Tag: Star Wars

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.

Boost Phase Intercept (BPI) with high power lasers could defeat North Korean missiles

On By gyonas6 Comments

In order to achieve an effective defense against an all-out ICBM attack from the Soviet Union, the Fletcher Study, that in 1983 created the plan for the SDI, reported that Boost Phase Intercept would be needed. I explore this in great detail in my new book “Death Rays and Delusions” available now at Amazon.com. We believed the midcourse and terminal phases could overwhelm the defense with countermeasures if a large fraction of the boosters were not destroyed. Burning boosters provided a bright target that was easy to find and the thin missile skin made them relatively easy to kill. Missile vulnerability was demonstrated with a high power laser directed at a mock-up of a booster subjected to its acceleration and pressure stresses. The test was described by one of the technical skeptics as a “strapped down chicken test.”

Laser destruction of liquid fueled booster
Laser destruction of liquid fueled booster

Although the booster was very vulnerable to attack, intercepting the booster required deployment of either space based missiles or lasers. The lasers were far off in the future, and the numbers of missiles appeared to require a prohibitively large launch capability, unless the missiles were miniaturized, eventually resulting in the “Brilliant Pebbles” concept. This concept was seriously pursued for five years and then canceled when the Soviet threat disappeared in the ‘90s. Small interceptor missiles, however, did appear to provide a realistic path to BPI based on advancing missile technology.

The preferred approach in 1985, however, was the ground based laser (GBL) with only relay mirrors in space, and substantial efforts were begun to develop enormous free electron lasers to produce beams of the required power and wave length. A significant development was the invention of optics that could correct for sources of beam distortion. A remaining problem was the need for multiple high altitude locations to deal with clouds. In addition, the laser technology and physics did not cooperate, and for want of a laser, the GBL was dropped, but development of aircraft based lasers continued.

laser relay
Artists concept of space based laser relay mirrors http://spie.org/newsroom/4853-did-adaptive-optics-end-the-cold-war?SSO=1

Chemical lasers on 747s enjoyed $5 billion of support for dealing with the evolving North Korean ICBM threat, but the concept was dropped by the Secretary of Defense as impractical, expensive and easily defeated. So the quest for a laser remained until recently with the development of short wave length, efficient, rugged, light weight, fiber lasers. Such lasers could be based on aircraft and be used to directly intercept boosters or relayed from space or possibly drone based mirrors to their targets. Nevertheless, this development is still many years away. So what about the near future? With the recent North Korea tests of a very high yield nuclear device and an  ICBM, the threat demands that we get very serious about deployment of an effective missile defense.

For short range defeat of boosters launched from North Korea, it is possible to utilize aircraft based very fast small missiles, and drone platforms have been proposed, as outlined in this column: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/military/guest-voices/sd-me-herman-northkorea-defense-20170816-story.html. So BPI, which was from the beginning of the SDI thought to be desirable or even necessary, seems to be emerging based on drone based fast missiles,  and could evolve eventually to laser weapons. To learn more, check out “Death Rays and Delusions” now available on Amazon.com.

Star Wars Sinks Summit

On By gyonas5 Comments

Time magazine For decades, the Soviet military lagged behind us technologically, and by dominating one half of the budget it fatally weakened their economy. The military was stuck in the quagmire of Afghanistan yet they remained committed to compete with us and maintain their control of Soviet society. A key element of their approach was stealing our secrets. We had discovered how they were shop lifting our technology, and we cooperated by “enhancing” the ingredients of their shopping bag. The chief Soviet thief was actually working for us, and he wanted to get even with his KGB bosses. Farwell Dossier

According to Thomas Reed, former Secretary of  the Air Force, we were “blowing up Soviet pipelines, infiltrating Soviet computers, bollixing  their software, …electronics infected with bugs, viruses, and Trojan horses placed there by the US intelligence community.”

Gorbachev wanted to terminate the arms race and turn his economy around, but in the fateful 1986, everything seemed to go from bad to worse: Gorbachev was planning an anti vodka campaign to deal with what he thought was contributing to his country’s mental and financial depression. His faulty governing plan was based on a commitment to a contradictory strategy of both entrepreneurial and communist economies that would become a worsening financial decline. Then the Chernobyl reactor explosion destroyed his confidence in Soviet technology, followed by the sinking in clear weather of their only luxury cruise ship Adm. Nakhimov. These accidents caused wide spread distrust of incompetent leadership and a growing level of anxiety in his country. Then just before the Reykjavik summit — one more stunning disaster. A critical component of their nuclear deterrent,  a rocket on the  k219 nuclear submarine with 30 nuclear warheads aboard caught fire and the sub sank with a trailing American sub watching the entire debacle.

With all of the Soviet catastrophes in mind, his military advisors told him we really had substantial advances in missile defense, yet his military industrial complex was on the verge of launching a space weapons race. He was convinced his country could not simultaneously compete and also salvage their disintegrating economy.

He was ready to make a deal and Reykjavik was the place to agree to end the arms race, but he could not close the deal with Reagan.  Above everything else he was determined to stop his own military industrial complex from launching their giant  Polyus space laser, and that meant he needed the leverage from persuading Reagan to keep SDI in the laboratory and not in space. He told Reagan after three days of back and forth arguing “It’s the laboratory or goodbye”.  Reagan, with his totally unrealistic confidence in near term SDI deployment, said no deal. The world leaders acting on their own walked away from changing the course of history.

Our own military and our allies breathed a sigh of relief since they were totally committed to a nuclear deterrent based on mutually assured destruction, and at the same time the press argued that Reagan had screwed up.

The deal was off, but their space laser experiment Polyus was not deployed because of a software problem. Negotiations continued in 1987 as both sides realized missile defense was not ready for any sort of deployment, and slowing the arms race was beneficial to both countries. An agreement was reached, by two politically weakening leaders, to eliminate intermediate range missiles. For a few years the Soviet Union continued to implode without our help, and then Gorbachev was removed by a coup, followed by the coup plotters jailed by the new Soviet leader Yeltsin.

Did Star Wars sink the deal? Will Star Wars ever become real? And what about the North Korea’s ICBM?

Sharing SDI

On By gyonas3 Comments

When I joined the SDIO in 1984, the president gave us clear instructions to figure out how to share missile defense technology as part of his strategy to eliminate all nuclear weapons. At the same time, we were aware that the Soviets would love to benefit from our investments and we were serious about protecting our secrets. I responded with a proposal to share early warning data–not technology–as part of an agreement preventing any surprise missile launches, and, as I expected, my suggestion was rejected as coming from an engineer. Reagan continued to insist that we share SDI, and he wanted to make a deal with Soviet leadership, but they kept on dying before he could sit down with them. Then came a totally new and revolutionary Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Reagan and Gorbachev sharing a pen
In 1985 at the Geneva summit, Gorbachev and Reagan stated, “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” This was not just propaganda but a deeply felt conviction on both of their parts.

After the latest dust up over North Korean missile tests had passed, our current secretary of state indicated a willingness to consider negotiations with North Korea. It seems to be unlikely to happen, or even less likely to be productive, but maybe we can learn from the history of the one of the most surprising negotiations in history. During three days of one-on-one arguments, the result was almost an agreement to eliminate all nuclear weapons.

President Reagan went to the Reykjavik summit in the fall of 1986 with a spirit of Reagan on Time magazinecooperation and a conviction to abolish nuclear weapons. He wanted to move ahead with SDI that he thought was close to deployment, and share SDI with the Soviets. Secretary of State George Schultz, his principal adviser, had recommended that “we trade the sleeves of our vest and make them think they got an overcoat.”

The young and vigorous new leader of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev also wanted to eliminate nuclear weapons, but his military industrial complex wanted to compete not cooperate. He was told that his industry was only five years behind us in missile defense and could catch up if he could slow us down for 10 years. He was more worried about his own SDI that was preparing to launch its giant space laser and was terrified of a space weapon race in the face of his country’s imploding economy. He had been on the job only since March 1985, but his confidence had already been shattered by a rapidly declining situation that left him desperate to make a deal.