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Death-Rays as Life-Savers in the Third Reich - Pedro Waloschek ...

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The idea of us<strong>in</strong>g death rays to defend national air space had its<br />

most modern <strong>in</strong>carnation <strong>in</strong> 1993, by which time suitable l<strong>as</strong>ers had been<br />

sufficiently well developed. This w<strong>as</strong> <strong>the</strong> ‘Strategic Defence Initiative’<br />

(SDI) begun by president Ronald Reagan to shoot down enemy rockets.<br />

Prior to this, Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971) had been vociferous <strong>in</strong> his<br />

announcement that <strong>the</strong> Soviet Union had already developed such<br />

systems. Nei<strong>the</strong>r of <strong>the</strong>se <strong>in</strong>itiatives seem to have borne any fruit, and it<br />

appears that <strong>the</strong>y were abandoned, unless <strong>the</strong>y progressed <strong>in</strong> conditions<br />

of <strong>the</strong> deepest secrecy. In 2002 a project for a strategic system with<br />

similar goals w<strong>as</strong> started <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> USA and could be considered ano<strong>the</strong>r<br />

step <strong>in</strong> this direction.<br />

———<br />

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