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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brilliant Pebbles | 3/9 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brilliant_Pebbles | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T13:24:19.440513+00:00 | kb-cron |
On 23 March 1983, Reagan gave his famous "Star Wars" speech that called on the scientists of the United States to build defenses that would render nuclear weapons obsolete. Over the next year this was formalized as the Strategic Defense Initiative Office (SDIO) as a separate branch under the Department of Defense, and soon, many of the United States weapons laboratories and major defense contractors were exploring a variety of systems to meet this goal. Along with Excalibur and the space-based laser, new proposals included ground-based lasers, various particle-beam weapons and nuclear shaped charges. Through the early phases of SDI, the Smart Rocks concept was ignored by the SDIO. A study by research scientist Ashton Carter (to become Secretary of Defense much later) concluded that the system had "extremely limited capability for boost phase intercept of present Soviet ICBMs and no capability against future MX-like Soviet boosters, even with no Soviet effort to overcome the defense". Graham's connections in Washington's political circles meant the concept was well known in spite of any official indifference. This led to a constant stream of questions by politicians to the SDIO about the system and why they were not working on it. In 1985, Sam Nunn asked James A. Abrahamson, director of the SDIO, about it once again. Abrahamson stated that "he would not recommend that the United States proceed to deploy it". By 1986, many of the systems being studied had run into difficulties. Among these was Teller's Excalibur, which failed several critical tests in 1986. A similar test carried out by skeptical physicists at Los Alamos National Laboratory suggested there was no lasing going on at all. Other concepts, like the neutral beam weapon which shot hydrogen atoms near the speed of light, demonstrated performance that was so poor it was unlikely it could ever work. The best among them all was the space-based laser, but it needed to improve its beam quality by at least 100 times before it would be able to disable an ICBM. That same year, the American Physical Society (APS) published their review of the directed-energy weapon efforts. After a lengthy declassification procedure, it was released to the public in March 1987. Compiled by a number of notables in the laser and physics community, including Nobel laureate Charles H. Townes, the lengthy report stated in no uncertain terms that none of the concepts were remotely ready for use. In every case, performance had to be improved at least a hundred times, and for some of the concepts, as much as a million times. It concluded that at least another decade of work was required before they would even know if any of the systems could ever reach the necessary performance.
=== Strategic Defense System === In a sudden reversal, in late 1986 Abrahamson and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger agreed to proceed with a deployment option for a system that was for all intents and purposes an updated version of Smart Rocks. Named "Strategic Defense System, Phase I", or SDS for short, the concept added a ground-based interceptor that would be located in the United States, along with a host of radars and high- and low-orbit sensor satellites, all netted together with a command and control system. They briefed Reagan on the concept on 17 December 1986, and by mid-1987 had a proposal ready for review by the Defense Acquisition Board (DAB). The system immediately faced withering criticism. As before, the newly christened "garage satellites" would be open to attack by anti-satellite weapons; a single ASAT attacking the station or its sensors could disable all of the interceptor missiles within. Although this concern had been raised before, the proponents still had no answer to this problem. But now the system added more critical elements, especially the high-orbit sensor satellites which not only had to survive, but had to be able to transmit their information at high speed to the interceptors. Disrupting any one of these many systems could render the system useless. The $40 billion (equivalent to $100 billion in 2024) budget estimate was dismissed as "pure fantasy". Over the next year the budget continued to grow, apparently without bound, first to $60 billion (equivalent to $150 billion in 2024), to $75 billion (equivalent to $180 billion in 2024), and then reaching $100 billion by April 1988 (equivalent to $240 billion in 2024).