Study takes critical look at missile defense

Abstract

The chemistry community has chosen to take no role in the debate that has raged for three years over whether the U.S. should again produce chemical weapons. And life scientists have remained relatively silent as alarmist, if poorly documented, stories about the use of bioengineering in the development of biological weapons have placed NEWS ANALYSIS the unfettered exploitation of the new biologies in potential jeopardy. However, in contrast, the scientific community is responding widely and knowledgeably to the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)—the administrative manifestation of President Reagan's March 1983 call for a massive research program on the feasibility of a complete defense of the territory of the U.S. and its allies against nuclear ballistic missiles. One of the first responses to what has now become known commonly as Star Wars came from the Union of Concerned Scientists. In 1984 this organization combined two of its reports, one of which it had started before President Reagan's ...