See more at the link https://www.foxnews.com/tech/us-mili...particle-beams
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Excerpt:
The U.S. military is looking to develop and test more weapons it can blast into space to fire at targets on the surface of the earth.According to Defense One, the first plan on the agenda is a space laser that could be used to blow up enemy missiles "coming off the launch pad".
A study to see if this is feasible should wrap up within six months, but only takes up $15m (£11m) of the total budget.
Much of the rest of the cash is going to a project to develop space-based "particle beam" weapons.While lasers fire high-energy light at targets, particle beam weapons would accelerate a stream of subatomic particles to ludicrously high speeds and direct them at the target.
While each particle only has a tiny mass, enough of them moving fast enough would be able to impart a serious amount of energy in a very short space of time.The U.S. first tested particle beam weapons in the late 1980s to some success, but the designs for a functional weapon were huge, with some reportedly over 70 feet long.
"We now believe we can get it down to a package that we can put on as part of a payload to be placed on orbit,” according to a senior U.S. military official quoted by Defense One.
Here is another good link on this maybe an even better link than the one above.
https://www.defenseone.com/technolog...=DefenseOneTCO