Star wars defense

an absurd system of satalites, antiballistic missiles, lasers, mirrors, and ground based intercepter missiles…capable of targeting and neutralizing any incoming missiles, through the use of a three stage system, within two to three hours of the missiles having hit their targets…

…well let’s see, two to three hours for the targeting system to lock onto a missile at any given point, and about 30 minutes for that missile to hit its target…(and yes i have a source on this, someone who wrote the guidance program for sdi)
-obviously a very effective, and certianly real, non-made-up, program, not an excuse for embesselment(–sarcasm–)
-sdi relied on non-existant technology and computer systems that didn’t yet exist

…the national missile defense, under georgew., is not sdi, and in fact has no connection to it at all. it is a much more realistic approach to grounding incoming balistic missiles, that relies soley on ground based missiles, similar to the patriot missiles. despite its complete lack of success in intercepting missiles, it is a much more convincing method of embesselment. and while the only succesful test was fixed, it is a promissing tool, that can at somepoint in the distant future, be used to counter the true threat to national security in the modern world, the evil soviet union (-no wait-) (-that doesn’t exist anymore-)
the strategic defense initiative was a realistic national security measure, relying on sp-ce based laser power, and the pentium4 processor(quick no one tell reagan, that it didn’t exist in the ’80s)
the strategic defense initiative (sdi) is a system proposed by president ronald reagan on march 23, 1983 to use sp-ce-based systems to protect the united states from attack by strategic nuclear missiles. it was dubbed “star wars” by opponents, implying it is an impractical science fiction fantasy, but supporters have adopted the usage as well on the grounds that yesterday’s science fiction is often tomorrow’s engineering. while gorbachev’s reforms deserve a vast majority of the blame, or credit, for the collapse of the soviet union, sdi may have contributed to the fall by successfully applying the strategy of technology, which was a prevalent doctrine at the time.

project and proposals
the proposal was sharply criticized for its potential costs, doubts that it would be technologically feasible and afford complete protection against all delivery systems, concerns that it would violate the 1972 anti-ballistic missile (abm) treaty and the outer sp-ce treaty and destabilize the nuclear balance of power.

the research was controlled by the strategic defense initiative office, an agency of the department of defense until 1993, when it was renamed the ballistic missile defense organization. department of defense cost estimates for sdi-related spending during fiscal years 1984-1994 amounted to us$32.6 billion. an independent report by the congressional research service arrived at a much higher figure of us$70.7 billion 1.

the project was repeatedly scaled back, renamed global protection against limited strikes (gpals, dubbed “son of star wars”) in 1991, and refocused on protection from smaller attacks. gpals was based on a ground system of rocket-launched interceptors aimed at preventing small scale launches by “rogue states” (apparently north korea, libya, iraq or iran) from impacting on the us.

missile defense
president bill clinton almost halted the program, but it has regained momentum under president george w. bush, whose version is called the national missile defense (nmd).
source: wikipedia