A New Old Use for Lasers

Remember the 80s: big hair, mullets, questionable rock music, Reaganomics? I think my most enduring memory of the 80s was President Ronald Regan’s Berlin Wall speech on June 12, 1987, in which he exhorted Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall had stood as a metaphor to the differences between the United States and the Soviet Union—democracy verses communism—from its construction in August, 1961 to its opening by East Germany in November, 1989 to its demolition by the end of 1990.

I think the fall of the Berlin Wall was symbolic of the fall of communism in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). I’m not an historian but it is my belief that Ronald Reagan’s policies were the reason the USSR abandoned communism; he spent them into submission. He increased military expenditure to a level the USSR couldn’t match.

One lynchpin of Reagan’s policy included the military research for Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), commonly referred to as the Star Wars defense. The idea was to create a blanket of lasers to shoot down enemy nuclear warhead missiles. I remember the idea’s viability had encountered a lot of skepticism. The suggestion that lasers could render a country impervious to another country’s most powerful weapons sounded like the stuff science fiction writers made up.

According to Technovelgy.com, the first use of a laser weapon in fiction is the heat ray from H.G. Wells, “War of the Worlds,” published in 1898. “Forthwith flashes of actual flame, a bright glare leaping from one to another, sprang from the scattered group of men. It was as if some invisible jet impinged upon them and flashed into white flame. It was as if each man were suddenly and momentarily turned to fire” (Web edition of The War of the Worlds, John Walker, 1995).

Lasers are more than staples of science fiction weaponry. They have become integral parts of American industry. My own company employed a laser to cut fiberglass cloth used in the production of aircraft hardware. The laser was quicker and produced a more uniform pattern than cutting with handheld shears.

SDI lasers may be closer than we think. In the event a meteor threatened earth, DVICE .com reports that engineers at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow are developing an idea that would allow humans to deflect that meteor. A series of solar powered, mini-lasers in orbit would vaporize bits of rock on the surface of an asteroid to generate tiny puffs of thrust. Enough puffs over enough time would start to alter the orbit of a meteor, and with enough lasers working together, it could be accomplished on short notice.

Even the most farfetched concepts might come to fruition if you dare to put it out there for someone to come up with an educated plan. Even Reagan was on to something back in 1987.

What do you think; couldn't lasers used to deflect space rocks also deflect missiles?