The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983, to use ground-based and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic offense doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) was set up in 1984 within the United States Department of Defense to oversee the Strategic Defense Initiative. The ambitious initiative was widely criticized as being unrealistic, even unscientific as well as for threatening to destabilize MAD and re-ignite "an offensive arms race". In light of Reagan's vocal criticism of MAD, the Strategic Defense Initiative was an important part of his defense policy intended to offset MAD bias. It was soon derided, largely in the mainstream media, as "Star Wars," after the popular 1977 film by George Lucas. In 1987, the American Physical Society concluded that a global shield such as "Star Wars" was not only impossible with existing technology, but that ten more years of research was needed to learn whether it might ever be feasible. The United States holds a significant advantage in the field of comprehensive advanced missile defense systems through years of extensive research and testing, many of the obtained technological insights were transferred to subsequent programs and would find use in follow-up programs. Under the administration of President Bill Clinton in 1993, its name was changed to the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) and its emphasis was shifted from national missile defense to theater missile defense; and its scope from global to more regional coverage. It was never truly developed or deployed, though certain aspects of SDI research and technologies paved the way for some anti-ballistic missile systems of today. BMDO was renamed to the Missile Defense Agency in 2002. This article covers defense efforts under the SDIO. Under the SDIO's Innovative Sciences and Technology Office, headed by physicist and engineer Dr. James Ionson, the investment was predominantly made in basic research at national laboratories, universities, and in industry; these programs have continued to be key sources of funding for top research scientists in the fields of high-energy physics, supercomputing/computation, advanced materials, and many other critical science and engineering disciplines — funding which indirectly supports other research work by top scientists, and which would be politically impossible to fund outside of the defense budget environment. Because of public awareness of the program and its controversial nature, SDI has been the subject of many fictional and pop culture references. This is not intended to be a complete list of those references. In 1986, the British breakdance group The Willesden Dodgers released the track Not This President which was referring to President Reagan and the Strategic Defence Initiative. The Japanese Heavy Metal band Loudness's song "S.D.I." is a criticism of the idea of this initiative inspiring nuclear war. Dale Brown's novel Silver Tower details the adventures on and around a space station that employs an anti-ICBM laser system called Skybolt against a Soviet invasion of Iran; it would reappear in Brown's Patrick McLanahan saga starting with the 2007 novel Strike Force. Tom Clancy's novel The Cardinal of the Kremlin is based in part on a race between the USA and USSR to complete laser-based SDI systems. Homer Hickam Jr's novel Back to the Moon used leftover SDI weapons, including the Homing Overlay Experiment, in an attempt to kill the crew of shuttle Columbia. Whitley Strieber's novel Warday details how the Soviet Union launches a preemptive, limited nuclear attack on the United States while it was deploying the Strategic Defense Initiative (called "Spiderweb" in the novel) out of fears that the SDI would make the USA potentially invulnerable to Soviet missile attacks. In the Civilization series, there are several references to ICBM defense systems similar to SDI. The comedy movie Real Genius follows college physics prodigies who are unknowingly induced to develop a space-based laser weapon system for the Air Force. In RoboCop, a brief satirical news story mentions how a Strategic Defense platform codenamed Peace, malfunctioned in orbit, destroying a swathe of Southern California in the process. Spies Like Us follows two duped 'spies' who are told to launch a single Soviet missile towards the USA as part of a black operation to demonstrate and justify the expense of SDI. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative

• published: 14 Sep 2013
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