Death Ray Dreamin'

Here's more budgetary goodies for Future Combat from DARPA.

Tonight, let's talk particle beam weapons. Most of the light saber spending is listed under the general heading Advanced Tactical Technology. Again, the costs presented here are for one year of a five year plan, 2006.

Advanced Tactical Technology TT-06... FY 2006... $95.849 million

Mission Description:
This project focuses on three broad technology areas: (a) compact, efficient, frequency-agile, diode-pumped, solid-state lasers for infrared countermeasures, laser radar, holographic laser sensors, communications, and high-power laser applications; (b) high performance computational algorithms for signal processing, target recognition and tracking, electromagnetic propagation, and processing of advanced materials and microelectronics; (c) enabling technologies for advanced aerospace systems and emerging payload delivery concepts. Additionally, this project will develop new tactical systems for enhanced air vehicle survivability, precision optics, electronic warfare, advanced air breathing weapons and training superiority systems. Studies under this project examine innovative approaches to non-invasive weapons detection, the use of laser and fiber-optic technologies to increase the survivability and lethality of existing systems, and the development of miniaturized and technologically advanced sensors, algorithms, and devices for monitoring assets.

Sounds harmelss enough. Let's break it up some.

High Power Fiber Lasers $10.606 million
The High Power Fiber Lasers program will develop and demonstrate single mode, sin gle polarization fiber lasers with output powers greater than one kilowatt from a single aperture. Tens of kilowatts output power and capability to scale to greater than hundreds of kilowatts output power and beyond will be demonstrated through coherent combining of the output power from multiple fiber lasers. High power fiber lasers will provide a quantum leap in defense capabilities by simplifying the logistic train and providing a deep magazine, limited only by electric power, in a compact footprint. For theater/area defense and self-protection of combat platforms, they will provide speed of light engagement and flexible response against cruise missiles, reconnaissance unmanned air vehicles (UAVs), and rockets.

High Powered Femto Second Laser Diodes $4 million
The development of high power, reliable semiconductor laser diodes with tunable femtosecond pulse widths and highly scalable power levels, represents a technological advance of great potential utility to the Department of Defense. The successful demonstration of a compact, efficient, and powerful laser diode system could lead to incredible advances in micromachining, communications, ultra-short pulse spectroscopy, light detection and ranging (lidar), and directed energy applications.
- Model and evaluate concepts for ultra-short pulse, high irradiance laser diodes and select mode locked grating coupled surface emitting laser diodes (GCSEL) and semiconductor optical amplification using chirped pulse amplification and compression.
- Develop a series of GCSEL-based ultra-short pulse, ultra-high power lasers culminating in a 1 milliJoule/200 femtosecond per pulse laser system with a 10 kHz repetition rate that can fit into a shoebox. This represents a seven order of magnitude jump in the performance of semiconducting laser diodes.

Wow. 10.000,000x stronger than your average laser.
- Develop and demonstrate technology for portable (backpack and small vehicle -mounted), efficient high-peak power, ultra-short pulse laser systems, enabling a range of DoD applications requiring mobile, high power laser sources.
...and you can carry it with you...

Super High Efficiency Diode Sources (SHEDS) $4.288 million
The goal of the SHEDS program is to develop laser diodes that are 80% efficient in converting electrical power to optical power. These will be used for supplying the optical power to ytterbium (Yb) and neodymium (Nd) solid state lasers operating near 1060 nm. Such high efficiency laser pumps for these solid state lasers will lead to dramatic reductions in the size and weight of 100kW class diode pumped solid state lasers.

...or scale up for fighter-mounted laser cannon...

High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System (HELLADS) $20 million
The goal of the High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System (HELLADS) program is to develop a high-energy laser weapon system (~150 kW) with an order of magnitude reduction in weight compared to existing laser systems. With a weight goal of less than 5 kg/kW, HELLADS will enable high-energy lasers (HELs) to be integrated onto tactical aircraft and UAVs and will significantly increase engagement ranges compared to ground-based systems. This program initiative will investigate and validate a revolutionary laser design that enables a lightweight HEL weapon system. HELLADS will design, fabricate and test a prototype laser. A laboratory demonstration of key performance parameters will be performed, followed by the fabrication and testing of a subscale HEL laser. Once key weapon system parameters have been demonstrated, a full-scale 150 kW HEL weapon system will be fabricated and demonstrated. Finally, the 150 kW HEL will be integrated into a surrogate aircraft and key performance parameters will be demonstrated.

Now, once upon a time, they had an idea of mounting these monstrosities on satellites to knock down missiles in the air (remember?)

The only problem is that coherent light weapons are notoriously inefficient in the air. They spend (waste) a lot of energy heating up the air they pass through. But they're still trying to figure out ways around this. Hence this item:
Laser Star $2.8 million
The Laser Star program will investigate technologies and techniques for improving laser guide star generation for adaptive optics atmospheric compensation of laser propagation. Current technology makes use of either stratospheric Rayleigh backscatter or mesospheric sodium resonance scattering. These techniques have been utilized to successfully demonstrate strategies for wavefront compensation, but suffer from practical restrictions limiting operational utility. Rayleigh guide stars can be effectively generated to altitudes of 15 – 20 km, beyond which decreasing air densities reduce the backscatter to the point where unrealistic laser powers are required for useful return signal. The altitude is insufficient to provide full atmospheric sampling and suffers from sensor/target signal cancellation. Sodium resonance scattering is available to 90 km, which is an essentially complete atmosphere sample, but the return is monochromatic and cannot provide information about turbulenceinduced absolute tilt. Laser Star technologies are being developed to overcome these shortfalls.

Too bad- so it looks like all this technology is being developed for naught- until you consider that a small hand-held, shoulder mounted, or a not so small vehicle mounted laser could prove terribly accurate and devastating weapon over a shorter range of, say, a few hundred yards...

So what's the rest of the budget for?

Coherent Communications, Imaging and Targeting $6..2 million
High Performance Algorithm Development/Virtual Electromagnetic Test Range $11.471 million
Integrated Sensing and Processing $5 million
Training Superiority $15.542 million
Language and Speech Exploitation of Resources Advanced Concept Technology Demo $132 thousand
Architecture for Diode High Energy Laser Systems $4 million
Rapid Checkpoint Screening $4.46 million


Software and training to use these marvels...

And almost as an afterthought
Air Laser $3.344 million
The Air Laser program will investigate the potential for a high energy laser (HEL) concept based on direct diode pumping of liquid oxygen. If successful, the Air Laser could provide a safe, efficient kilowatt-class HEL which combines the advantages of chemical and solid state lasers and minimizes the disadvantages: it operates in the eye-safe wavelength regime; it uses liquid air as the gain medium and as the diode array coolant, resulting in the reduction or elimination of a separate thermal control system; the use of efficient, high energy density diode pump sources, results in a compact device much smaller than either chemical or solid state lasers; and its pulse length is variable from continuous to subpicosecond, allowing flexibility in weapons effects.

I suppose if you're trying to claim your neat new weapons are for communications it pays to have one that's safe to use in the eye-safe wavelength range and not an x-ray, infra red, or a microwave... but that you can scale up to blast intensity, too...

This item isn't even a laser... it's a rail gun. And the name must've been dreamed up by a sick sense of humor

Slingatron $3 million
The Slingatron program will use modern engineering and physics concepts to accelerate masses to extremely high velocities. This mechanical mass acceleration concept, based on using centripetal body forces, is fundamentally different from electro-magnetic accelerators and hence avoids the limitations of those machines. Initial studies have demonstrated the fundamental feasibility of the Slingatron concept. This program will explore the concept’s bounding limits and seek to develop uses for the technology within those limits. Included in this program will be studies of the key technologies that will allow the accelerator to achieve very high projectile energies.

... and speaking of microwave...

Photonic High Power Microwave System $1 million
The goal of the Photonic High Power Microwave System program is to develop and demonstrate a highly compact high power microwave system capable of multiple waveforms and scaleable in power from the Gigawatt to Terawatt range. The enabling technology is the implementation of optically driven switches integrated directly into the radiating array structure. This technology will enable tactical air, land, and sea platforms to address directed energy missions ranging from electronic attack to anti-ship missile defeat.

All in all, these items produce weapons, alright, but weapons that are straight out, no nonsense get down and dirty weapons. You can't hide or fudge a laser: It either does what you want, or doesn't. Hardware's nice like that.

But like the robotics budget, there's a lot of this that isn't testable, you-get-bang-for-your-buck hardware. Of $95.849 million for FY2006, $46.805 goes for systems development, that is, "software," the better to target you with, my dear.

But of all the items I've scanned on this budget, the energy weapons seem the most honest.

If you can ever call killing machines honest.