Former President Donald Trump recently proposed to her while campaigning in New Hampshire. We’ve brought back some nostalgic but delicious food from the Reagan era. He said, “I will build the Iron Dome, a state-of-the-art American-made missile defense shield, in the skies above our country.” We do it for other countries. We help and build other countries, we don’t do it for ourselves. ”
Invoking the spirit of Reagan, Trump continued: “You know, Reagan proposed ‘Star Wars’ many years ago. He proposed it many years ago. But we didn’t have the technology at the time. It just looked good. . But we have incredible technology. We should have done that.”
of iron dome This is Israel’s highly successful anti-missile defense system, successfully fending off artillery fire from terrorist groups on Israel’s borders. But “Star Wars,” or as it is properly known, Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI); It has a long and storied history dating back to the height of the Cold War.
On March 23, 1983, President Ronald Reagan gave a speech He proposed that the country build a defense system to counter the threat of nuclear attack by the Soviet Union against the United States and its allies. This proposal overturned the principle of deterring nuclear attack by threatening a similar attack on the Soviet Union.
the speech brought out hostile reaction From the media and some parts of the political class. Sen. Teddy Kennedy (D-Mass.) derided the proposal as “Star Wars,” which from his point of view was probably unfortunate branding since it was the title of a popular movie franchise at the time. I guess it was.
SDI did not provide comprehensive defense against nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. At the time, the technical challenges were too formidable to overcome. In any case, by 1992 the Soviet Union had collapsed and there was no immediate need for missile defense.
One of the components of the SDI proposal is Space-based boost phase system. The idea was to shoot down a ballistic missile from space immediately after launch. Some proposals included the use of lasers or other beam weapons. If President Trump is serious about bringing SDI back into the 21st century, boost phase defense could be a fruitful area of development for the Space Force.
Many of the technologies that were lacking in the 1980s to build space-based anti-missile defense systems have made significant advances in the 2020s.
Space launch technology is largely thanks to entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk. Significantly improved cost and reliability Since the 1980s. The cost to launch his 1 pound payload on the Space Shuttle was about $30,000. The cost to launch a 1-pound payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9 is approximately $1,200. SpaceX Starship promises to further reduce space launch costs. The collapse of space launch costs has made the deployment of space-based SDI systems much more affordable.
laser weapons are tested in the field, The U.S. Army has a battlefield laser weapon called the Directed Energy Mobile Short-Range Air Defense System (DE M-SHORAD). The U.S. Navy has developed a similar weapon called High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical Dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS). Both are prototypes designed to defeat missiles and drones, and could soon be deployed.
It is a logical progression for land-based and sea-based laser weapons to evolve into space-based laser weapons capable of defeating the emerging threats of ballistic and hypersonic missiles.
space force already Defense Support Program (DSP) satellite operations It is deployed in geostationary orbit and detects missile launches using infrared sensors. DSP systems will soon be replaced by satellites with more modern technology.space force will also expand A medium-Earth orbit constellation that complements geostationary orbit systems to track ballistic and hypersonic missiles.
If former President Trump were to win the 2024 election and follow through on his promise to field an updated SDI system, he would likely order the development of a space-based laser weapon. The balance of terror that gripped the world during the Cold War still exists to some extent. Russia still has nuclear weapons.China Expanding nuclear missile fleet. North Korea has nuclear weapons, and Iran is developing its own nuclear weapons.
A modern space-based missile defense system would fulfill President Reagan’s dream of rendering nuclear weapons “ineffective and obsolete.” It would be the ultimate expression of peace through power.
Mark R. Whittington, who writes frequently about space policy, writes,Why is it so difficult to return to the moon?” Similarly “To the moon, Mars and beyond”, and more recently”Why will America return to the moon?” He blogs at: Karma John’s Corner.
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