The " Death Ray " !

Its seventy-four years since the second world war came to an end and a lot of vital information is only now having its security clearance removed.  It is chilling to learn how close we came to losing that war. That was mainly a matter of timing.

If Germany had managed to produce its Messerschmidt ME 262 jet fighter in quantity for the battle of Britain that encounter would have ended in defeat and the invasion of England would have followed. German scientists were far ahead of the allies in many fields and both the terror weapons - the VI and the V2 - would have been decisive earlier in the war.

At wars end there was a mad scramble by the Americans and Russians to capture German scientists to compliment their own warfare development. During the war there were whispers that Germany was developing a " death ray " and a search of military archives revealed plans that may have brought it to fruition if the war had lasted a few years longer.

The plan called for the establishment of a giant mirror in space which would enable the suns rays to be concentrated on an enemy city. Western scientists were horrified to learn that this was entirely practical.  The temperature would reach hundreds of degrees and buildings and people would simply incinerate in a ball of fire.

Germany was far ahead of the west in the development of rocket science. They firstly developed the " pulse jet " that powered the V1 flying bomb and then went on to build the world's first ballistic missile.   The V2 roared high until it curved across the edge of space and descended to its target at more than the speed of sound.  It could not hit a specific target but its range of two hundred miles was capable of delivering it to the greater London area.

What Germany lacked was the ability to take men into space and return them by solving the re-entry problems.  That was something both America and Russia quickly learned when they deployed their captured German scientists.   We are now at the stage that many countries have gained the ability to reach space and deploy satellites and even build a space station that remains in permanent orbit.

The technology that prevented the Germans from deploying their death ray is now freely available.  Even private firms are competing in the delivery of hardware to space and it seems inevitable that this new frontier must become a battlefield in the event of future wars.   Putting a huge glass mirror in space may be impractcal, but the same effect could be achieved with a thin membrane with a reflective surface.  All that eluded the Germans was the ability to take people into space and enable them to work outside their means of conveyance.

In this age in which we now live that death ray idea has become entirely practical.  It is a chilling thought that in some future war we may encounter a surprise attack from space which arrives without warning.The impediments that stopped its deployment for Germany in the second world war no longer exist.