Race to develop ‘death ray’

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34037, 29 December 1975, Page 13

Race to develop ‘death ray’

N.Z.P.A.-Reut er—Cop yright-) LONDON. December 27.

The United States and the Soviet Union are probably locked in a race to develop a space-age (“death ray” or high-j energy laser weapon, according to the respected reference book. “Jane’s Weapons Systems.”

Such a weapon could be used to knock out an opponent’s satellites or to destroy incoming enemy warheads while they' are still outside the earth’s atmosphere, says the book’s editor. Mr Ronaid Pretty. Tn a foreword to the 1976 edition, to be published in London on Monday, Mr Pretty says that United States Department of Defence publications have made guarded (references to high-energy laser research, while there is a virtual Soviet silence on the subject.

But. he adds: “Probably ... these two Powers are locked ■in a costly ‘super-scientific’ (struggle to be first with a practical laser weapon capable of destroying a military target solely by means of the energy the laser is able to generate and transmit to the target — in fact the ‘death ray’ so beloved of generations of fiction writers.”

Lasers, which produce an extremely narrow and powerful beantof light, are already used in some military gun sights. “Jane's” quotes Dr Malcolm Currie, the United States Director of Defence

Research and Engineering, as, confirming that the Soviet: Union has made a large investment in high-energy lasers. Dr Currie says that from a scientific point of view the two Powers are running neck and neck in laser develop-, merit, but he believes the United States is a little ahead in some areas, such as structures, materials, and fabrication techniques. Turning to the use of lasers as a weapon, Mr Pretty writes that this would depend a great deal on how

(Compact they could be made. He says that a laser would operate most efficiently in the absence of an atmosphere, suggesting that, it might be specially suitable for use in space — provided that problems of size and weight could (be overcome. Mr Pretty says two pos-i sible military applications in space could be: For disabling an opponent’s reconnaissance, early warning, communications or other satellites. As part of a future anti-

ballistic missile system for intercepting and destroying incoming warheads while still outside the earth’s atmosphere.

The book adds that if highenergy laser weapons turned out to be unsuitable for operations in space, they would probably find a ready welcome by navies if they could offer a defence against antiship missiles. This would depend on their j ability to transmit sufficient j destructive energy through I moist, salt-laden atmosphere.