Experiments with laser weapons

It is important to note that experiments with laser weapons have been carried out in the United States since the mid-1970s. For this, in particular, a special test site was created in White Sands (New Mexico), where at the beginning of September 1985 an experiment was carried out, during which the powerful Miracle laser, intended for subsequent use in space, struck at a distance 1 km one of the stages of the Titan-2 rocket, which was in a stationary state39.

For a number of years, American physicists have been developing a third-generation “superweapon” (the first is a “conventional” atomic weapon, the second is hydrogen), to which they also include an X-ray laser that converts the energy of a hydrogen bomb explosion into a laser beam in the 3-cm range.

It was reported that a prototype of such a laser, created in the Laboratory of Radiation. E. Lawrence at the University of California at Livermore under the leadership of the "father" of the American hydrogen bomb, E. Teller, has already been tested at an underground test site in Nevada40. We are talking about the Excalibur project, launched back in 1974, that is, during the period of military detente and under the conditions of the fundamental documents signed between the USA and the USSR in the field of strategic defense. In addition to this project, the most promising is the creation of a free electron laser.

Speaking to the Senate Commission on Armed Forces on February 21, 1985, General J. Abrahamson pointed out that the pace of development of SDI was planned on the basis that the final decision on the advisability of its implementation could be made already in the early 1990s.

In this case, the following four main stages of work are assumed: scientific research (from 1983 to the early 1990s), full-scale development of space weapons systems (first half of the 1990s), deployment of the main elements of SDI in orbits around the Earth (second half of the 1990s). years), the completion of practical work (beginning of the next century). However, the London Times notes, Pentagon officials “are convinced that research under this program will lead to the start of the production of space weapons in five to six years”41.

The Strategic Defense Initiative has breathed new life into the mighty American military-industrial complex (MIC). If after the Second World War the nuclear and then missile arms race was a guarantee of the prosperity of military monopolies, by now it has begun to fizzle out.

The world has already accumulated sufficient potential for the 67-fold destruction of the planet. The developers of nuclear missile weapons began to gain their last "millimeters" in its improvement, and at the same time, the prospect of extracting superprofits by the American military-industrial complex was put in jeopardy.

It was necessary to urgently find a new sphere for the arms race and, at the same time, a sphere for investing capital. As the West German magazine Der Spiegel wrote, “whoever now takes strategy to the next higher level, that is, to outer space, will receive orders for the next 30 years, while avoiding the need to change the profile and structure of their production”42. In essence, it was the US military-industrial concerns that came up with a proposal to start a broad militarization of outer space.

As the American press noted, back in the late 1970s, a number of companies (in particular, Aerojet, Rockwell International, Grumman Corporation) began developing a theory of dense US missile defense with space-based elements. And today, these companies receive a significant share of R&D orders from the United States military.

It is no coincidence that the decision to create a "superweapon of defense" coincided with the approaching date for the deployment of American medium-range nuclear weapons in Western Europe. By deploying it there, the United States would receive a significant advantage in deploying a space anti-missile system: Pershing-2s and cruise missiles would be able to fly to the territory of the Soviet Union in just a matter of minutes, and a retaliatory strike on the United States would be "neutralized" by the SDI system.

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