Word: laser
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Ordinary light, whether from the sun or a 60-watt bulb, consists of a jumble of electromagnetic waves of different frequencies. But a laser-for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation-generates a beam whose waves all have the same frequency and are perfectly synchronized so as to reinforce each other. Beams from very powerful lasers can burn through hardened steel...
...most high-power lasers the beams emerge from tubes containing mixtures of gases that have been "pumped" by intense bursts of electricity or flashes of light. If the gas in the tube is a helium-neon mix, the laser produces a red beam; a mercury-bromine mix yields a green streak, and other vapors generate other shades. All beams are made up of bundles of electromagnetic energy called photons. Because the photons barely spread out as they move, the beam can achieve pinpoint accuracy...
American HELS are coming. In about two years the Navy is scheduled to test its Sea Lite laser system: generating more than two megawatts of power, enough to meet the electrical needs of a town of 7,500, Sea Lite is supposed to be capable of knocking out numbers of attacking missiles in quick succession. The laser will be five times more powerful than any built in the U.S. so far. In CPB development, however, the U.S. appears to be five to seven years behind the Soviets...
...Lasers are not perfect weapons. Fog and reflective surfaces tend to diffuse or deflect their beam; they cannot cripple a target unless they focus on it for a sizable fraction of a second-a long time in missile warfare. To accomplish this, precision aiming is required. A study conducted at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico shows that an aiming angle correct to less than six one hundred thousandths of one degree must be rapidly achieved if a laser is to hit a missile 5,000 km (3,100 miles) away. Such precision is beyond existing technology...
...salvage operation ("He'll only take a crack at something if it sounds impossible; otherwise he wants no part of it," says Admiral Robards of his mercenary friend). And David Selby is Dr. Seagram, a scientist who, somewhat inexplicably, learned enough at Cal Poly to both devise the laser shield and figure out how to find the Titanic. There is even a woman, Anne Archer, who plays a reporter for The Washington Star...