In the face of a rising number of complaints on Capitol Hill about their management of major laser projects, officials at the Department of Defense (DoD) have admitted that they need to do a better job. An internal review of Pentagon laser projects, released in late March, concludes that the DoD needs to overhaul its management of major laser projects, pour more money into development of key technologies for laser devices, and take action to foster the growth of companies that supply laser components to the military. "Lasers have the potential to emerge as one of the principal weapons technologies underpinning US national security interests during the 21st century," concludes the 19-page report, which was written under orders from Congress by a group of 12 senior civilian officials at the Pentagon, chaired by Delores Etter, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Science and Technology.
But the military risks squandering that potential, said the panel in its report. "A department-wide coordinated investment and execution strategy is necessary to take advantage of opportunities presented by [high-energy laser] weapons technologies." Specifically, the panel recommended that a Joint Technology Office be created in the Pentagon to help coordinate laser projects proposed by various arms of the military. That office also would help in the preparation of technology "roadmaps" for military use of lasers and would foster exchanges of information with industry and universities.
The issues identified by the report are likely to resonate well with members of Congress who have been worried about the Pentagon's management of laser systems. For example, Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-NM) and Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) have been pressuring the Pentagon to consolidate all its directed energy programs in a single National Directed Energy Center, to be located at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, NM, which is in Wilson's district. The two lawmakers are trying to get a provision ordering exactly that inserted into the defense authorization bill for FY2001.
And even before the report came out, John J. Hamre, former Deputy Secretary of Defense, was telling lawmakers that the Pentagon was doing a poor job with its laser projects. One particular problem, Hamre told the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee about three weeks before the report was issued, is that the military services—the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force—sometimes start laser projects but then stop asking for money for them after several years. "So the lab directors go off and sometimes come up here to ask for money for that and then that gets added. And then, of course, the services tend to say, 'Well, if Congress is going to add money, let's not put it in ourselves,'" Hamre said.
"So then we tend to have programs that aren't rationally constructed, because we haven't tended to integrate them into the priorities of the department. And they tend to go off on their own," Hamre told the lawmakers. "I don't think that's healthy."
The Pentagon needs an overarching, coordinated plan for all of its directed-energy programs, he said. "I think what we've tended to do is to let a thousand flowers bloom and when, all of a sudden, it gets to be a dry spell, the people go off and try to find resources where they can."
The political infighting to which Hamre referred seems to be particularly true in the case of the Airborne Laser (ABL) program, a Boeing 747 equipped with a chemical laser that would be able to shoot down enemy ballistic missiles shortly after launch. The Clinton administration consistently has asked for large budgets for the ABL project—until the proposed budget for next year, which includes a sharp cut for the ABL.
"The problem with the ABL is that within the department there are those who think it will work and those who think it will not work, and each year is a struggle to try to run the program to keep it on a reasonable pace," F. Whitten Peters, Secretary of the Air Force, told the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee two days after Hamre's comments. "The difficulty is that there is a substantial disagreement inside the department about this program. And we've been basically able to keep it at a level which continues to move it forward, but that was all we were able to support."
Rep. Norm Dicks (R-WA), whose district includes Boeing, pressed Whitten on the cut. "I think it loses the momentum. I mean, I'm hard-pressed to see that this is the right thing to do." Peters responded simply, "It was a financial issue for us."
Money—a key theme
Indeed, money is a key theme in the Pentagon review of its laser projects. According to the panel's report, the Pentagon should pour more money into development of basic science and technology for laser weapons. Currently, the Pentagon pursues the development of laser weapons through large demonstration projects, such as the ABL, but that approach slows down the development of new technology, said the report.
The official in charge of a particular demonstration, such as the ABL, is only interested in obtaining components that meet the requirements of the demonstration project and has no incentive to devote funds to developing new technologies that could produce components even better than the ones that are needed. Future projects, which could make good use of a new generation of technology, will suffer because that new generation will not have been developed, the report concluded.
Consequently, the Pentagon should sharply increase the amount of money that it spends on basic scientific and engineering research on laser components, unrelated to any particular demonstration project, the report recommended. In FY2000, the DoD is spending $227 million on such basic science and technology projects. The committee did not recommend a specific figure but said that the military needs to spend "significantly more" than the current budget.
The Pentagon committee also suggested that the military go to greater lengths to assist companies that provide important components for laser weapons. "Numerous industrial suppliers have either consolidated or simply gone out of the business of supplying the DoD with such [high-energy laser] technologies as deformable mirrors and high-bandwidth, low-noise sensors. Because these technologies are essential for weapons-level applications of high-energy lasers, there is a strong possibility that the USA will be unable to produce such weapons when they are ultimately needed," the report warned.
To help address the problem of industrial suppliers, the report recommended that the Pentagon launch "a few well-directed program initiatives" aimed at developing the technology for laser devices intermediate in power between the very-low-power systems now in use and major, high-power systems in development, such as the ABL. Such projects also would help government and industry to retain technical workers who now are being lost to better-paying opportunities in civilian industry. "The ability to field more-capable laser weapon systems in the future," said the report, "depends on maintaining a base of people with the necessary skills."