Directed Energy: The Focus on Laser Weapons Intensifies

People like to complain about fusion, but lasers and hypersonics have been money pits for generations.

"'This is as close to weaponization and as far from the laboratory as you're going to see without full-scale development,'' said Bill Robinson, director of laser programs for the Rockwell International Corporation, which began Sigma Tau secretly for the Air Force in 1976."

https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/05/us/star-wars-technology-i...