STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE (SDI)

1983

ECOCIDE
noun
destruction of the natural environment,
especially when deliberate.

STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE (SDI)

(Directed-Energy Warfare)

Los Alamos
National Laboratory

(Los Alamos, New Mexico)

(Original Image)

The Official Story

LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY (LANL)

Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the American southwest. Best known for its central role in helping develop the first atomic bomb, LANL is one of the world’s largest and most advanced scientific institutions.

Los Alamos was established in 1943 as Project Y, a top-secret site for designing nuclear weapons under the Manhattan Project during World War II. Chosen for its remote yet relatively accessible location, it served as the main hub for conducting and coordinating nuclear research, bringing together some of the world’s most famous scientists, among them numerous Nobel Prize winners. The town of Los Alamos, directly north of the lab, grew extensively through this period.

After the war ended in 1945, Project Y’s existence was made public, and it became known universally as Los Alamos. In 1952, the Atomic Energy Commission formed a second design lab under the direction of the University of California, Berkeley, which became the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The two labs competed on a wide variety of bomb designs, but with the end of the Cold War, have focused increasingly on civilian missions. Today, Los Alamos conducts multidisciplinary research in fields such as national security, space exploration, nuclear fusion, renewable energy, medicine, nanotechnology, and supercomputing.

While owned by the federal government, LANL is privately managed and operated by Triad National Security, LLC.

PROJECT EXCALIBUR
(Strategic Defense Initiative)

Project Excalibur was a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) Cold War–era research program to develop an X-ray laser system as a ballistic missile defense (BMD) for the United States. The concept involved packing large numbers of expendable X-ray lasers around a nuclear device, which would orbit in space. During an attack, the device would be detonated, with the X-rays released focused by each laser to destroy multiple incoming target missiles. Because the system would be deployed above the Earth’s atmosphere, the X-rays could reach missiles thousands of kilometers away, providing protection over a wide area.

Anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems of the time only attacked the enemy nuclear warheads after they were released by ICBMs. A single ICBM could carry as many as a dozen warheads, so dozens of defense missiles were required per attacking missile. A single Excalibur device contained up to fifty lasers and could potentially destroy a corresponding number of missiles, with all of the warheads still on board. A single Excalibur could thus destroy dozens of ICBMs and hundreds of warheads for the cost of a single nuclear bomb, dramatically reversing the cost- exchange ratio that had previously doomed ABM systems.

The basic concept behind Excalibur was conceived in the 1970s by George Chapline Jr. and further developed by Peter L. Hagelstein, both part of Edward Teller’s “O-Group” in LLNL. After a successful test in 1980, in 1981 Teller and Lowell Wood began talks with US president Ronald Reagan about the concept. These talks, combined with strong support from The Heritage Foundation, helped Reagan ultimately to announce the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in 1983. Further underground nuclear tests through the early 1980s suggested progress was being made, and this influenced the 1986 Reykjavík Summit, where Reagan refused to give up the possibility of proof-testing SDI technology with nuclear testing in space.

Researchers at Livermore and Los Alamos began to raise concerns about the test results. Teller and Wood continued to state the program was proceeding well, even after a critical test in 1985 demonstrated it was not working as expected. This led to significant criticism within the US weapons laboratories. In 1987, the infighting became public, leading to an investigation on whether LLNL had misled the government about the Excalibur concept. In a 60 Minutes interview in 1988, Teller attempted to walk out rather than answer questions about the lab’s treatment of a fellow worker who questioned the results. Further tests revealed additional problems, and in 1988 the budget was cut dramatically. The project officially continued until 1992 when its last planned test, Greenwater of Operation Julin, was cancelled.

First attempts at Livermore

George Chapline had been studying the X-ray laser concept through the 1970s. Chapline was a member of Teller’s speculative-project “O- Group” and began to discuss the concept with fellow O-Group member Lowell Wood, Teller’s protégé. The two collaborated on a major review of the X-ray laser field in 1975. They suggested such a device would be a powerful tool in materials science, for making holograms of viruses where a conventional laser’s longer wavelength did not provide the required optical resolution, and as a sort of flashbulb for taking images of the nuclear fusion process in their inertial confinement fusion devices. This review contained the calculations that demonstrated both the rapid reaction times needed in such a device and the extremely high energies required for pumping.

Chapline attended a meeting where Sobel’man’s work on X-ray lasers was presented. He had learned of the unique underground nuclear tests made on behalf of the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA), where the burst of X-rays produced by the nuclear reactions were allowed to travel down a long tunnel while the blast itself was cut off by large doors that slammed shut as the explosion approached. These tests were used to investigate the effects of X-rays from exoatmospheric nuclear explosions on reentry vehicles. He realized this was a perfect way to pump an X-ray laser.

After a few weeks of work, he came up with a testable concept. At this time the DNA was making plans for another of its X-ray effects tests, and Chapline’s device could easily be tested in the same “shot”. The test shot, Diablo Hawk, was carried out on 13 September 1978 as part of the Operation Cresset series. However, the instrumentation on Chapline’s device failed, and there was no way to know if the system had worked.

Congress directed that $10 million be given to both Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) for weapons tests on entirely new concepts. Chapline was given the go-ahead to plan for a new test dedicated to the X-ray laser concept. In the DNA tests, the reentry vehicle had to be retrieved for study after the test, which demanded the complex system of protective doors and other techniques that made these tests very expensive. For the X-ray laser test, all of this could be ignored, as the laser was designed to be destroyed in the explosion. This allowed the laser to be placed at the top of the vertical access shaft, which greatly lowered the cost of the test from the typical $40 million needed in a DNA shot. Given the schedule at the Nevada Test Site, their test would have to wait until 1980.

Source: Wikipedia