Such new types of systems include space-based lasers and particle-beam weapons.

As a result, the Pentagon has its hopes set on a space-based laser.

The request will include restructuring missile defense programs to speed development of technologies that the Bush administration considers promising, including airborne and space-based lasers.

The program would set up a system of space-based lasers and other new weapons.

Montana State University has a singular capability for the study of chemical reactions relevant to space vehicle signatures and space-based lasers.

While the Missile Defense Agency struggles with new technology for a space-based laser, the Air Force already has a potential weapon in space.

From 2003 to 2005, I led a research effort to examine failure modes of space-based lasers and worked to enhance performance and reliability of these systems.

A decade ago, the Congress voted to build a space-based antimissile laser, a prototype of which could have been in orbit by 1987.

A wholehearted commitment to real defense can produce both ground-based and space-based lasers: directed energy weapons that destroy attacking missiles at the speed of light.

"Later it would be used for military purposes" like powering space-based lasers, he said.