Los Alamos Wins Laser War...
An outbreak of pragmatism in the Defense Department’s “Star Wars” program has tipped the balance toward Los Alamos National Lab in its 10-year competition with Lawrence Livermoew National Labs to develop a ground-based free-electron laser. in October, the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization picked Los Alamos and its partner, Boeing Aerospace and Electronics, for the $500 million project. The decision will mean $75 million over the next five years for basic work by Los Alamos scientists, and $425. million for Boeing engineers to develop the design. The key factor appears to be a February decision by SDIO to settle on a laser that produces only one tenth as much power as had been originally planned, and less than one hundredth the level a 1987 American Physical Society report calculatqd as needed for strategic defense. That report found that a ground-based free-electron laser must be capable of...