Strategic Defense Initiative

For the computer game, see S.D.I.

Project and proposals

The project was largely overseen by Teller and Wood. The initial centerpiece of the project was to be a nuclear X-ray laser curtain that was to be deployed, first by pop ups, meaning a series of missiles launched from submarines during the critical seconds following an attack from Russia, then later by satellites and powered by nuclear warheads built into the satellites -- in theory the energy from the warhead detonation was to pump a series of laser emitters in the missiles or satellites and produce an impenetrable barrier to incoming warheads. However, the initial (and only) test done on the design, done in an underground shaft, gave nominally positive results that could easily be dismissed as coming from a faulty detector; due to the use of a nuclear explosion as the power source, the detector device was destroyed during the experiment and could not be examined after the fact. Thus, the nuclear X-ray laser looked good on paper, but was not properly administered in the field.

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This aspect of the program was quietly abandoned and replaced with work on satellite-based mini-missiles called Brilliant Pebbles (the creator of the device took the name from a derisive putdown of the plan as "smart rocks"). The program was abandoned in 1993 with the advent of the Clinton administration, but at some point the focus shifted to ground-based interceptor missiles (similar to the controversial Patriot missile used in the first Gulf War), and the technology developed for Brilliant Pebbles was recycled for other projects. With the revival of the program as the second Bush administration's National Missile Defense, this has been the sole public face of the initiative; it has drawn substantial criticism due to the fact that only approximately half of the tests done can be considered successful, and even those were done under highly controlled (some say rigged, using GPS) circumstances.

Related Topics:
Clinton - Patriot missile - Gulf War - National Missile Defense - GPS

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