Graphic News story goes with graphic file entitled STAR WARS 

STAR WARS: A DECADE OF FAILURE
April 19, 1993. Copyright, 1993, Graphic News. All rights reserved

By DUNCAN MIL
When President Ronald Reagan made his ÔStar WarsÕ speech on 23 March 1983 it took everybody by surprise, including the PresidentÕs closest advisors. Reagan spoke to the American nation of his vision to put a magic shield into space, impenetrable hi-tech anti-missile defences which would render the Soviet UnionÕs nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles Ôimpotent and obsoleteÕ.
After investing ten years of research and development and $32 billion of U.S. taxpayersÕ money, ReaganÕs Star Wars Ð Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) Ð programme is still no nearer realisation. The impregnable umbrella is still a dream, or to President Bill ClintonÕs administration, an economic nightmare.
The Star Wars speech, made only days after Reagan dubbed the Soviet Union the ÔEvil EmpireÕ, marked the birth of the most ambitious, expensive and ultimately futile scientific programme ever conceived.
ReaganÕs hazy ideas described plans for weird and wonderful weapons being developed at the three great U.S. weapons labs Ð Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, and Los Alamos and Sandia, both in New Mexico. Between them they have designed every nuclear weapon that the U.S. possesses.
Dr Edward Teller at Livermore proposed a futuristic device code-named ÔExcaliburÕ. The weapon would consist of an orbiting nuclear bomb which when detonated would release intense X-ray laser beams. These Ôdeath beamsÕ would blast everything in their path, including Soviet missiles, before the device was itself consumed in the nuclear fire-ball. 
Teller, known as the father of the H-bomb, described to Reagan a strategic defence using a phalanx of X-ray lasers that would Ôpop-upÕ at the first warning of a nuclear attack to shoot down enemy missiles while they were still in the first few minutes of their initial burn or ÔboostÕ phase. TellerÕs SDI would have to detect the Soviet launch, find the missiles, aim the weapons and fire at every missile within between 50 seconds and five minutes, and his system would depend heavily on computerÕs making strategic decisions with humans excluded from the decision making process. 
IBM defence expert Richard Garwin pointed out in 1985 that any computer programme capable of controlling Star Wars would have to process 10 million lines of error-free code. ÔI donÕt know anyone who knows if that is possible, highly intricate programmes never work right the first timeÕ Garwin warned. 
The Star Warriors proposed other wonder-weapons including ground based lasers which bounced beams of energy off orbiting laser battle stations, space based particle beam accelerators which would generate streams of sub-atomic particles travelling at almost the speed of light and kinetic energy weapons which in effect threw hi-tech ÔrocksÕ at incoming missiles.
The massive research and development required to create the new military technologies also promised to deliver enormous commercial spin-offs. One estimate in 1986 predicted commercial sales from Star Wars technology could reach $20,000 billion. Even if SDI never produced an anti-missile shield the commercial development of high-speed computers that could run on light instead of electricity, medical free-electron lasers which could be used for fine surgery, lighter but stronger building materials for the construction industry, artificial diamonds and CFC-free refrigerators would justify the expense.
But ten years later even these spin-offs have withered away in the face of technological obstacles.
James Ionson, the founder of the ÔInnovative Science and Technology Õ programme (IST) which was charged with selling on SDI research to universities and business admitted in a recent New Scientist interview that most of it was hype and much of the so called ÔinnovationÕ was small scale or garbage.
ÔWe fell in love with the technology, and didnÕt care if it was laser potato peelers or belly-button jelly. It was new. It was exciting and it felt goodÕ.
So where did it all go wrong? As early as June 1984 ReaganÕs Star Warriors had demonstrated in a spectacular test that an interceptor missile launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific could hit a simulated nuclear warhead launched from California. It was Ôlike hitting a bullet with a bulletÕ. The Pentagon began a massive exercise in Europe to attract business and scientific support. Teller claimed that SDI could result in $1.3 billion in spending on basic research outside America. European organisations which jumped at the prospect of filling their purses with SDI funds included EdinburghÕs Heriot-Watt University, British Aerospace, Logica Ð BritainÕs largest autonomous software company Ð GermanyÕs Messerschmitt-Bšlkow-Blohm and FranceÕs Matra and the REOSC precision optics firm.
By 1986 the promise began to fade. 6,500 universtity scientists and engineers in the U.S. pledged to refuse SDI funds. In Britain Ð which had now become the second largest foreign contractor behind Israel and had won almost $150 million of SDI contracts Ð 500 university researchers boycotted SDI funding.
Disagreement over SDI led to the failed summit between Gorbachev and Reagan in Reykjavik where large cuts in Soviet and U.S. nuclear arsenals were expected. 
In 1987 the influential American Physical Society reported that laser and particle beam weapons Ôwould require technologies of vastly higher performance than any currently availableÕ and the first budget cuts were applied. By 1988 criticism of the scientific basis of the new technology led to a phased  approach to SDI. The first phase would use space based interceptors dubbed ÕSmart RocksÕ to destroy just 30 per cent of Soviet missiles. This plan would only defend U.S. missile silos, not cities Ð it was the end of the Reagan vision. In 1989 President Bush replaced the Smart Rocks concept with ÔBrilliant PebblesÕ and in 1991, following the demise of the Soviet threat, SDI plans were reduced to GPALS (Global Protection Against Limited Strikes) in which only a few missiles, perhaps launched by accident or by terrorists would be shot down.
Now even the future of GPALS looks shaky. During the Gulf War Bush claimed that Patriot missiles had shot down 41 out of 42 Iraqi Scud missiles: Ôproof positive that missile defence worksÕ but government investigators say only one Scud may have been hit. Congress reduced the SDI budget to $3.8 billion for 1993.
The new buzzwords in Washington are value for money and the Clinton administration has launched a complete review of Pentagon spending. Space based weapons have been reduced to relatively small research efforts and Brilliant Pebbles faces a 70 per cent reduction in budget. 
Originally scheduled for approval this year and for operational deployment by 1997, there is now little prospect of any Star Wars space-based weapon system being in use before 2010. After ten years of work and $32 billion of unworkable technology, Star Wars seems destined to remain the vision of an old man who was once President of the worldÕs most powerful nation.

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