X-ray lasers and Project Excalibur

M

Maury Markowitz

From the Great White North!
Joined
27 February 2014
Messages
211
Reaction score
172
Hi everyone,

I'm getting ready to A-class the article on Project Excalibur, the SDI-era x-ray laser efforts at LLNL. If anyone is interested in this topic, I'd love your comments on it!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excalibur

I am particularly concerned that the sources I have access to in the public, especially the more "historical overview" type, are generally slanted against the project. There appear to be two ways to read the entire history:

1) the system never worked and they were fooling themselves because of instrumentation errors

2) the system worked, but was not powerful/effective/practical enough to be useful as a weapon

So if anyone knows of sources that are more favourable to the program, ones written after it when this stuff became public, I'd love to see it!
 
I'm assuming you've read Star Warriors?

https://www.amazon.com/Star-Warriors-Penetrating-Scientists-Weaponry/dp/0788151150

(I was a bit surprised that the chief scientist behind the X-ray laser seemed to be anti-defense, and was hoping to see it used for medical purposes.)
 
Yeah, I did read that. It is interesting to contrast that book with his next one on the topic, Teller's War. Teller's War basically puts all of SDI on Teller's overselling of Excalibur during the 81/82 time-frame. But there are many who disagree with that, not the lest of which was Teller. That's why I have that section at the end, because I think Broad's view needs some context.
 
Maury Markowitz said:
Hi everyone,

I'm getting ready to A-class the article on Project Excalibur,
Click to expand...

What does "A-class" an article mean?
 
Original link above is dead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excalibur
Teller political shenanigans were pretty unbelievable. Also his techno-optimism.
Abraham Maslow wrote in 1966, "it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."
Click to expand...

Teller "It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a nuclear explosives, to treat everything as a Project Plowshare." LMAO.
(oil extraction, new ports, new canals, fusion powerplants...)
 
Last edited:
There may be a link between Project EXCALIBUR and the W71 enhanced X-Ray warhead for SPARTAN or the proposed Wxx for IMPROVED SPARTAN.

Cary Sublette believes that there is a strong case to be made that W71 had directional features to enhance/extend the lethality of the X-Ray effects.

We know that the SPARTAN warheads were kept in service "officially" in the stockpile until they were retired in 1992. It's not a stretch to think that the know-how was used for bomb-pumped X-Ray lasers in the 1980s.
 
I myself believe that while W71 may have had some limited directionality "enhancers"; it was still largely an omnidirectional warhead; because of the stated SOP to destroy large threat clouds (chaff/decoys/RVs).

However, IMPROVED SPARTAN would have reduced the yield from 5MT to 1MT; to allow for a lighter third stage which could be restarted mid-flight; giving it a much longer range.

Both IMPROVED and "Old" Spartan would have co-existed in the SAFEGUARD system. This strongly suggests to me that IMPROVED SPARTAN's warhead (which there were proposals for) was much more directional than the W71, in order to achieve 5MT lethality effects at distance on 1MT yields, albeit in a forward "cone" of death.
 
RyanC said:
There may be a link between Project EXCALIBUR and the W71 enhanced X-Ray warhead for SPARTAN or the proposed Wxx for IMPROVED SPARTAN.

Cary Sublette believes that there is a strong case to be made that W71 had directional features to enhance/extend the lethality of the X-Ray effects.

We know that the SPARTAN warheads were kept in service "officially" in the stockpile until they were retired in 1992. It's not a stretch to think that the know-how was used for bomb-pumped X-Ray lasers in the 1980s.
Click to expand...

Well the Wikipedia entry says that George Chapline came with the Excalibur concept through underground nuclear testing of warheads. Where the X-rays were separated from the blast by big steel doors. This drove Chapline toward the nuclear-pumped idea. The said warheads might very well have been W71.

Chapline had learned of the unique underground nuclear tests made on behalf of the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA), where the burst of X-rays produced by the nuclear reactions were allowed to travel down a long tunnel while the blast itself was cut off by large doors that slammed shut as the explosion approached. These tests were used to investigate the effects of X-rays from exoatmospheric nuclear explosions on reentry vehicles. He realized this was a perfect way to pump an X-ray laser. In the DNA tests, the reentry vehicle had to be retrieved for study after the test, which demanded the complex system of protective doors and other techniques that made these tests very expensive. For the X-ray laser test, all of this could be ignored, as the laser was designed to be destroyed in the explosion.
Click to expand...

My understanding is that W71 produced shit tons of X-rays going all over the place to fry and kill missiles. Excalibur for its part attempted to channel that mass of X-rays into a single, massively powerful beam.
 
As I understand it, the issue with Excalibur itself was that each xaser rod needed its own targeting systems. This was when guidance was the expensive part.

So instead of one missile guidance system and one W71 to fuel it, you'd have dozens of optical guidance systems, maybe even 100 separate optical guidance systems, a missile guidance system, and that W71.

Utterly unaffordable for the time.
 
Maury Markowitz said:
Hi everyone,

I'm getting ready to A-class the article on Project Excalibur, the SDI-era x-ray laser efforts at LLNL. If anyone is interested in this topic, I'd love your comments on it!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excalibur
I am particularly concerned that the sources I have access to in the public, especially the more "historical overview" type, are generally slanted against the project. There appear to be two ways to read the entire history:

1) the system never worked and they were fooling themselves because of instrumentation errors

2) the system worked, but was not powerful/effective/practical enough to be useful as a weapon

So if anyone knows of sources that are more favourable to the program, ones written after it when this stuff became public, I'd love to see it!
Click to expand...
the xray laser used in the test named EXCALABUR was the only time Teller got the system to work


the whole idea was to detonate a device and use the plasma as the lazing medium and to chanel the xrays and the final optic would have heads on it that would be in the 100's or 1000's allowing it to target that many targets and hit it with a xray laser


the problem was it detonated a nuke in orbit, look to ARGUS or FISH BOWL to see why that isnt feasable.


Excalibur was one of the last underground tests of a full scale device

with how many wargheads can be launched at a time on suoper heavy life rockets and the 1000's and 1000's of decoys the can deplor with new reenterybodies that can move makes missile defence against a full scale launch of even 20 MIRV'ed missiles would be a nightmare


THAAD isnot a viable defence against nuclear weapons, Russia still has Moscow rinnged with nuclear tipped interceptor missiles like we had with Ajax and Nike


beam weaponry is just starting to be feasible because we have the ability to transmit or create GW's of constant power to say partial beam weapons, or even lasers.


I think it was last year or the one before that where it was shown that a contractor was able to refuel a satalite on orbit.

Nasa has been doing that for a while but i believe spaceX did it with a drone so that makes a lot of far out idea very plausible with the tech we have today
 
Scott Kenny said:
As I understand it, the issue with Excalibur itself was that each xaser rod needed its own targeting systems. This was when guidance was the expensive part.

So instead of one missile guidance system and one W71 to fuel it, you'd have dozens of optical guidance systems, maybe even 100 separate optical guidance systems, a missile guidance system, and that W71.

Utterly unaffordable for the time.
Click to expand...
Also, while missile guidance is a lot cheaper today, I'm not sure how cheap optical guidance systems are these days, relatively speaking.
 
I don't think optics will become cheaper. The mechanics will remain the same for the same size. The CCD chips may become cheaper as technology matures. But for the same reason they are replaced by higher resolution ones which keeps the cost about the same.
The demand for ever expanding optical spectrums will drive cost up, though. I don't see them becoming cheaper until we got like 8k resolution and cover almost the whole optical spectrum.
 
Archibald said:
Well the Wikipedia entry says that George Chapline came with the Excalibur concept through underground nuclear testing of warheads. Where the X-rays were separated from the blast by big steel doors. This drove Chapline toward the nuclear-pumped idea.
Click to expand...
The Huron King underground test June 24 1980? Although they did all sorts of stuff in the U1 Tunnel complex.
 
if i were going to build an orbital defense system

I would make an ultra strong microwave emitter that could heat up the cores so they melt and the geomantic configuration of the nuclear material is distorted and can not make a nuclear explosion

I would power it with a ground based system or use a on orbit nuclear reactor or reactors.

microwaves or other radiation like hard x-rays(that don't need a nuclear blast to power the device) could vaporize the fuel of the bus and maybe even hit the lifting body in the mid course phase.

you don't need to knock 1000's of MaRV's and HGV's when you can destroy the bus fuel tanks.

It is a very very very safe bet that the US and maybe China have LEO 'space planes' that could be equipped with some sort of nuclear or otherwise dense power source and new generation eletronic thrusters like advanced ion drives. You could equip that with a MW or GW LASRER or MASER and be a very early warning system.


SDI is older than i am and I'm 40 so to think that the USAF and the MDA must have weapons that in the 1980's that were in the pipeline like partial beams


now with developments like Wakefield accelerators that can sit on an office desk and put out beams in the far x-ray to gamma range at huge power levels makes me thing that we(the US) have some very very interesting defense measures in LEO
 
Penroc3 said:
the xray laser used in the test named EXCALABUR was the only time Teller got the system to work


the whole idea was to detonate a device and use the plasma as the lazing medium and to chanel the xrays and the final optic would have heads on it that would be in the 100's or 1000's allowing it to target that many targets and hit it with a xray laser


the problem was it detonated a nuke in orbit, look to ARGUS or FISH BOWL to see why that isnt feasable.
Click to expand...
Oh, it's totally feasible. The question is is there a positive cost benefit. A blanket, "no way dude, EMP" is probably not always the correct answer.
 
i never said it was not technically possible

the problem is an induced Kepler syndrome caused by the current orbital density we currently have going around or planet

Even with a specially built nuclear device that is made to focus on heavy Xray and gamma ray emissions and that the weapons would work at lasing in the xray region of the spectrum

but in the moments after the weapons detonates, lazes and then blows itself apart now you have debits traveling at orbital speeds or faster going in all directions in low to medium orbit risking out satellites with parts from the now millions of parts of the satellite that were not vaporized.

the EMP effects are just secondary and for non military stat alites that are hardened against EMP and debits strikes

Xray lasers are a thing and don't need nuclear weapons to laze but they require a lot of very heavy equipment that a satellites would have a hard time getting to orbit as well as a very very dense power source and special optics and xray guides.
 
Penroc3 said:
i never said it was not technically possible

the problem is an induced Kepler syndrome caused by the current orbital density we currently have going around or planet

Even with a specially built nuclear device that is made to focus on heavy Xray and gamma ray emissions and that the weapons would work at lasing in the xray region of the spectrum

but in the moments after the weapons detonates, lazes and then blows itself apart now you have debits traveling at orbital speeds or faster going in all directions in low to medium orbit risking out satellites with parts from the now millions of parts of the satellite that were not vaporized.
Click to expand...
The warhead with the xaser rods on it leaves no long-lasting threat to other satellites. Every part of it gets blown to monatomic plasma.



Penroc3 said:
Xray lasers are a thing and don't need nuclear weapons to laze but they require a lot of very heavy equipment that a satellites would have a hard time getting to orbit as well as a very very dense power source and special optics and xray guides.
Click to expand...
You can technically make a xaser using a free-electron laser, but even using a plasma wakefield accelerator you're looking at needing several hundred yards worth of accelerator distance!
 
https://www.researchgate.net/figure...-a-few-hundred-MeV-a-A-typical_fig2_243391019
Here is a tabletop Wakefield accelerator that can pulse lasers in the X-ray bandwidth up to 50GW per pulse and they are woking on TeV pulses that can fit on a lab table.

Yes in the past using radio waves as an oscillator for the beam line but now with femtoswcond extreamly powerful pulses it is by no means a handheld device but if they can put satellites onto a stabile orbit I would bet you with a few billion dollars would solve the problwm

The one concession I am will to give is a dense power source for more than one shot

I apologize for the long paper but there are pictures and it’s a good read
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom