THE STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), byname Star Wars, proposed U.S. strategic defensive system against potential nuclear attacks—as originally conceived, from the Soviet Union. The SDI was first proposed by President Ronald Reagan in a nationwide television address on March 23, 1983. Because some defensive system that Reagan advocated would be based in space, the proposed system was nick-named “Star Wars,” after the pop culture movie "Star Wars". The purpose of the SDI was to defend against soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) so they could take them down during certain phases of launch.
The technology at the time wasn't able to support their designs and ideas, so they still had to take time and money to research and develop new advances. All though it was passed for acception of funding, circulation of it's problems were rising. Eventually talk of costs and necessity of the program slowly destroyed it's possibility. People thought that it would inevitably be a waste making the soviet union more offensive than before. The break-up of the Soviet Union eventually caused the cancelation of the program. |
It was named after - "STAR WARS"Star Wars is a series of science-fiction movies by George Lucas. The nickname “Star Wars” may have been attached to the program for some of its abstract and farfetched ideas, many of which included lasers. Furthermore, the previously released science fiction movie titled “Star Wars,” caused the public to easily associate this program with new and creative technologies. |