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78-679: A particle-beam weapon uses a high-energy beam of atomic or subatomic particles to damage the target by disrupting its atomic and/or molecular structure. A particle-beam weapon is a type of space-based directed-energy weapon , which directs focused energy toward a target using atomic scale particles. Some particle-beam weapons have potential practical applications, e.g. as an antiballistic missile defense or detection system. They have been known by several names: particle accelerator guns, ion cannons, proton beams, lightning rays, rayguns , etc. The concept of particle-beam weapons comes from sound scientific principles and experiments. One process

156-512: A lasing medium consisting of metal rods. Many such rods would be placed around a warhead, each aimed at a different ICBM, thus destroying many ICBMs in a single attack. It would cost much less for the US to build another Excalibur than the Soviets would need to build enough new ICBMs to counter it. The idea was first based on satellites, but when it was pointed out that these could be attacked in space,

234-521: A decade. Instead of attempting to protect against thousands of incoming missiles, GPALS sought to provide protection from up to two hundred nuclear missiles. GPALS was tasked to protect the United States from attacks coming from all different parts of the world. In 1993, the Clinton administration further shifted the focus to ground-based interceptor missiles and theater-scale systems, forming

312-437: A few exceptions with no quarks, such as positronium and muonium ). Those containing few (≤ 5) quarks (including antiquarks) are called hadrons . Due to a property known as color confinement , quarks are never found singly but always occur in hadrons containing multiple quarks. The hadrons are divided by number of quarks (including antiquarks) into the baryons containing an odd number of quarks (almost always 3), of which

390-545: A high-powered orbital chemical laser attack ICBMs, the Space Based Laser (SBL). New developments under Project Excalibur by Teller's "O-Group" at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) suggested that a single X-ray laser could shoot down dozens of missiles with a single shot. The groups began to meet in order to prepare their plans for the incoming president. The group met with Reagan several times during 1981 and 1982, apparently with little effect, while

468-529: A lighter particle having magnitude of electric charge ≤   e exists (which is unlikely). Its charge is not shown yet. All observable subatomic particles have their electric charge an integer multiple of the elementary charge . The Standard Model's quarks have "non-integer" electric charges, namely, multiple of ⁠ 1 / 3 ⁠   e , but quarks (and other combinations with non-integer electric charge) cannot be isolated due to color confinement . For baryons, mesons, and their antiparticles

546-447: A neutralizer cell. This creates an electrically neutral beam of high energy hydrogen atoms, that can proceed in a straight line at near the speed of light to hit the target. The beam emitted may contain 1+ gigajoule of kinetic energy . The speed of a beam approaching that of light in combination with the energy deposited in the target was thought to negate any realistic defense. Target hardening through shielding or materials selection

624-615: A predetermined path, and a magnetic lens system to focus these streams on a target. The cathode ray tube in many twentieth-century televisions and computer monitors is a very simple type of particle accelerator . More powerful versions include synchrotrons and cyclotrons used in nuclear research. A particle-beam weapon is a weaponized version of this technology. It accelerates charged particles (in most cases electrons , positrons , protons , or ionized atoms, but very advanced versions can accelerate other particles such as mercury nuclei) to near-light speed and then directs them towards

702-426: A review of the various concepts. They put together an all-star panel including many of the inventors of the laser, including a Nobel laureate . Their initial report was presented in 1986, but was released to the public (in redacted form) in early 1987. The report considered all of the systems then under development and concluded none of them were anywhere near ready for deployment. Specifically, they noted that all of

780-527: A satellite that successfully test-fired its cannon in orbit. In 1979, Teller contributed to a Hoover Institution publication where he claimed that the US would be facing an emboldened USSR due to their work on civil defense . Two years later at a conference in Italy, he made the same claims about their ambitions, now emboldened by new space-based weapons. According to popular opinion, shared by author Frances FitzGerald , no evidence validated that such research

858-509: A short period and the warheads did not rise high enough for them to be easily tracked by a satellite above them. GPALS thus added a mobile ground-based missile and more low-orbit satellites known as Brilliant Eyes to feed the Pebbles. GPALS was approved by President George H.W. Bush in 1991. The system would cut the proposed costs of the SDI system from $ 53 billion to $ 41 billion over

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936-399: A small, Virginia-based think tank called High Frontier to continue research on the missile shield. The Heritage Foundation provided High Frontier with research space, and Graham published a 1982 report entitled, "High Frontier: A New National Strategy" that examined in greater detail how the system would function. Since the late 1970s, another group had been pushing for the development of

1014-688: A system consisting of hundreds of combat centers and satellites spanning the globe. The US held a significant advantage in advanced missile defense systems through decades of extensive research and testing. Several concepts, technologies and insights obtained were transferred to subsequent programs. Under SDIO's Innovative Sciences and Technology Office, investment was made in basic research at national laboratories, universities, and in industry. These programs have continued to be key sources of funding for research scientists in particle physics , supercomputing/ computation , advanced materials, and other critical science and engineering disciplines. In 1987,

1092-530: A target. The particles' kinetic energy is imparted to matter in the target, inducing near-instantaneous and catastrophic superheating at the surface, and when penetrating deeper, ionization effects that can destroy electronics. However, many accelerators used for high-energy nuclear physics are quite large (sometimes on the order of kilometers in length, such as the LHC ), with highly constrained construction, operation, and maintenance requirements. If an accelerator

1170-406: Is called particle physics . The term high-energy physics is nearly synonymous to "particle physics" since creation of particles requires high energies: it occurs only as a result of cosmic rays , or in particle accelerators . Particle phenomenology systematizes the knowledge about subatomic particles obtained from these experiments. The term " subatomic particle" is largely a retronym of

1248-507: Is the number of protons in its nucleus. Neutrons are neutral particles having a mass slightly greater than that of the proton. Different isotopes of the same element contain the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons. The mass number of an isotope is the total number of nucleons (neutrons and protons collectively). Chemistry concerns itself with how electron sharing binds atoms into structures such as crystals and molecules . The subatomic particles considered important in

1326-403: Is to be deployed in space, it has to be light-weight and robust. Charged particle beams naturally diverge because of mutual repulsion, and are deflected by the earth’s magnetic field. Neutral particle beams (NPBs) can remain better focused, and are not subject to deflection by the earth’s magnetic field. Neutral particle beams are ionized, accelerated while ionized, then neutralized before leaving

1404-453: Is to simply overheat a target until it is no longer operational. However, after decades of research and development , particle-beam weapons remain at the research stage, and it remains to be seen if or when they will be deployed as practical, high-performance military weapons. Particle accelerators are a well-developed technology used in scientific research. They use electromagnetic fields to accelerate and direct charged particles along

1482-406: Is unknown, as some very important Grand Unified Theories (GUTs) actually require it. The μ and τ muons, as well as their antiparticles, decay by the weak force. Neutrinos (and antineutrinos) do not decay, but a related phenomenon of neutrino oscillations is thought to exist even in vacuums. The electron and its antiparticle, the positron , are theoretically stable due to charge conservation unless

1560-463: The Star Wars program , was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic nuclear missiles . The program was announced in 1983, by President Ronald Reagan . Reagan called for a system that would render nuclear weapons obsolete, and to end the doctrine of mutual assured destruction (MAD), which he described as a " suicide pact ". Elements of

1638-565: The American Physical Society concluded that the technologies were decades away from readiness, and at least another decade of research was required to know whether such a system was even possible. After the publication of the APS report, SDI's budget was cut. By the late 1980s, the effort had re-focused on the " Brilliant Pebbles " concept using small orbiting missiles, such as a lower cost conventional air-to-air missile . SDI

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1716-775: The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) and closing BMDO was renamed by the George W. Bush administration as the Missile Defense Agency and focused on limited National Missile Defense . The Extended Range Interceptor (ERINT) program was part of SDI's Theater Missile Defense Program and was an extension of the Flexible Lightweight Agile Guided Experiment (FLAGE), which included developing hit-to-kill technology and demonstrating

1794-473: The Brilliant Pebbles concept. This was essentially the combination of the sensors on the garage satellites and the tracking stations. Advancements in sensors and microprocessors allowed this to be packaged in a small missile nose cone. Subsequent studies suggested that this approach would be cheaper, easier to launch and more resistant to counterattack, and in 1990 Brilliant Pebbles was selected as

1872-643: The Clinton Administration redirected the efforts towards theatre ballistic missiles and renamed the agency the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO). In 2019, elements, specifically the observation portions, of the program re-emerged with President Trump's signing of the National Defense Authorization Act . The program is managed by the Space Development Agency (SDA) as part of

1950-598: The Marshall Islands . For each test a Minuteman missile was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California carrying a single mock re-entry vehicle targeted for Kwajalein lagoon more than 4,000 miles (6,400 km) away. After test failures with the first three flight tests because of guidance and sensor problems, the DOD reported that the fourth and final test on June 10, 1984, was successful, intercepting

2028-519: The Safeguard Program , all aimed at developing a system to defend against attacks by Soviet ICBMs. The programs proliferated because of the changing threat; the Soviets claimed to be producing missiles "like sausages", and ever-more missiles would be needed to defend against their fleet. Low-cost countermeasures such as radar decoys required additional interceptors. An early estimate suggested $ 20 spent on defense would be required for every $ 1

2106-558: The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. Subatomic particle Experiments show that light could behave like a stream of particles (called photons ) as well as exhibiting wave-like properties. This led to the concept of wave–particle duality to reflect that quantum-scale particles behave both like particles and like waves ; they are sometimes called wavicles to reflect this. Another concept,

2184-537: The Soviet Union began in 1964–1965. Though classified at the time, a detailed study on a Soviet space-based laser system began no later than 1976 with the Polyus , a 1 MW Carbon dioxide laser -based orbital weapons platform prototype. Development was also started on the anti-satellite Kaskad in-orbit missile platform. A revolver cannon ( Rikhter R-23 ) was mounted on the 1974 Soviet Salyut 3 space station,

2262-480: The laws of quantum mechanics , can be either a boson (with integer spin ) or a fermion (with odd half-integer spin). In the Standard Model, all the elementary fermions have spin 1/2, and are divided into the quarks which carry color charge and therefore feel the strong interaction, and the leptons which do not. The elementary bosons comprise the gauge bosons (photon, W and Z, gluons) with spin 1, while

2340-416: The proton and neutron (the two nucleons ) are by far the best known; and the mesons containing an even number of quarks (almost always 2, one quark and one antiquark), of which the pions and kaons are the best known. Except for the proton and neutron, all other hadrons are unstable and decay into other particles in microseconds or less. A proton is made of two up quarks and one down quark , while

2418-534: The uncertainty principle , states that some of their properties taken together, such as their simultaneous position and momentum , cannot be measured exactly. The wave–particle duality has been shown to apply not only to photons but to more massive particles as well. Interactions of particles in the framework of quantum field theory are understood as creation and annihilation of quanta of corresponding fundamental interactions . This blends particle physics with field theory . Even among particle physicists ,

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2496-410: The 1960s, used to distinguish a large number of baryons and mesons (which comprise hadrons ) from particles that are now thought to be truly elementary . Before that hadrons were usually classified as "elementary" because their composition was unknown. A list of important discoveries follows: Strategic Defense Initiative The Strategic Defense Initiative ( SDI ), derisively nicknamed

2574-588: The 1980s the US Army began studies about the feasibility of kinetic hit-to-kill vehicles, i.e. interceptors that would destroy incoming ballistic missiles by colliding with them. The Homing Overlay Experiment (HOE) was the first such system tested by the Army, and the first successful hit-to-kill intercept of a mock ballistic missile warhead outside the Earth's atmosphere. HOE used a kinetic kill vehicle (KKV). The KKV

2652-640: The DOD never disclosed to Congress the enhancements made to the target vessel. HOE technology was later expanded into the Exoatmospheric Reentry-vehicle Interception System program. Developed by Lockheed as part of the ground-based interceptor portion of SDI, the Exoatmospheric Reentry-vehicle Interceptor Subsystem (ERIS) began in 1985, with at least two tests occurring in the early 1990s. This system

2730-491: The Higgs boson is the only elementary particle with spin zero. The hypothetical graviton is required theoretically to have spin 2, but is not part of the Standard Model. Some extensions such as supersymmetry predict additional elementary particles with spin 3/2, but none have been discovered as of 2023. Due to the laws for spin of composite particles, the baryons (3 quarks) have spin either 1/2 or 3/2 and are therefore fermions;

2808-769: The Minuteman RV with a closing speed of about 3.8 mi/s (6.1 km/s) at an altitude of more than 100 mi (160 km). Although the fourth test was described as a success, the New York Times in August 1993 reported that the HOE4 test was rigged to increase the likelihood of success. At the urging of Senator David Pryor , the General Accounting Office investigated the claims and concluded that though steps were taken to make it easier for

2886-550: The Soviet ICBMs upon launch. This boost phase intercept rendered MIRV impotent; a successful attack would destroy all of the warheads. Unfortunately, the operational cost of such a system was so large that the US Air Force rejected the concepts. Development was cancelled in 1963. During this period, the entire topic of BMD became increasingly controversial. Early deployment plans were met with little interest, but by

2964-470: The Soviets spent on offense. The addition of MIRV in the late 1960s further moved the balance in favor of offensive systems. This massively skewed cost-exchange ratio prompted observers to propose that an arms race was inevitable. President Dwight D. Eisenhower asked ARPA to consider alternative concepts. Their Project Defender studied many approaches before concentrating on Project BAMBI . BAMBI used satellites carrying interceptors that would attack

3042-447: The Soviets were devoting serious thought to both explosive and non-explosive nuclear power sources for lasers. On March 23, 1983, Reagan announced SDI in a nationally televised speech, stating "I call upon the scientific community in this country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents to the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete." In 1984,

3120-653: The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) was established to oversee the program, which was headed by Lt. General James Alan Abrahamson USAF, a past Director of the Space Shuttle program . In addition to original Heritage ideas, other concepts were considered. Notable among these were particle-beam weapons , updated versions of nuclear shaped charges , and various plasma weapons . SDIO invested in computer systems, component miniaturization, and sensors. Initially,

3198-633: The baseline model for SDS Phase 1. While SDIO pursued SDS, the Warsaw Pact was rapidly disintegrating, culminating in the destruction of the Berlin Wall in 1989. One of the many reports on SDS considered these events and suggested that a massive defense against a Soviet launch would become unnecessary. However, short and medium range missile technology would likely proliferate as the Soviet Union disintegrated and sold off its hardware. One of

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3276-517: The buildup of new offensive weaponry like the B-1 Lancer and MX missile continued. However, in early 1983, the Joint Chiefs of Staff met with the president and outlined the reasons why they might consider shifting some of the funding from the offensive side to new defensive systems. According to a 1983 US Interagency Intelligence Assessment, good evidence indicated that in the late 1960s

3354-429: The city or its surrounding areas. The A-35 was the only Soviet ABM system allowed under the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty . In development since the 1960s and in operation from 1971 until the 1990s, it featured the nuclear-tipped A350 exoatmospheric interceptor missile. George Shultz , Reagan's secretary of state , suggested that a 1967 lecture by physicist Edward Teller was an important precursor to SDI. In

3432-451: The concept moved to a "pop-up" concept, with the device launched from a submarine off the northern Soviet coast. However, on March 26, 1983, the first test (known as the Cabra event ), was performed in an underground shaft and resulted in marginally positive readings possibly caused by a faulty detector. Since a nuclear explosion was used as the power source, the detector was destroyed during

3510-533: The constituent quarks' charges sum up to an integer multiple of e . Through the work of Albert Einstein , Satyendra Nath Bose , Louis de Broglie , and many others, current scientific theory holds that all particles also have a wave nature. This has been verified not only for elementary particles but also for compound particles like atoms and even molecules. In fact, according to traditional formulations of non-relativistic quantum mechanics, wave–particle duality applies to all objects, even macroscopic ones; although

3588-400: The core ideas behind Global Protection Against Limited Strikes (GPALS) was that the Soviet Union would not always be the aggressor and the United States would not always be the target. Instead of a heavy defense aimed at ICBMs, this report suggested realigning GPALS deployment. Against novel threats the Brilliant Pebbles would have limited utility, largely because the missiles fired for only

3666-450: The device. Neutral beams also reduce spacecraft charging. Cyclotron particle accelerators , linear particle accelerators , and synchrotron particle accelerators can accelerate negatively charged hydrogen ions until their velocity approaches the speed of light . Each ion has a kinetic energy range of 100-1000+ MeV . The resulting high-energy negative hydrogen ions can be electrically neutralized by stripping one electron per ion in

3744-431: The elementary fermions with no color charge. All massless particles (particles whose invariant mass is zero) are elementary. These include the photon and gluon, although the latter cannot be isolated. Most subatomic particles are not stable. All leptons, as well as baryons decay by either the strong force or weak force (except for the proton). Protons are not known to decay , although whether they are "truly" stable

3822-486: The exact definition of a particle has diverse descriptions. These professional attempts at the definition of a particle include: Subatomic particles are either "elementary", i.e. not made of multiple other particles, or "composite" and made of more than one elementary particle bound together. The elementary particles of the Standard Model are: All of these have now been discovered through experiments, with

3900-528: The fall of 1979, at Reagan's request, Lieutenant General Daniel O. Graham , the former head of the DIA , briefed Reagan on an updated BAMBI he called High Frontier, a missile shield composed of multi-layered ground- and space-based weapons that could track, intercept, and destroy ballistic missiles, theoretically enabled by emerging technologies. It was designed to replace the MAD doctrine. In September 1981, Graham formed

3978-437: The flight time was so short that it would leave little time to forward information through command and control networks to missile batteries. Bell Labs pointed out that although longer-range missiles flew much faster, their longer flight times would ease the timing issue and their high altitudes would ease long-range radar detection. This led to a series of projects including Nike Zeus , Nike-X , Sentinel and ultimately

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4056-616: The guidance accuracy of a small, agile, radar-homing vehicle. FLAGE scored a direct hit against a MGM-52 Lance missile in flight, at White Sands Missile Range in 1987. ERINT was a prototype missile similar to the FLAGE, but it used a new solid-propellant rocket motor that allowed it to fly faster and higher than FLAGE. ERINT was later chosen as the MIM-104 Patriot (Patriot Advanced Capability-3, PAC-3) missile. Given concerns about previous programs' nuclear-tipped interceptors, in

4134-506: The heaviest lepton (the tau particle ) is heavier than the two lightest flavours of baryons ( nucleons ). It is also certain that any particle with an electric charge is massive. When originally defined in the 1950s, the terms baryons, mesons and leptons referred to masses; however, after the quark model became accepted in the 1970s, it was recognised that baryons are composites of three quarks, mesons are composites of one quark and one antiquark, while leptons are elementary and are defined as

4212-454: The interceptor to find its target (including some of those alleged by the New York Times ), the available data indicated that the interceptor had been successfully guided by its onboard infrared sensors in the collision, and not by an onboard radar guidance system as alleged. Per the GAO report, the net effect of the DOD enhancements increased the infrared signature of the target vessel by 110% over

4290-573: The late 1960s, public meetings on the Sentinel system were met by thousands of angry protesters. After thirty years of effort, only one such system was built; a single base of the original Safeguard system became operational in April 1975, but was closed in February 1976. A Soviet military A-35 anti-ballistic missile system was deployed around Moscow to intercept enemy ballistic missiles targeting

4368-452: The latest being the top quark (1995), tau neutrino (2000), and Higgs boson (2012). Various extensions of the Standard Model predict the existence of an elementary graviton particle and many other elementary particles , but none have been discovered as of 2021. The word hadron comes from Greek and was introduced in 1962 by Lev Okun . Nearly all composite particles contain multiple quarks (and/or antiquarks) bound together by gluons (with

4446-509: The lecture, Teller talked about the idea of defending against nuclear missiles using nuclear weapons , principally the W65 and W71 , with the latter an enhanced thermal/X-ray device used on the Spartan missile in 1975. Held at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), the 1967 lecture was attended by Reagan shortly after he became governor of California. Development of laser weapons in

4524-620: The mesons (2 quarks) have integer spin of either 0 or 1 and are therefore bosons. In special relativity , the energy of a particle at rest equals its mass times the speed of light squared , E = mc . That is, mass can be expressed in terms of energy and vice versa. If a particle has a frame of reference in which it lies at rest , then it has a positive rest mass and is referred to as massive . All composite particles are massive. Baryons (meaning "heavy") tend to have greater mass than mesons (meaning "intermediate"), which in turn tend to be heavier than leptons (meaning "lightweight"), but

4602-554: The most reckless and irresponsible acts in the history of modern statecraft.” Through declassified intelligence material, the wider implications and effects of the program revealed that due to the potential neutralization of its arsenal and resulting loss of a balancing power factor, SDI was a cause of grave concern for the Soviet Union and its successor state Russia. Following the Cold War when nuclear arsenals were shrinking, political support for SDI collapsed. SDI ended in 1993, when

4680-413: The neutron is made of two down quarks and one up quark. These commonly bind together into an atomic nucleus, e.g. a helium-4 nucleus is composed of two protons and two neutrons. Most hadrons do not live long enough to bind into nucleus-like composites; those that do (other than the proton and neutron) form exotic nuclei . Any subatomic particle, like any particle in the three-dimensional space that obeys

4758-468: The new National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA). CIA Director Mike Pompeo called for additional funding to achieve a full-fledged "Strategic Defense Initiative for our time, the SDI II" though it is unclear what this had to do with SDA. The US Army considered the issue of ballistic missile defense (BMD) after World War II . Studies suggested that attacking a V-2 rocket would be difficult because

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4836-507: The prerequisite basics of Newtonian mechanics , a series of statements and equations in Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica , originally published in 1687. The negatively charged electron has a mass of about ⁠ 1 / 1836 ⁠ of that of a hydrogen atom. The remainder of the hydrogen atom's mass comes from the positively charged proton . The atomic number of an element

4914-521: The program focused on large-scale systems designed to defeat a massive Soviet offensive strike. For this mission, SDIO concentrated almost entirely on "high tech" solutions like lasers. Graham's proposal was repeatedly rejected by members of the Heritage group as well as within SDIO; when asked about it in 1985, Abrahamson suggested that the concept was underdeveloped and was not considered. By 1986, many of

4992-481: The program reemerged in 2019 under the Space Development Agency (SDA). The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) was set up in 1984 within the US Department of Defense to oversee development. Advanced weapon concepts, including lasers, particle-beam weapons , and ground and space-based missile systems were studied, along with sensor, command and control , and computer systems needed to control

5070-557: The promising ideas were failing. Teller's X-ray laser, run under Project Excalibur , failed several key tests in 1986 and was targeted to the anti-satellite role. The particle beam concept was demonstrated to basically not work, as was the case with several other concepts. Only the Space-Based Laser seemed to have any hope of developing in the short term, but it was growing in size due to its fuel consumption. The American Physical Society (APS) had been asked by SDIO to provide

5148-464: The realistic missile signature initially proposed for the HOE program, but nonetheless the GAO concluded the enhancements to the target vessel were reasonable given the objectives of the program and the geopolitical consequences of its failure. Further, the report concluded that the DOD's subsequent statements before Congress about the HOE program "fairly characterize[d]" the success of HOE4, but confirmed that

5226-492: The systems could be deployed as an anti-missile system until the next century. Faced with this report and accompanying negative press, SDIO changed direction. Beginning in late 1986, Abrahamson proposed that SDI would be based on the system he had previously dismissed, a version of High Frontier now named the "Strategic Defense System, Phase I Architecture". The name implied that the concept would be replaced by more advanced systems in future phases. Strategic Defense System (SDS)

5304-514: The systems had to improve their energy output by at least 100 times, and in some cases by as much as a million. In other cases, like Excalibur, they dismissed the concept entirely. Their summary stated simply: We estimate that all existing candidates for directed energy weapons (DEWs) require two or more orders of magnitude, (powers of 10) improvements in power output and beam quality before they may be seriously considered for application in ballistic missile defense systems. They concluded that none of

5382-431: The understanding of chemistry are the electron , the proton , and the neutron . Nuclear physics deals with how protons and neutrons arrange themselves in nuclei. The study of subatomic particles, atoms and molecules, and their structure and interactions, requires quantum mechanics . Analyzing processes that change the numbers and types of particles requires quantum field theory . The study of subatomic particles per se

5460-479: The wave properties of macroscopic objects cannot be detected due to their small wavelengths. Interactions between particles have been scrutinized for many centuries, and a few simple laws underpin how particles behave in collisions and interactions. The most fundamental of these are the laws of conservation of energy and conservation of momentum , which let us make calculations of particle interactions on scales of magnitude that range from stars to quarks. These are

5538-560: Was carried out. Instead, Teller was promoting his latest weapon, the X-ray laser that was finding only limited funding, his speech in Italy was a new attempt to synthsize a missile gap . In 1979, Reagan visited the NORAD command base, Cheyenne Mountain Complex , where he was introduced to the extensive tracking and detection systems extending throughout the world and into space; however, he

5616-548: Was derisively nicknamed the Star Wars program, and criticized for threatening to destabilize the MAD-approach, and to re-ignite "an offensive arms race ". In a 1986 speech, Senator Joe Biden claimed “'Star Wars' represents a fundamental assault on the concepts, alliances and arms-control agreements that have buttressed American security for several decades, and the president’s continued adherence to it constitutes one of

5694-596: Was developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory . A prototype NPB linear accelerator was launched aboard a suborbital Aries (rocket) in July 1989 as part of the Beam Experiments Aboard Rocket (BEAR) project. It reached a maximum altitude of over 200 km, and successfully operated autonomously in space for before returning to earth intact. In 2006, the BEAR accelerator was transferred from Los Alamos to

5772-515: Was equipped with an infrared seeker, guidance electronics and a propulsion system. Once in space, the KKV could extend a folded structure similar to an umbrella skeleton of 13 ft (4 m) diameter to enhance its effective cross section. This device was intended to destroy an ICBM reentry vehicle on collision. Four test launches were conducted in 1983 and 1984 at Kwajalein Missile Range in

5850-708: Was never deployed, but its technology was used in the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system and the Ground-Based Interceptor currently deployed as part of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system. An early SDI focus was an X-ray laser powered by nuclear explosions . Nuclear explosions give off a burst of X-rays, which the Excalibur concept intended to focus using

5928-457: Was struck by their comments that while they could track the attack down to the individual targets, they could not stop it. Reagan felt that in the event of an attack, this would place the president in a terrible position, having to choose between immediate counterattack or absorbing the attack while maintaining offensive dominance. Shultz suggested that this feeling of helplessness, coupled with Teller's defensive ideas combined to motivate SDI. In

6006-525: Was the low-earth orbit (LEO) Smart Rocks concept with an added layer of ground-based missiles sited in the US. These missiles were intended to attack warheads that the Smart Rocks missed. In order to track them below the radar horizon , SDS added more LEO satellites that would feed tracking information to both the space-based "garages" as well as the ground-based missiles. Later ground-based systems trace derived from this concept. LLNL then introduced

6084-448: Was thought to be impractical or ineffective in 1984, especially if the beam could sustain full power and precise focus on the target. Neutral particle beams with much lower beam power could also be used to detect nuclear weapons in space non-destructively. The U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative developed a neutral particle beam system to be used as a weapon or a detector of nuclear weapons in outer space. Neutral beam accelerator technology

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