Project Excalibur was an American Cold War–era research program to develop nuclear-device-powered, space-based X-ray lasers as a ballistic missile defense. X-ray lasers were conceived in the 1970s by George Chapline Jr. (pictured with George Maenchen) and further developed by Peter L. Hagelstein, both working at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Edward Teller. After a promising test, Teller discussed the proposal in 1981 with US president Ronald Reagan, who in 1983 incorporated it in his Strategic Defense Initiative. Further underground nuclear tests suggested progress was being made. Reagan refused to abandon the technology at the 1986 Reykjavík Summit arms-control talks, even after a critical test demonstrated it was not working as expected. Researchers at Livermore and Los Alamos began to raise concerns about test results, and the infighting became public. In 1988 the program budget was cut dramatically, after additional problems were revealed.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excalibur

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1970:

Southern Airways Flight 932, chartered by the Marshall University football team, crashed into a hill near Ceredo, West Virginia, killing all 75 people on board. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Airways_Flight_932

1990:

Music producer Frank Farian admitted that the German R&B; duo Milli Vanilli did not sing the vocals on their album Girl You Know It's True. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milli_Vanilli

2010:

Red Bull Racing's Sebastian Vettel won the Drivers' Championship after winning the final race of the season, becoming the youngest Formula One champion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Vettel

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

pandect: 1. (Ancient Rome, law, historical) Usually in the plural form Pandects: a compendium or digest of writings on Roman law divided in 50 books, compiled in the 6th century C.E. by order of the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I (c. 482–565). 2. (by extension, rare) Also in the plural form pandects: a comprehensive collection of laws; specifically, the whole body of law of a country; a legal code. 3. (by extension, also figurative) A treatise or similar work that is comprehensive as to a particular topic; specifically (Christianity) a manuscript of the entire Bible. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pandect

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

We are, the great spiritual writers insist, most fully ourselves when we give ourselves away, and it is egotism that holds us back from that transcendent experience that has been called God, Nirvana, Brahman, or the Tao. What I now realize, from my study of the different religious traditions, is that a disciplined attempt to go beyond the ego brings about a state of ecstasy. Indeed, it is in itself ekstasis. Theologians in all the great faiths have devised all kinds of myths to show that this type of kenosis, or self-emptying, is found in the life of God itself. They do not do this because it sounds edifying, but because this is the way that human nature seems to work. We are most creative and sense other possibilities that transcend our ordinary experience when we leave ourselves behind.   --Karen Armstrong https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karen_Armstrong