General ABRAHAMSON. I would like to build on what Mr. Gardner has laid out in terms of the status of some parts of the program, indicate areas where we are putting emphasis, including some of the space-based survivability issues and some of the ideas we are aiming at. In addition, I'd like to point out some of the rather unique things that we have found on the side that are beginning to come out of what I now regard as some of the most creative phases of the program itself. I would like to build on that and lay out some of our scheduling. We are assuming that we will be able to maintain a reasonably planned funding profile in some of these programs.

If you recall, I indicated that the Fletcher Commission started with a series of technical roadmaps. Many of those technical roadmaps included things like this where they are looking at very, very specific technical problems. These were funded separately as a specific technical problem and now in some cases we are taking these and putting them into an integrated program.

We are not giving up this emphasis on fundamental technology; that is the key to someday making such a thing affordable as well as effective, but we are consolidating both management and project size where it makes sense to do so.

You will recall that in the architecture John Gardner laid out, one of the most important things is to be able to destroy a missile very, very quickly in the boost phase.

One of the most attractive technologies, not only how it fits into the architecture, but also in the progress we have made, and we have made incredible progress, is in what we have called the freeelectron laser. We have pulled together a large number of free-electronic laser technologies and put them into a single program. I will briefly define how a free-electron laser works.

[Chart deleted.]

The key point here is that this is an integrated program building on the demonstrated progress at Livermore of the largest and most efficient of these devices in the world, and by the way, free-electron lasers were only an idea about 3 or 4 years ago. We have made very substantial progress.

So, the first point is that we are pulling many of the basic technologies in, not in all cases, by the way, certainly not in all cases, but in some cases, into integrated technology.

Now, in this case it will be an Army headed integrated experimental program, but it will involve the Air Force for the reflecting mirrors in space which Mr. Gardner talked about. It will involve particularly the scientific team at Livermore and many industrial teams that have supported them in their efforts, and the large systems that we will put at White Sands as an experimental system. [Chart deleted.]

Let me offer you at least a schedule and you can begin to see some idea of the cost. I have not accepted all these costs in the out years, but we have tried to set it up the way we do with all these integrated efforts, so that we have very important key milestones which must be demonstrated before we move ahead in the next phase of the program.

Therefore, we are trying to put together a managerially prudent program, but at the same time one that is aggressive and a challenge to the creativity of the scientists.

Now, the key is that we should be able to have somewhere in this [deleted] time frame a [deleted] laser out at White Sands in an experimental facility. It should be built in such a way that we do not have to make any significant changes to quickly increase the frequency at which this particular laser is operating. You should also be able to demonstrate by the 1990's [deleted] but further than that with just some very minor modifications, not making large changes, you are in the [deleted] of watts of power.

Now, that is the kind that we believe is important. So that you can measure that against as a matter of

Senator WILSON. At some point can you compare what we are doing with what the Soviets are doing at Sary Shagan?

General ABRAHAMSON. The Soviets have at this point, and it is a little hard to tell, somewhere between [deleted]. They are a little older. There are more understood [deleted] types [deleted] located at Sary Shagan which is a test site which is dedicated to antiballistic missiles.

Senator WILSON. Where would you locate their effort on that chart?

General ABRAHAMSON. As I indicated, several of them are in the power level shown here, some are in the [deleted] category.

[Deleted.]

It is the MIRACL laser out at White Sands which we are just now hooking up to a beam director. The beam director is a telescope that allows them to point up in the sky and direct the laser so it can be used as a weapon.

Now, the important point is when I talk in open testimony and say I believe we will have sufficient information so that a reasonable development decision can be made in the [deleted] timeframe, it is based on schedules that are laid out that will have in this case a ground-based laser that is clearly twice as powerful as the largest laser envisioned and talked about in the Fletcher study.

By the way, the Fletcher study talked about this kind of laser being ready after the year 2000, but we believe the progress has been so significant that we are skipping several steps that the Fletcher Committee laid out.

We still think we have a prudent program. That does not mean that we do not have surprises in here; we could. We believe that in fact it makes sense to lay out and embark on this kind of effort. Senator EXON. As I understand it, you are saying this significant progress we have made over what you had anticipated, as I understand, is basically because the free electron technology has developed faster than we ever anticipated.

General ABRAHAMSON. In the free electron laser, yes, sir.

Senator EXON. Do I take it, then, that you are satisfied with our advancement in other areas?

General ABRAHAMSON. No, sir.

Senator EXON. Or is that the free electron laser technology is right now advancing at a more rapid pace than the other? Can you clarify that for me?

General ABRAHAMSON. We have demonstrated, we have real evidence, which gives us very high confidence, by the way, that this is a prudent program. This is not just the judgment that several of us at SDIO make, we have had scientific teams examining the progress of the free electron laser throughout the summer. It's importance is twofold.

One, that we have technical progress in this particular realm of technology, and I will show you other things that go with it, but in addition, as our system studies come together, it has illustrated the value of the ground-based laser going off reflected mirrors as a very valued part of a future SDI system.

You have to have both. Now, there are parts of the program that have as much promise as this in many areas that I have been forced to cut out of the program to move into what I call a backup technology area, primarily just because of funding.

We had to make choices. I believe it would be irresponsible to just try to bring the whole wave of technology to forward year after year and with the cut on the part of Congress that takes out a quarter of the program to just keep slowing it down.

I think what I owe you is management judgments that are made as well as we can possibly make them that continue to move us toward that goal as quickly and as effectively as possible. That is what we are doing.

But is it not enough to be able to only have a ground-based laser. This would not be a weapon that would be effective in the boost phase unless you can get it up through the atmosphere. Therefore, the successful test that we did against first airplanes and then in June against the shuttle, which was now more than a procedural test. It was not a test that gave us a great deal of confidence that we solved the scientific problem of getting through the atmosphere, but in the last 6 weeks we have twice now at low power, and I would like to stress that, at low power, demonstrated at Maui in Hawaii that we can project laser energy up through the entire atmosphere and we can correct with computer controlled mirrors the problems that the atmosphere introduces.

That is a complementary technology that is absolutely critical because we can make the biggest lasers in the world and stick them on the ground, but unless we can project that power up through the atmosphere, it is useless.

So, it is in parallel progress that has been so very important and another element in our decision to say let us proceed and work in that kind of system.

Again, there may be surprises at high power, but nonetheless, we believe in our theory and we have some very substantial models that give us confidence in our low-power work.

Now, that is one kind of weapon and I will spend a lot of time on weapons this morning, but I would like you-please do not forget the weapons are only a small portion of this. In fact, it is the putting together as a system with the capability of data handling, data processing, command, and control reliability that develops the sensors that are important.

John Gardner told you that in the midcourse, moving into that second set of layers, that we have to be able to do discrimination.

We have to be able to tell the difference between a warhead and a decoy.

Some of the things that the Soviets can do is to either produce decoys that are simple and cheap or have throwaways associated with their missiles.

At the time of the Fletcher study most people felt if we can build very, very accurate heat-seeking telescopes and mount them in satellites, that we can see well enough to tell the difference.

Our system studies indicate to us that may not be good enough. The Soviets may well be able to find ways to fool just passively looking systems.

So, we think that we need interactive systems. Our tests at Los Alamos using an existing small neutral particle beam test stand that we have, I stress small, certainly not one scaled to a fullweapon size, but those tests have shown us ways that even in a [deleted].

Now, that means that we have been able to take neutral particle beams. It turns out that a neutral-particle beam at higher power is also a very effective weapon and it is a different kind of weapon than a laser.

The things you would do to counter a laser would not be effective against a neutral-particle beam. That is a stream of hydrogen atoms you would like to shoot at half the speed of light, something like that.

So, this concept offers us again a great deal of promise, but it is a very difficult engineering job and there are probably some scientific problems.

Chairman GOLDWATER. What kind of power are you talking about?

General ABRAHAMSON. Power to drive the system, sir, or power to come out of the system?

Chairman GOLDWATER. Power to drive?

General ABRAHAMSON. Power to drive this kind of system is very, very high in levels. We are probably talking about between 2 and 4 million watts of power for a very short period of time, just fractions of a second for each shot.

Unfortunately, it is very high levels of power. None of these things, lasers, neutral particle beams, any of these things, very few of them are efficient at all in the sense of the way we measure electrical efficiency and motor output and motor input.

Senator WARNER. Can you give us any idea of the magnitude of the installation?

General ABRAHAMSON. Yes, sir. If you were to build it as a weapon, it would be quite large. It might be two shuttle loads put together. It would be a very large thing.

[Chart deleted.]

One of the other areas of interest is the cost of transportation and how we bring that down. There are studies that are going to accomplish that. An early experiment that can demonstrate this capability to use to pull together the problems of building and putting such a thing in space is called STARS. It really means a signficant technical achievement in research; some of our people got a little too public affairs conscious. The important point I would like to make is that this is another of our integrated experiments bringing together many areas of smaller component work that we are aiming for in the [deleted] timeframe.

Again, I am trying to show how these come together for a decision. Are they weapons in the sense that they are full weapons ready to go?

No. Are they an important step toward moving to a deployable system and having a minimum time in the development phase afterward?

Yes, very, very much so.

So, this chart shows one getting up about that timeframe.

You will recall that John Gardner talked about the relationship of the space-based kinetic-kill vehicle. Probably the way to think about this is to recall some of the air-to-air missiles that we have on our fighters.

What we are really trying to do is build an air-to-air missile, only put it in a rocket and fire it in space, something inexpensive and effective in that sense.

[Chart deleted.]

Here is the schedule and it is now marching down through a series of contractors, narrowing them down for a full-scale decision, engineering decision, but with space experiments somewhere here in the 1990 timeframe.

Again, I am trying to show you the various kinds of projects, we are trying to build them in such a way that they come together in that timeframe. If we can move this to the left, boy, I would be delighted and I am continually bounding on the teams that are doing that.

But in the case of SBKKV we will have an early demonstration by next summer of the kinds of equipment that we are talking about here.

Here the challenge is not can you hit a booster? Frankly, we know that already. The challenge is, can you build one of these