Approach of the hand-held ray gun

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32460, 21 November 1970, Page 13

Approach of the hand-held ray gun

(By BRUCE SANDHAM) Once they were a figment of artists’ imaginations; the men who, for years, have drawn the space adventure strips in schoolboy comic papers. Faced with the problem of depicting gun battles between the earth heroes and the hostile aliens from other worlds, they could not very well settle for conventional bul-let-firing. So they equipped the goodies and baddies with ray guns. Strangely, though scientists have largely turned space fiction into fact, the plain, simple hand - held death-ray gun has defeated them. But not, it seems, for very much longer. American scientists at Cornell University believe they have scored the breakthrough to make it possible. Laser as weapon The problem until now has not been the ray itself—that was discovered 10 years ago when the laser beam was bom. The snag has been to eliminate the bulky electrical equipment needed to produce the beams. So the Cornell researchers decided to look for other means of producing them, and, by all accounts, they have succeeded. They have discovered how to produce laser beams from chemical reaction. Ever since the laser beam first burst on an astonished scientific world, there has been speculation on their ultimate use as a weapon. And though, unlike space fiction, lasers can not actually disintegrate matter, they can be beamed as far-reach-ing deadly accurate weapons without noise or fuss of any kind. Indeed, large fixed laser

“guns” are already believed to be in existence. "Aviation Week,” the aerospace journal that has a habit of revealing United States military secrets, has reported that unmanned aircraft has already been shot down by a laser beam. And by the end of this year, apparently, a laser test ground near Kirtland will be practising on more planes. Yet just a few years ago, most scientists believed that the enormous charge of electricity necessary to produce the precisely-defined beam of radiation precluded its use as a weapon. It could be used as an industrial cutting tool—far faster and more accurate than oxy-acetylene—and even have a place in fine surgery, they said. But as weaponry, it was impractical. Recent events have proved them wrong. Certainly, the United States Air Force has given the lie to the scientists who once ridiculed the concept of lasers as weapons. Possible uses Since 1959, the United States Air Force has poured vast sums of money into high energy laser research. Next year they are contributing another £3.5 million because they feel they have harnessed the "death-ray,” and that it’s now just a question of perfecting it. The possibilities of using lasers to destroy low-flying missiles, to disable and destroy aircraft through igniting their fuel, and to disable fuse mechanisms and homing or detection devices are all considered likely. The big advantage with lasers is that they send their pinhead of intense heat at the speed of light, so they hit their target at virtually the same instant they are fired. Already, airlines flying over the United States have been warned to avoid certain areas in California, Texas, and Arizona, in which laser beams are being aimed at the moon for measuring purposes. These beams would not destroy an aircraft, but they could damage eyesight. Lasers can also be used as a “clean” H-bomb trigger

with the result that there is scarcely any radio-active fall-out. But as laser research forges ahead, it is giving law-enforcement agencies the world over a big headache: how to prevent laser apparatus, capable of cutting through vaults and safe doors, from falling into criminal hands. It clearly doesn’t require a lot of thought to imagine what a laser beam could do to a human being if it can cut through solid steeL Police fears would appear to be completely justified, for they actually uncovered a laser machine in Britain’s Broadmoor gaol when they were clearing out the cell of a prisoner who had died of cancer. The inmate, who had been committed to Broadmoor 25 years earlier for double murder, had built it himself . . . from bits and pieces of electronic equipment. And the prison staff watched aghast when an officer in his ignorance switched it on to discover that it was capable of slicing through half-inch steel and certainly capable of killing anyone standing in front of it. Frightening The frightening thing, as a laser firm chief, Dr. Paul Cook, has pointed out, is that a laser can be made from “bits and pieces that anyone with a bit of know-how can get from Government surplus and electronic shops for about £25.” Police are also concerned about the use of lasers in industrial espionage. For process of holography, which utilises the laser beam, will soon make it possible to monitor conversations from hundreds of yards away through closed windows that would act as “diaphrams.” But for the comic strip fans, a laser won’t really be a laser until it’s the handheld ray gun their space heroes carry a weapon capable of frizzling an enemy at the squeeze of the trigger. By the look of things particularly in the light of th.e breakthrough by the Cornell scientists they will not have to wait very much longer