In 1984 the American Physical Society (APS) approached Keyworth with the idea of setting up a blue-ribbon panel to study the various weapons concepts independent of the labs. Keyworth and Abrahamson both agreed with this idea, giving the team complete access to classified materials as required. The APS panel took almost a year to form, and was co-chaired by Nicolaas Bloembergen, who won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on lasers, and Kumar Patel, who had invented the CO2 laser. The sixteen other members of the panel were similarly distinguished.