Active Missile and Space-Based Defence Programs: 1981–96

Abstract

The demise of the Reagan Administration’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), popularly known as Star Wars, at the end of the Cold War was a recognition that the program was largely an exercise of mind over matter — an attempt to will into existence space-based technologies that could be imagined but not built — rather than an understanding amongst Cold War warriors that the requirements for a missile defence system had been altered. In November 1991, the United States Congress approved The Missile Defense Act which, together with the National Defense Authorization legislation of 1994, allowed for the funding and development of both national missile defence and extra-continental theatre missile defence programs.1 The programs were budgeted $17 billion over five years from 1995 to 1999, with a forecast core program budget of $50 billion through to the year 2010, exclusive of operational costs.2 In 1993, the sign on the doors of the SDI offices was simply replaced with a sign identifying the residence of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO).