The E-Bomb: How America's New Directed Energy Weapons Will Change the Way Future Wars Will Be Fought

In science fiction, futuristic soldiers are often shown wielding light emitting weapons-Flash Gordon used a ray gun, Captain Kirk carried a phaser, and Darth Vader brandished a light saber. But, today, the imagined future of science fiction is soon to be a reality. After more than two decades of research, the United States is on the verge of deploying a new generation of weapons that discharge light-wave energy, the same spectrum of energy found in your microwave, or in your TV remote control. They're called "directed-energy weapons"-lasers, high-powered microwaves, and particle beams-and they signal a revolution in weaponry, perhaps, more profound than the atomic bomb. The first directed-energy (DE) weapons are being tested right now, and their deployment is planned in the very near future. In The E-Bomb, author J. Douglas Beason, Ph.D. and a leading U.S. expert in directed-energy research, will explain in clear and non technical prose these exotic new weapons and answer the questions that all Americans will ask: What is Directed Energy? How do DE weapons work? What can these DE weapons do? And are these weapons safe to use? As the once-imagined weapons of the future begin to appear on today's battlefields, the timely publication of The E-Bomb will help explain how and why the future is now.

Doug Beason, Ph.D., Col. (U.S.A.F., Ret.), a key architect of and leading expert in directed-energy research for the past twenty-six years, holds a doctorate in lasertechnology physics. He has served at the White House, working for the President's Science Advisor in both the Clinton and Bush administrations in the 1990s. Today he is Associate Director of Threat Reduction at Los Alamos National Laboratory and serves on the Board of Directors of the Directed Energy Professional Society. He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.