Big stakes for lab to build battle laser

Oakland Tribune ^ | October 27, 2003 | Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER

[demlosers]

General says he'll come up with $150 million if scientists produce mobile device within 18 months.

A two-star Army general threw down a challenge last week to Lawrence Livermore scientists: He will beat the bushes for more than $150 million if scientists can build the world's first mobile battle laser for test firing in 18 months. Livermore laser engineer Bob Yamamoto had been begging for this chance. But Livermore, specializing in nuclear explosives, never has built a full-up, firing weapons system for the battlefield.

"Eighteen months is very aggressive, and I'm saying that very politely," said Yamamoto.

On Tuesday, Major Gen. John M. Urias, the Army's chief acquisitions officer for air and missile defense, drew lab scientists and defense contractors into the hallway of an Albuquerque hotel so they could voice last-minute reservations.

Yamamoto, grinning wildly, said not a word.

The general then strode into a convention room and told 640 top U.S. directed-energy experts that Livermore's laser -- today, a profusion of wires, crystals and diodes on a tabletop -- was ready to be shoehorned into a Humvee and prove its mettle as a tactical weapon.

"We are no longer technology-limited. We are resource-limited," Urias said by phoneFriday. "I think we should charge on."

If he gets the money for Livermore and its team of defense contractors, the general suggested, the Army would get a prototype weapon that could open the military's imagination to what mobile lasers can do on the battlefield.

"I am convinced personally that the technology is evolving fast enough that we can do this," he said.

Three weeks earlier, the general donned green goggles in Yamamoto's lab and saw the world's most powerful solid-state laser drill through an inch of steel in two seconds.

"If anybody doubts what I am asserting, they need to go out to Lawrence Livermore lab and see this demo," said Urias, deputy commander of the Army Space and Missile Defense Command and acquisitions executive for Air and Missile Defense.

More than the flying sparks and burning steel, he noted that the laser's components -- hundreds of lithium-ion batteries, a chilled-water cooling system, control chips and the nine-foot laser itself -- could be shrunk at least in half, even as engineers install bigger slabs of garnet to create more light and a more powerful beam.

If Urias can find the money, the clock starts ticking for Yamamoto to triple his laser's power to 40 or more kilowatts and, within a year, make it hardy enough for firing out of a Humvee. Fortunately, Yamamoto said, the thick, clear crystals of manmade garnet already are being grown.

"It will be ruggedized so it doesn't fall apart when they hit a pothole. We'll be able to drive around and hit targets on the ground and maybe -- maybe -- targets in the air," Yamamoto said. "That's a little fuzzy right now...But we'll be able to hit targets out of the sky."

Ultra-high power diodes like the ones in CD players and supermarket scanners have propelled solid-state lasers into an arms race with giant, chemical-powered lasers. The Army's Tactical High Energy Laser, pumped by combusting chemicals, already have shot Katyusha rockets and artillery shells out of the sky.

Those shootdowns ushered high-energy lasers out of Buck Rogers science fiction and into military reality. But for years to come, chemical lasers are likely to remain bulky and needful of fresh chemical supplies at a time when the Army wants high mobility and less reliance on supply lines. Solid-state lasers are electric. They can run off a Humvee's diesel-hybrid engine or perhaps a jet fighter's turbine.

"I see ultimately that for U.S. Army purposes, we will most likely and even definitely down-select to a solid-state implementation. Because it works," Urias said.

Yamamoto shares the faith. But he's a bit unnerved at being handed the challenge that he courted.

"Twelve months is as challenging as it gets to put a six-slab system, ruggedized, in a Humvee," he said. "We won't see our children in those 12 months."

Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com .

[Laserman]

Very much dependent on the strength of the turbulence and location of source & target. Lasers on a/c different than ground to ground or ground to a slow moving or stationary air target. Also depends on your measure of success- ie. peak intensity vs. average intensity over a certain size spot.

[e_engineer]

Hey, I got it, and found it amusing as well. :^P

If you give him some encouragement, he will get pumped up to a higher energy level. After some internal reflection, his sense of humor will become more focused and shine brighter than ever.

[Bogey78O]

I was thinking the same thing. The big cannon that blasts everything.

[inPhase]

if you mean de to the ground,
wavel won't help. imaging is not the same thing

usual scenarios are to go after boost phase and AP did a half cooked job but mentioned some of the weaknesses

space requires a lot os platforms even for boost, its about angles of ...

phasing a mirror in space is a tech hurdle and a half

recall NGST (NASA not TRW) "stepped down" from their 8 meter

down to 5.6m and no promise date to the extent that Hubble will be down (2008, 9, 10, 11?) and there will be no big phased mirror in space

phasing is very very hard to do
inPhase

[Beck_isright]

[inPhase]

yeah, think I read you, laser propagation ground, air, space are very different

get dollar lifelines to sucessful demos

just wish someone would tell osd

[knews_hound]

El Bumpo

[Laserman]

Certainly is difficult. Worked LAMP and LODE and was CS on the Zenith Star. Also, many trades on the numbers of platforms, but in any case it is many and they are EXPENSIVE!

[Ahban]

I'm glad to know that you guys are thinking of it. Hopefully, with a nuke generator (or solar panels with a LONG time between shots) the recharge costs could go down.

The psychological effect of them knowing that we can get them in an instant anywhere on earth would be worth the cost. Add to it the INSTANT REAL TIME strike power that cruise missles cannot replace. We may have gotten Saddam if we did not have to wait 15 minutes for the bombs to get there.

I understand it would be hard to get a lot of energy through the atmosphere, but we could let it build up on an immobile target for minutes, not microseconds like when shooting down missles. Just microwaving the tank parked outside HQ, (or the propane tank) until its ammo cooks off could be as effective as a bomb.

[inPhase]

wow

can appreciate your experience

hope you are plugging for systems that can work;

expensive
yes

[jackbill]

Higher power systems for strategic applications still need research work, as do future generations of the battlefield systems, but we have already demonstrated the feasibility of systems (both ground mobile and airborne) that can bring revolutionary capabilities to the tactical war.

How much research is needed? I worked on the HEL program in the mid 1980's. That's getting on to 20 years.

[Laserman]

Personally, I like the way you think. Unfortunately, the folks who pay the bills shy away from 2-3 billion per platform. And to get instant response requires many orbiting platforms. Another possibility, especially in places like Iraq, would be high altitude airships. Always available and high enough to be secure. Also low enough to not need as much power and smaller optics.

[July 4th]

Looks like Rumsfeld's complete remake of the DoD is starting to trickle down. 18 months for such a system would be awesome.

[Laserman]

Unfortunately, HEL research dropped by 90% in the late 80's to mid 90's. It has been coming back in recent years, but much is going into ABL, and not as much into research. Promising technologies such as fiber lasers, solid state lasers, and phased array systems need more research. Big chemical lasers such as HF/DF and COIL are what's available today, but will likely not be the systems for future systems.

[Constantine XIII]

Anti-Armor--well, it shot through an inch of steel in 2 seconds and the battle field model will be three times as powerful, so maybe...

[Laserman]

That is one of the huge successes of the Army THEL was that it was done in 1/2 or less the time of past high tech demos.

[Constantine XIII]

Hit a track, then get it before it unloads the big gun on you. :p

[Ahban]

I can see a place for both. The airship would be a lot more susceptable to counterattack, and they would know where it is with radar. Not many countries have radar that can track satellites. We would only need ONE space based sattelite, if it had mobility.....could be electromagnetic or ion power.....that would last for years.

Another thing the space based platform could do that others could not....shoot down the bad guys satellites! Unless they have a lot of evasive capability, they would be the equivlent of a soft "stationary" target.

ONE space based laser, pleeeaase????

[Laserman]

Right. Pick your aimpoints better than shooting through thick armor.

[inPhase]

ABL won't ever happen.

But Army's efforts with THEL a laser on the ground, preceded Rum and in fact are in spite of him. OSD cut excluded its funding and HASC revived it each year.

THEL is the only laser weapon that works.

The amount of money it gets is peanuts compared esp to abl which is a major league joke, a lie and a fraud.

Look here.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/laser-03e.html


quote below, but please note
"iron bird" is a laser on the ground not in the air
$500 + 190 millions and no date for an airborne laser; the laser does not fit in the airplane. not even half of it.


"Boeing has been awarded an indefinite delivery indefinite quantity (IDIQ), cost-plus-award-fee letter contract, F33657-03-D-2036, to deliver an Iron Bird test bed in support of the Airborne Laser (ABL) program element.

This test bed will be located at Edwards AFB, California. The period of performance for this award is from April 2003 through April 2013. The value of this contract is not to exceed $500,000,000.

The scope of the initial effort, valued at $190 million, is to develop a permanent ground test facility that may be used to..."