Editing Strategic Defense Initiative (section)

=== APS report ===
The [[American Physical Society]] (APS) had been asked by SDIO to provide a review of the various concepts. They put together an all-star panel including many of the inventors of the laser, including a [[Nobel laureate]]. Their initial report was presented in 1986, but was released to the public (in redacted form) in early 1987.<ref name=APS>{{cite tech report |url=http://digitalcollections.library.cmu.edu/awweb/awarchive?type=file&item=710809 |title=The Science and Technology of Directed Energy Weapons |publisher=APS |date=April 1986}}</ref>

The report considered all of the systems then under development and concluded none of them were anywhere near ready for deployment. Specifically, they noted that all of the systems had to improve their energy output by at least 100 times, and in some cases by as much as a million. In other cases, like Excalibur, they dismissed the concept entirely. Their summary stated simply:

<blockquote>We estimate that all existing candidates for directed energy weapons (DEWs) require two or more orders of magnitude, (powers of 10) improvements in power output and beam quality before they may be seriously considered for application in ballistic missile defense systems.<ref name=APS/></blockquote>

They concluded that none of the systems could be deployed as an anti-missile system until the next century.<ref name=APS/>