State of the Art and Evolution of High Energy Laser Weapons (the withheld 38th DIRD)
J. Albertine / DIA
Summary and citation · read the original at the source
In one page
When the Defense Intelligence Agency listed the thirty-eight reference documents it had commissioned for the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications programme, one title was held back. It surfaced in January 2019, and this is the report behind it: a survey of high-energy laser weapons written for the agency in 2009 and issued on 31 March 2010. It reads like a working engineer’s overview. It sets laser weapons beside conventional kinetic weapons, walks through chemical, solid-state, fibre, ultra-short-pulse and free-electron lasers, covers beam control and atmospheric propagation, sketches the history of Department of Defense laser research, and asks what a laser beam could do to a spacecraft. Its argument is that chemical lasers reached megawatt power by the late 1970s and then stopped there, because the chemicals were heavy, hazardous and expensive, and that electrically powered solid-state and free-electron lasers are the line that carries on from here. In space, it concludes, the beam is easy and the power and waste heat are hard.
Why it matters hereChapter 1's rule is to check provenance and account for every source before drawing an inference, and this is the test case: the one DIRD title the agency withheld turns out to be conventional laser engineering rather than exotic physics. That makes the rest of the set — the wormhole, warp-drive and vacuum-energy reports chapter 4 works from — easier to stand behind, because the list is now fully accounted for.
What it claims
01The report's stated purpose is to give an overview of the current state of the art and the potential evolution of megawatt-class high-energy laser weapons, and to address the implications for spacecraft in or beyond Earth orbit.Introduction, p. 1
Settled physics02As of 2009 there had been very large advances in laser and beam-control technology but no deployment of any high-energy laser weapon; concepts were repeatedly discarded or deferred for technical immaturity, expected production cost, lack of apparent utility or logistics concerns.Summary, p. v
Settled physics03The most significant technical impediment to deployment may have been the large quantities of expensive and hazardous chemicals required by the only available high-average-power lasers — a constraint that electrically powered solid-state and free-electron lasers remove.Summary, p. v; Projection of Future HEL Weapon Capability, p. 23
Settled physics04Space is the ideal environment for laser beam propagation, because there is no atmosphere to attenuate or spread the beam; large distances could be bridged quickly, with range set by the size of the transmitting telescope and damage set chiefly by the laser's output power.Summary, p. v
Settled physics05Initial spacecraft laser weapons are conceivable within twenty years and laser power could grow into the megawatt range as solid-state and free-electron technology matures, but the limiting factor is the spacecraft rather than the laser: a megawatt solid-state laser at about 25 percent wall-plug efficiency draws at least 4 megawatts and leaves roughly 3 megawatts of heat to store and dissipate.Summary, p. v; Projection of Future HEL Weapon Capability, pp. 23–24
What to watch
The way in
https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/dia/AAWSAP-DIRDs/DIRD_23-DIRD_State_of_the_Art_and_Evolution_of_High-Energy_Laser_Weapons.pdfA Defense Intelligence Reference Document produced for the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications programme, marked UNCLASSIFIED / FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY and dated 31 March 2010 with an information cut-off of 1 December 2009. Released under FOIA and served in full by the DIA electronic reading room and by The Black Vault, where it is filed as DIRD 23. The report carries a copyright warning against further dissemination of its photographs.
How to cite it
J. Albertine / DIA (2010) State of the Art and Evolution of High Energy Laser Weapons (the withheld 38th DIRD). https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/dia/AAWSAP-DIRDs/DIRD_23-DIRD_State_of_the_Art_and_Evolution_of_High-Energy_Laser_Weapons.pdf
Where it sits in the curriculum