The premiere of the film "Combat lasers. The Hunt for Superweapons" from NMG DOC on REN TV on October 26

The premiere of the film "Combat lasers. The Hunt for Superweapons" from NMG DOC will be held on REN TV on October 26.

Barcode readers and printers, target designators and rangefinders, new-generation surgical scalpels, and even cold fusion. All this works with the help of a laser, a unique invention of the brilliant Soviet physicists Alexander Prokhorov and Nikolai Basov. In the mid-1950s, Prokhorov and Basov designed an optical quantum generator, which served as the basis for creating combat lasers. In the 1960s, thanks to them, programs for the development of high-power laser weapons "Terra" and "Omega" appeared, followed by laser installations for tracking and destroying space targets and ballistic missiles.

Alexander Prokhorov and Nikolai Basov began working together after Prokhorov literally traded Basov for an experimental setup he created – a synchrotron. Prokhorov convinced the leadership of the Physics Institute of the Academy of Sciences, where he was working at the time, to exchange the unique device for an additional staff member in his laboratory. It was occupied by a young graduate of MEPhI, Nikolai Basov. And a few years after they started working together, they made a discovery for which they first received the Lenin and later the Nobel Prize in Physics. And this was during the Cold War, when the whole world was against the Soviet Union.

The story of the rivalry between the military intelligence services of the USSR and the United States in the race for laser technology is the basis for the plot of the spy detective series "STRIKING RAY", which will soon premiere on REN TV in Russia. And at the center of the confrontation is the laboratory of Nikolai Basov (played by Evgeny Kharitonov), which develops lasers for missile defense.