Chapter 10

Harvard University conferred upon me the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Physics toward the end of the Clinton Administration. So I went through middle school, high school, college, and graduate school without having a girlfriend. I did apply for several jobs including postdoctoral fellowships, assistant professorships, and federal service. My favorite choices were the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Science and Technology (DS & T) and the Naval Research Laboratory Postdoctoral Fellowship.

In the end, the only job offer I received came from the US Navy to work as an NRL Postdoc at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. It helped that I had done my summer research at NRL as an ONR-NDSEG Fellow all through my years at Harvard. Naval Research Laboratory Code 3040, Advanced Technology Branch hired me to continue my work with them at Building C60.

Dr. Sheila Bender had moved on to become an assistant professor at the University of California at Berkeley and concurrently a faculty researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Dr. Luis Freedman became my immediate supervisor at NRL.

"Michael, I'm sorry we kept you in the dark while you were an ONR Fellow," said Dr. Freedman in his office. "You didn't have the appropriate clearance at the time. Now that you have a secret clearance, I can present you with this." Across his desk. Dr. Freedman slid a manila envelope to me. Stamped in red were the words "Sensitive Information - Do Not Leave Unattended". I opened the envelope and found a white paper, the DoD term for special projects. The title was Project Pathfinder. "Read it throroughly and lock it in your safe when you're not reading it."

"Thank you, Luis," I said. "I'll get right on it."

"There will be a briefing in the conference room tomorrow," said Dr. Freedman. "Commander Chang will tell everyone here at Code 3040 what his vision for Project Pathfinder is."

I went back to my office down the hall, sat at my desk, and pored over the white paper. Project Pathfinder was the reason behind my summer research at NRL while I worked on my Ph.D. at Harvard. I read all the technical details. In short, Project Pathfinder detailed a method of attacking enemy satellites. The reason I fired a pulsed laser and a continuous wave laser at solar power panels every summer at NRL was that the whole Department of Defense was interested in guidance systems for antisatellite missiles. Furthermore, the Office of Naval Research was engaged in active research and development for defense against attacks by unfriendly nations possibly using the Dual Laser Guidance System (DLGS) to attack US satellites.

I understood the DLGS, which I had unknowingly worked on as an Office of Naval Research Fellow during my summers away from Harvard, but I had no idea how the Heat Seeking Antisatellite Missiles (HSASM's) worked. Project Pathfinder only described the guidance system for the HSASM's. My secret clearance allowed me only to know what I needed to know, and the Office of Naval Research only allowed me to know about Project Pathfinder, the code name for DLGS. Obviously, some other project within DoD detailed the HSASM, but that was none of my concern at the time.

Still, I wondered if ONR and DoD were developing antisatellite weapons and defenses against them, then what were we headed for?