Pentagon Announces High Energy Laser Research Awards

The Department of Defense announced December 27 that it would award $8.6 million in Fiscal 2001 funds to support research into technologies that will advance the development of high-energy-laser weapons. The recipients were selected by the High Energy Laser Joint Technology Office, a new organization formed in June 2000 to manage a DoD-wide program to revitalize high-energy-laser science and technology research.

The Pentagon said the announcement by Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Science and Technology Delores Etter was the result of a highly competitive review of 56 proposals submitted by a diverse set of contractor organizations and academic institutions. The proposals were evaluated by a U.S. government team comprising technical experts from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the military Services, and Defense agencies. The team selected 19 proposals for funding.

Project awards are being presented to the following investigators and organizations:

• Alexander A. Betin from Raytheon, El Segundo, Calif.

• Gon-Yen Shen from Raytheon, Danbury, Conn. (2 projects)

• Lloyd C. Brown from General Atomics, San Diego, Calif.

• Charles Clendening from TRW, Redondo Beach, Calif.

• Stephen C. Gottschalk from STI Optronics, Bellevue, Wash.

• Olga Kocharovskaya from Texas Engineering Experiment Station, College Station, Texas

• George R. Neil from the Department of Energy's Jefferson Laboratory, Newport News, Va.

• Rodney Petr from Science Research Laboratory, Somerville, Mass.

• David N. Plummer from Logicon, Albuquerque, N.M.

• Thomas Price from Xinetics, Devens, Mass.

• Fred Rigby from SAIC, Albuquerque, N.M.

• Wolfgang Rudolf from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, N.M.

• John Russell from the Directed Energy Professional Society, Albuquerque, N.M.

• Richard Schlecht from Lasergenics, San Jose, Calif.

• Peter Vorobieff from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, N.M.

• Robert E. Waldo from TRW, Redondo Beach, Calif.

• Michael Wickham from TRW, Redondo Beach, Calif.

• Luis E. Zapata from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, Calif.

The selected projects will explore physics and technology in a wide range of areas relevant to high-energy-laser weapons, including chemical lasers, solid-state lasers, free-electron lasers, adaptive optics, and the interaction of laser beams with target materials.

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)