The classified De-Moleculization And Neutrino Decelerator (D.E.M.A.N.D.)
program began in the early 1960s as a joint venture between the United
States government, Hughes Aircraft, and a handful of physics professors
from the newly-created California State University, Fullerton. The
purpose of the program had something to do with making a new kind of
weapon--one that would do the work of an atomic bomb, minus all the
mess.
The researchers were experimenting with the idea of collapsing the
distance between atoms and molecules, shrinking matter into superdense
balls, which could be disposed of by being shot into space, or buried,
or dropped into the ocean. This weapon could do all the destructive
work of a powerful nuclear bomb, with none of the unpleasant untidiness
of a big explosion. The American public had responded with ambivalence
to the stockpiling of atomic weaponry, and the scientists at the DEMAND
program were hard at work to make these new, clean weapons of mass
reduction.
