as the attackers don’t employ complex countermeasures, another possible solution would be our Ground Based Mid-Course defense (GMD), which has recently demonstrated its effectiveness.

The dream of instantaneous space-based defense affords an attractive option for the future, but only if precision strike is accompanied by precision decisions. More than likely this would require autonomous command and control.

A much more desirable approach to missile defense would be to come to an agreement as proposed by President Reagan to Gorbachev at Reykjavik in 1986. Unfortunately, even though they came very close to agreement on abolishing all nukes, their negotiations broke down because of a lack of understanding and trust (as described in my soon-to-be-published book, “Death Rays and Delusions.”) It seems now that trust with North Korea is in even shorter supply, and the outcome of this rapidly changing scenario is very uncertain.

As the great American philosopher Woody Allen once put it, “”More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”