According to US media reports, since the first laser transmitter of mankind came out in the United States 61 years ago, the first thing that countries thought of was to apply this kind of thing to the field of weapons. At that time, under the global background of the U.S.-Soviet competition for hegemony, this research and development project quickly became a hot topic in the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. However, because the laser-related science at that time was still blank, it meant that if you want to really research and develop, you must be willing to invest. The U.S. government’s investment in the past ten years was only 4 billion U.S. dollars. The Brezhnev era was even more exaggerated. It spent 2.2 billion U.S. dollars in research and development funds in a year in an attempt to surpass the United States.
According to the news, the reason why the investment was so disregarded was that the Soviet Union had calculated it at the time: from the perspective of air defense weapons, the main global defense weapons are missiles, and laser weapons are much cheaper than the consumption costs. For example, a “Patriot” missile in the United States costs $600,000 to $700,000, and a short-range “Stinger” missile costs $20,000. Once the research and development is mature, a laser launch only costs thousands of dollars. In addition, laser weapons can also save more space and load for the fighters to install other equipment and instruments. Therefore, the United States and the Soviet Union rushed to invest money in it. A lot of budget was also invested in this project.