Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!cbnews!wyle@inf.ethz.ch
From: wyle@inf.ethz.ch (Mitchell Wyle)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: What Ever Happened To The Soviet Death Ray?
Keywords: X-ray lasers
Message-ID: <5739@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 19 Apr 89 02:44:56 GMT
References: <5553@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: Departement fuer Informatik, ETH Zuerich
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Approved: military@att.att.com



From: wyle@inf.ethz.ch (Mitchell Wyle)

>From: sun!portal!cup.portal.com!mmm
>the DoD was saying the Soviets had built a facility to shoot things down
>with charged particle beams.  Apparently this facility was pretty big,
>DoD claimed it was designed to use the power of an underground nuclear
>explosion to create the beams.

You might be thinking of the Moscow ABM point defense (very old, "60's
vintage) which uses X-ray lasers to knock out in-coming MIRVs.  The
X-ray lasers are powered by underground A-bombs, which, although
destroying the laser in 100 milliseconds, provide enough energy to
knock out the in-coming warheads.

One of the minor spin-off successes of the US SDI program is the US's
"catching up" to the Soviet Union in X-ray laser technology.  If Bill
will excuse the following political statement, X-ray laser technology is
a good example of spin-off benefits from SDI research; such spin-offs
might make the program worthwhile even if the shield concept proves
untenable.  -Mitch (wyle@ethz.uucp)

[mod.note: Excused,  but dissenting opinions to talk.politics.misc, or
soc.politics.arms-d, please.  - Bill ]
-- 
-Mitchell F. Wyle                         wyle@ethz.uucp
Institut fuer Informationssysteme         wyle@inf.ethz.ch
ETH Zentrum / 8092 Zurich, Switzerland    +41 1 256 5237