1979 Senator Malcolm Wallop Wyoming Initiates the DARPA Triad

To solve the technical challenges mentioned on the previous slide, three programs were established

1. Talon Gold – to develop the acquisition, pointing, and tracking for a space based platform
2. Alpha – to develop a high extraction high power chemical laser
3. LODE (Large optics demonstration experiment) to develop a large deployable laser quality telescope

1980-1985 Talon Gold Accomplishments

Talon Gold was a cooperative venture involving DARPA for the flight payload and the Air Force Space Test Program for the gimbaled pointing device and the space shuttle ride. Not mentioned was an implicit assumption that a second program would develop the gimbaled pointing device and that the design would be replicated for Talon Gold. Unfortunately, the second program disappeared and the Air Force funding for Talon Gold was removed.

The contract with Lockheed Missiles and Space was put into partial termination while additional funding was sought for the pointer. During the two years of partial termination the design of the Talon Gold payload was completed and components of the flight experiment were completed. Since the funding for the pointer never materialized, the contract was terminated with the exception of a “Talon Gold Ground Experiment.”

Talon Gold Ground Experiment was performed using the developed flight components arranged on an air-bearing table in a vacuum chamber. Vibration in the experiment were attenuated by mounting the entire vacuum chamber on spring-and-dashpot isolators. Light from a HeNe laser passed through a simulated gimbal to a forward body isolated from the gimbal by a one-axis magnetic bearing. The laser was co-aligned with a visible tracker using a pseudo-star arrangement. The laser was stabilized using a fast steering mirror controlled by an inertial angle sensor.

The Talon Gold Ground Experiment met the original contract specifications for the flight experiment as allocated to the components tested in the limited ground arrangement.

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I would like to thank Bill Putnam, the Talon Gold program manager for the Air Force  for sending me the above description on November 9, 2019

1980-1989 Alpha Laser Accomplishments

The Alpha Laser overcomes the short length of the combustion zone by wrapping the nozzle into a cylinder. Special rotationally symmetric
optical components are needed to map a ring or annulus shaped beam
into a circular beam.

Using this approach, the Alpha laser demonstrator produced megawatt class laser beams with good beam quality.

However, the DF and HF molecules had many gain lines over a one micron wide spectrum. The propagation through the atmosphere was limited by chromatic aberration and thermal blooming. Since the Alpha laser was targeted for space application, this was not a problem.

1983 Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative Speech

March 23, 1983 – Strategic Defense Initiative announced

Spawned several approaches:

• X-ray lasers –Neutral Particle Beams

• Homing Overlay Experiment

• Rail gun –Space Based Interceptor

• Space Based Chemical Laser

After the establishment of SDI by President Ronald Reagan, SBL development is turned over from DARPA to SDIO.

X-Ray Laser

Technically, the nuclear pumped X-ray laser was a space based laser concept, but it was so radically different from the DARPA Triad, it was just called the X-ray laser

• 1972 – Jello X-ray laser debacle
  An x-ray laser was pre-maturely announced in 1972 see this.
• 1975 – Chapline and Wood wrote atheoretical paper on an X-ray laser pumped by a nuclear explosion
• 1978 – A full nuclear test was performed, but it failed. Afterward, Edward Teller was enlisted to sell nuclear pumped X-ray laser
• 1980 - Chapline’s idea of nuclear pumped X-ray laser test, Dauphin, was successful
• 1983 - Tests continue with formation of SDIO, (Project Excalibur) but Reagan backed the Alpha chemical laser instead
• Any remaining interest shifted to Free Electron Laser

Neutral Particle Beam

The neutral particle beam was an alternative to a laser. It consisted of relativistic velocity subatomic particles (protons) neutralized by electrons. In essence, hydrogen atoms.

• 1970s Chair Heritage and Sipapu project demonstrated high energy charged particle beam could be neutralized. (As reported by Tom Mangold on the BBC program Panorama)
• Generally a proton beam is fired through an electron source creating neutral hydrogen atoms
• 1980s Pointing, blooming and other beam control problems never solved
• In 1990 BEAR (Beam Experiment Aboard a Rocket) achieved about 1 milliradian beam vergence. Far too large a beam spread for strategic use.

CHECMATE Hypervelocity Rail Gun

The Compact High Energy Capacitor Module Advance Technology Experiment achieved muzzle velocities of >2.4 km/second and fired 2 projectiles per day.

Survivability of the rails and the projectiles was the main technological hurdle. So much energy went into each that they had a tendency to melt.

1983 Space Based Interceptor

• The Space Based Interceptor used watermelon sized projectiles based in orbiting stations to kinetically kill enemy warheads.
• The approach was often called “hitting the missile with a smart rock.”
• Later it was theorized that a smaller rock with more intelligence could be used. This gave rise to the “Brilliant Pebbles” program.

Meanwhile, back at the Space Based laser Programs

1983-1987 Space Based Laser ("Reagan's Ray Gun")

• Talon Gold was quickly terminated due contractual issues. It was replaced by programs like R2P2 (DIPS) and HABE.
• Meanwhile Alpha and LODE soldiered on, proving high energy lasers and large optics were feasible.
• Reagan understood that the alternative approaches were not very mature and secretly based the SDI approach on the most mature technology – the Alpha chemical laser
• He initiated a special access program to get a high energy chemical laser in space as soon as possible (see Zenith Star.)
• The Alpha Laser and the LODE telescope along with the beam control system were integrated together at the TRW Capistrano Test Site in a program called ALI (Alpha-Lamp integration). This was a very successful program and led to the SBLRD.

1983-1987 DIPS

• Another laboratory test of the ATP system under dynamic load was called Dynamic Inertial Pointing System.
• The unfortunate acronym was changed when it was renamed Rapid Retargeting and Precision Pointing (R2P2) to reflect the main concern with the evolving mission to defend against 2000 simultaneously launched Soviet missiles
• Space Based Laser was transferred to the newly formed Strategic Defense Initiative Office (SDIO) after Reagan’s “Star Wars” speech. The name R2P2 was an embarrassment to Gen. Abramson because it sounded like the Star Wars droid R2D2.
• R2P2 was executed by Martin Marietta in Denver

Jack Anderson writes about Zenith Star

• Lt. Gen. James Abramson, head of SDI Office sold Reagan on the Zenith Star approach as being the most technically mature SDIO project in mid-1986
• Dec. 17, 1986 Reagan and Weinberger insist that Zenith Star be a “black program”
• Zenith Star Phase 1, January-May 1987 was a full SAP
• Zenith Star Phase 2 was down graded to collateral Secret
• Anderson column (November 15, 1987) insists that it was to prevent Democrats in the Senate from knowing about it (and possibly defunding it) See also: here AND THEN THERE WAS ZENITH STAR
• In one article, it is claimed that Zenith Star won the cold war: here Zenith Star: the Space Laser That Won the Cold War