Aucbvax.1898
fa.arms-d
utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!REM@MIT-MC
Tue Jun 23 19:30:30 1981
New info about LASER test (anti-missile etc.)
This is all from the network news (ABC I think), Washington DC report,
but some of you may have missed it.
(1) Last month the second test of a LASER fired from an airplane hitting
a missile failed to destroy it, but tonight it was reported that the
missile WAS damaged a moderate amount by high heat, so it shows the test
to be partially successful, LASER anti-missile and anti-sattelite weapons,
both airborne and on satellies, are indeed feasible.
(2) But it will be at least 20 years before they can be developed to be
used to defend us against ICBMs etc.  (Thus we may forget about them in
the forseeable future, they won't stop a full-nuclear-exchange that many
of us fear will happen during the 1980's, we gotta work on some other plan
if we except to survive to the next century.)

I don't see why it would take 20 years to do the engineering and deployment,
even the shuttle took only about ten years, but then I've always
underestimated R&D time so maybe it'll really take that long, sigh.


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