Neutral Particle Beam Accelerator

airandspace.si.edu...

BEAR: Beam Experiment Aboard Rocket was one of the first projects I worked on while assigned to Research Rockets. It was a Neutral Particle Beam Accelerator on a suborbital rocket (renamed Aries but was originally a stage off a Minute Man ICBM). We launched it into suborbital space and executed the beam. The project was part of the Strategic Defense Initiative or commonly known as the Star Wars Program. As far as I know the idea was to see how an NPB would perform in near space conditions for possible weapons application. Yeah the flat tire on the transfer cart was my fault, instead of replacing the tire I simply put more air in it. Caught much grief from the eggheads for that. Anyway, the project was a success but the design was passed over in favor of Kinetic Kill Vehicles, like the missile that shot down the "wayward" Air Force Recon Satellite. Not sure if an NPB would dissipate over distance but, I always had this vision of some alien kid playing in its yard and getting nailed by this thing. Testing in the Vehicle Assembly building was cool. Blue beam like right out of Star Wars.
Don't ask me about the physics behind NPB's, I would just look like a deer in the headlights.

a reply to: ServiusTull

Sound's cool.

Do you mean Neutron beam, I always thought the only viable way to harness enough neutron energy to create a coherent beam would have been using something akin to a Neutron Bomb as an ammunition stage then focusing the neutron radiation from it into a coherent beam but you would need one hell of a high yield neutron device to produce enough and each burst would be very short and intense.

You know organic matter like our body's is often made up of long chain molecules with weak atomic bond's and if neutron particles pass through these it can disrupt the bond's as well as cause auto fission of atomic nuclei if there is enough neutron's to hit them so in theory at least a close range very high yield neutron explosion would liquify you and at longer ranges it would cause molecular damage leading to tissue damage and even tumours BUT to turn it into a beam I can not even imagine how much energy an electromagnetic constraint bottle would need to harness those neutron's and how they could be deflected into a beam.

Unless of course those scientists you mention have a more efficient method of generating free high kinetic energy neutron's in a monodirectional fashion.

I am of course only assuming you are talking about a neutron beam device and I may be very wide of the mark but it is the only neutral particle I know of - it has mass but no charge as you know.

Either way sound's cool and I have no doubt the Yank's have some pretty sweet tech they are either sitting on or have put into limited or even larger scale production on those black budgets of yours.

Like I said, I couldn't begin to get close to the physics of the concept. But you are right, I am sure the U. S. has shelves full of concept technology they are not using. Our National Labs are always pushing ideas just to see how far they can bring it to practical use. As you can see in the pic, it wasn't small.

a reply to: ServiusTull

They didn't really seem to hide it too much. The press was invited to see the payload as well as the launch. It may have been a ploy to throw off the Soviets.