Zionist Entity Tactical Laser Fizzles

[Eric Cordian]

It appears that the tactical chemical laser the US has been hoping to
deploy to protect the Zionist Entity from rockets launched by Hezbollah
guerrillas in southern Lebanon is, in the words of its developers, "not
ready for action."

http://www.newsday.com/ap/text/international/ap796.htm

According to the defense department blurb on the system, called THEL
(http://www.smdc.army.mil/FactSheets/THEL.html), the system employs
deuterium fluoride as the lasing medium.

Since deuterium is somewhat more expensive to produce than ordinary
hydrogen, one wonders why the system has been designed to work with
deuterium.  Is it because the government does not want fuel for it to be
easily produced, should the design fall into enemy hands.

Or is there some engineering advantage to using deuterium?  Does excited
deuterium fluoride have some wonderful spectral line in exactly the right
place, that pedestrian hydrogen fluoride does not?

Any chemical or nuclear engineers here who could answer the question 
of why deuterium is more desirable?

-- 
Eric Michael Cordian 0+
O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"