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ReseaRch a n d developmenT In T h e aIR fo R c e 99
promise as suitable substitutes because of their higher efficiencies, even though
they lacked the operational simplicity of gas-dynamic devices. One line of
research focused on pushing the output beams of chemical lasers further into the
microwave region to help meet expected size and weight restrictions for effective
use in aerial operations. The electric discharge laser was also scrutinized as an
alternative energy source for weapon systems during this period. Meanwhile, the
development of aircraft-borne technologies capable of emitting target-destroying,
high-energy electron beams progressed alongside the laser program. Work in
this field centered on a fundamental problem that had preoccupied physicists
for decades, namely the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and
matter. The introduction and proliferation of particle accelerators in academic
and industrial laboratories before World War II had enabled physicists to study
in detail the processes and outcomes of high-energy bombardment of materials
by electrons, protons, ions, and other subatomic species. 90 In the Air Force,
direct application of accelerator-produced particle beams was initially carried
out at Kirtland to complete nuclear effects tests and simulation studies. These
investigations were scaled up in the 1970s and early 1980s to meet the planned
operational requirements of projected high-energy weapon systems. 91
Laser and particle-beam weapons represented the state of the art in advanced
weapons concepts at Kirtland Air Force Base during the 1970s and 1980s. These
technologies constituted, in effect, a direct extension of the Special Weapons
Center’s core technical capabilities—the development of nuclear weapons
delivery systems and analytical studies of the environmental effects of atomic
warfare. A similar evolutionary cycle guided the diversification of R&D at the
Wright Air Development Division. The major stages of organizational change
at Wright touched on a broad range of subjects, from systems engineering
and avionics in the 1960s and 1970s to artificial intelligence in the 1980s.
Throughout this period, however, weapons innovation at Wright, Kirtland, and
the other laboratories operated by the Air Force Systems Command was guided
by a gradual realignment of mission priorities. Beginning in the 1970s, in-house
basic research was scaled back and increasingly outsourced to the private sector,
while the laboratories forged a stronger and more direct link between R&D
programming and production requirements. Although the extent to which
this new policy was institutionalized varied widely across organizations and
90 On the development of particle accelerator technology for high-energy physics research before
World War II, see, for example, Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in
Modern America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), chap. 15; J. L. Heilbron and Robert
W. Seidel, Lawrence and His Laboratory, vol. 1 of A History of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1989); and Thomas D. Cornell, “Merle Tuve and His Program of Nuclear
Studies at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism: The Early Career of a Modern American Physicist”
(Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1986).
91 B. M. Elson, “USAF Weapons Lab Mission Expanded,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 110
(29 January 1979): 212–13; “Weapons Laboratory Aids Beam Effort,” Aviation Week and Space Technology
113 (4 August 1980): 56–58; A. L. Batezel, “Best Kept Secrets,” Airman 26 (April 1982): 43–45; “Air Force
Labs Concentrate on SDI Research,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 127 (2 November 1987): 50.
See also Robert W. Seidel, “From Glow to Flow: A History of Military Laser Research and Development,”
Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 18 (1987):112–47; and Seidel, “How the Military
Responded to the Laser,” Physics Today 10 (October 1988): 36–43.