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 M¢37  Funded By Mahalo ? |  September 26, 2009 02:49 PM

Did SDI produce technology capable of protection against ICBMs?

Did Reagan's SDI program produce technology capable of protection against ICBMs?
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September 26, 2009 04:58 PM
Tested and proved (soon to become operational) Airborne High-energy Laser (ABL) YAL-1A, 747 jumbo jet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w-ql8msl0U&feature=player_embedded

The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as "Star Wars", was a global name to describe a series of space based defense systems proposed during the Reagan administration the in the 80´s to use ground-based and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles.

Though it was never fully developed or deployed, the research and technologies of SDI paved the way for some Anti-ballistic missile systems of today. The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) was set up in 1984. Its name was changed to the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) under the administration of President Bill Clinton in 1993 and its emphasis was shifted from national missile defense to theater missile defense (from global to regional coverage).

http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/aug2006/sdilogo.gif

Your question asked "¿Did the SDI produced any technology capable of protecting against ICBM´s?"

So, we can now say: At the time, not completely, but today, Yes. SDI has produced over time the technology capable of such a feat. Although the studies on the field started then and despite that the program was shifted, the road was paved for the implementation of such defense systems. The technology needed....

According to "abyss.uoregon.edu":

---Quote---
SDI Lasers

Another major category of researched SDI weapons were lasers, defined as Light Amplification by Simulated Emission of Radiation. If laser stations could be based in space, there would be no atmospheric degradation of the laser beam. Some advantages in attacking ICBMs are that lasers offer almost instant attack as light travels at 300,000 km/s and that the laser could travel thousands of miles without begin degraded. There are three ways to destroy an ICBM with lasers. One way is to focus a hot beam on the surface to burn a hole or weaken the structure, which would cause the ICBM to self-destruct. Another way is to "pulse" the laser so that it may push a shock wave through the target, which could knock it off course. Also, a laser could disturb fragile guidance or detonation electronics, causing the reentry vehicle (RV) to malfunction.

Types of lasers that could be used for SDI included the chemical laser, which gets energy from the chemical interaction of gases. An example is the "excimer" laser. Another type is the free-electron laser, which uses a large particle accelerator to generate electrons, which are then passed through a magnetic field and emitted as ultraviolet light. However, lasers have great power requirements with power sources weighing tons, so delivery into orbit is very difficult. Also, they are vulnerable to attack by anti-satellite weapons (ASATs). For these reasons, it was suggested that lasers could be ground based and deflected by orbiting mirrors to hit the target. Because of many apparent problems with lasers, CPBs were suggested as an alternative or for use in another layer of defense.
---/Quote---

Today´s space defense systems were derived from the 80´s SDIO proposals such:

Extended Range Interceptor (ERINT); Homing Overlay Experiment (HOE); Exoatmospheric Reentry-vehicle Interception System (ERIS); Directed-energy weapon (DEW) programs like X-ray laser, Chemical laser, Neutral Particle Beam; High Precision Tracking Experiment (HPTE); Space-Based Interceptor (SBI); Brilliant Pebbles; Boost Surveillance and Tracking System (BSTS); Space Surveillance and Tracking System (SSTS); Brilliant Eyes or Delta Star projects.

Among some of the actual defense systems built on the SDIO proposals from the 80´s are:

* Airborne High-energy Laser (ABL)
* Patriot Anti-Missile System
* F-15 based, Vought ASM-135 Anti-Satellite weapon (ASAT)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/24/ASAT_missile_launch.jpg/453px-ASAT_missile_launch.jpg
Vought ASM-135 Anti-Satellite weapon (ASAT) successful launch which hit the old Solwind P78-1 orbiting spectroscopy satellite in 1985.
Source(s):
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/space/lectures/lec18.html

http://images.google.com.co/imgres?imgurl=http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfil...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon

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September 26, 2009 07:52 PM
"Into the Thin Blue Air"

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September 26, 2009 03:35 PM
No. It never got that far.

It originally had a budget of between 500 billion to one trillion dollars, but it got shut down after the first 30 billion were spent, because none of the software engineers writing the software that would control the ICBM-killing satelites could guarantee that their software would not have bugs in it, causing the killer satelites to misfire and accidently hit communication and spy satelites.

When the communcation giants (AT&T, JT&T, and C&W) found out that their communication satelites might get mistaken as an enemy missile and shot down, and when intelligence found out the same thing could happen to their satelites, they ganged up and told the President to cancel the program, which he did, because the world has become completely dependant on operational communication satelites to do global commerce, plus it is completely dependant on working spy satelites to make sure everyone knows enough about what everyone else is really doing in order to not make the mistake of over-assuming what an enemy is capable of.

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