Episode 1289
Project Excalibur
Sat, 2020-Nov-14 00:05 UTC
Length - 4:10
Direct Link
Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.
The featured article for Saturday, 14 November 2020 is Project Excalibur.
Project Excalibur was a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) Cold War–era research program to develop an X-ray laser as a ballistic missile defense (BMD) for the United States. The concept involved packing large numbers of expendable X-ray lasers around a nuclear device. When the device detonated, the X-rays released by the bomb would be focused by the lasers, each of which would be aimed at a target missile. When detonated in space, the lack of atmosphere to block the X-rays allowed attacks on missiles thousands of kilometers away.
Excalibur appeared to offer an enormous leap forward in BMD performance. Previously, missile-based anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems faced the problem that they attack the warheads, not the ICBMs that launch them; a single ICBM could carry multiple warheads in a MIRV system, so if the attacker added a single new missile to their fleet, dozens of interceptors would have to be built to counter it. Excalibur would attack the missiles before the warheads separated, and a single Excalibur contained as many as fifty lasers and could potentially shoot down a corresponding number of missiles. A single additional Excalibur would require dozens of ICBMs to counter it, dramatically reversing the cost-exchange ratio that had previously doomed ABM systems.
The basic concept behind Excalibur was conceived in the 1970s by George Chapline Jr. and further developed by Peter L. Hagelstein, both part of Edward Teller's "O-Group" in LLNL. After a successful test in 1980, in 1981 Teller and Lowell Wood began talks with US president Ronald Reagan about the concept. These talks, combined with strong support from a like-minded group who met at the Heritage Foundation, were a major part of the series of events that ultimately led Reagan to announce the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in 1983. Further underground nuclear tests through the early 1980s suggested progress was being made, and this influenced the 1986 Reykjavík Summit, where Reagan refused to give up the possibility of proof-testing SDI technology with nuclear testing in space. Researchers at Livermore and Los Alamos began to raise concerns about the test results. Teller and Wood continued to state the program was proceeding well, even after a critical test in 1985 demonstrated it was not working as expected. This led to significant criticism within the US weapons laboratories. In 1987, the infighting became public, leading to an investigation on whether LLNL had misled the government about the Excalibur concept. In a 60 Minutes interview in 1988, Teller attempted to walk out rather than answer questions about the lab's treatment of a fellow worker who questioned the results. Further tests revealed additional problems, and in 1988 the budget was cut dramatically. The project officially continued until 1992 when its last planned test, Greenwater, was cancelled.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:05 UTC on Saturday, 14 November 2020.
For the full current version of the article, see Project Excalibur on Wikipedia.
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This has been Brian Standard. Thank you for listening to featured Wiki of the Day.
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