In the 1980s science fact and science fiction looked as though they may become
one when the American president Ronald Reagan announced the Strategic Defense
Initiative or Star Wars missile defense system. The program was designed to break
the nuclear deadlock between the u.s. and the Soviets and move beyond the
threat of M.A.D or Mutually Assured Destruction but did the nuclear
physicist Edward Teller over sell the idea to Ronald Reagan and only tell him
what he wanted to hear. Even as the world reacted to America's new defense plan
Tellers theories remained decades away from forming a working weapon. So how did
just the threat of Star Wars change the world without it actually being put into
action. By 1980 both the USA and the USSR had been stockpiling nuclear warheads
for more than a quarter of a century, the Soviets having more than 30,000 from the
US having over 20,000. The U.S. stockpile had actually decreased since the mid
1960s as new missiles were both more effective and more versatile
nevertheless the superpowers were more than capable of obliterating each other
many times over. It was President Ronald Reagan's dislike of the M.A.D policy
which he called a "suicide pact" that drove him at his advisors to seek a new
defense strategy. Their solution had to effectively remove the threat of total
annihilation but also allow the holders of the technology, in this case the U.S.
to use their weapons without fear of a devastating counter-attack Reagan. Had
been searching for a new way forward for decades. In 1967 before he was elected
the Governor of California he attended a lecture at the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory in which the hungarian-born scientist Edward Teller
proposed using nuclear weapons to defend against a nuclear attack. Teller
known as the "father of a h-bomb" was passionate about the capabilities of
nuclear technology his famous enthusiasm even made it onto the big screen as one
of the sources for the ex-nazi character in Stanley
Kubrick's black comedy dr. Strangelove. but it was Tellers ideas for harnessing
the power of nuclear explosions that would capture of reagan's imagination
and plant the idea for the Strategic Defense Initiative. During a visit to
NORAD in 1979 Reagan was told that whilst the US could find and track individual
missiles during attack they could do nothing about it.
Two years later Reagan was elected as the American presence and immediately
set his advisors the task of devising a new concept initially a proposal called
"High Frontier" was suggested a combination of ground-based ABM's or anti-ballistic missiles and a space-based laser system to shoot down
the incoming Soviet ICBMs but High Frontier needed big advances in
technology from a research project at the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory. This project codenamed "Excalibur" aimed to channel a controlled
nuclear detonation in low-earth orbit into a battery of expendable x-ray
lasers, these lasers had to be powerful enough to destroy incoming missiles in
mid-flight before the warheads separated although testing in the 1970s have been
unsuccessful, on November 14th 1980 scientists detonated a two kiloton
nuclear device in a kilometer deep underground shaft that the Nevada Test
Site and project Excalibur scored a success and the x-ray laser show promise. In the
meeting where "High Frontier" was presented to Reagan he reportedly lit up
with enthusiasm on hearing the details. Decades earlier the actor term president
had himself starred in a b-movie about an airborne laser weapon in the wartime
film "Murder in the air" On March 23rd 1983 President Reagan appeared before
the world on television to announce the launch of the Strategic Defense
Initiative. His speech made clear that the program aimed to be a technological
game-changer. The Soviet reaction was outrage and condemnation according to
the thinking that has led both sides to build up stockpiles of a offensive
weapons, defensive initiatives were destabilizing as they threatened to
shatter the existing balance of power. Reagan admitted as much in the words of
his speech this was a bold move and a gamble. The Star Wars program was
announced at a time when the USSR was already in turmoil at the top. Three
Soviet leaders have died in less than three years, Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri
Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko. On hearing of
Chernenko s death Reagan reportedly remarked "how am I supposed to get any
place with a Russians if they keep dying on me". On March the 11th 1985 Mikhail
Gorbachev became the Soviet leader chosen as part of a new generation keen
to revive a stagnant economy. Once in office Gorbachev filled his cabinet with
political allies who like him where reformists. The new Soviet administration
inherited of raft of strained diplomatic situations including a proxy
war in Afghanistan and the U.S. redeployment of medium-range missiles
across Europe. In November 1983 Soviet representatives had walked out of arms
control negotiations that year and only agreed to resume talks in 1984 if a
treaty banning space weapons was on the agenda Gorbachev came to the bargaining
table at the reykjavik Iceland summit in 1986 with an offer to shrink the
Soviet offensive nuclear arsenal in exchange for cancellation of the Star
Wars program. To avoid a new arms race and save his economy Gorbachev had to
neutralize America's new technological initiative but even as he tried to negotiate
a end to the arms race at home the Soviet defense industry was milking the
opportunity to pursue their most ambitious programs. Priority was given to
Buran, the equivalent of NASA's space shuttle and its launcher the giant
Energia rocket. This launch system was conceived as a way to loft a range of
weapons that could neutralize the American SDI satellites such as the
carbon dioxide laser called SkiF. like Buran skif was symbolically
important as it tested the idea that the Soviet Union could offer a symmetric
response to Star Wars. Energia's first launch was scheduled to put skif into
space from May 15th 1987 as part of the Polyus payload. Polyus was officially a
science mission loaded with 10 experiments to carry out any upper
atmosphere. Gorbachev himself visited the Baikonur cosmodrome before the launch to
expressly forbid any deployment of a weapon that might be seen as an act of
aggression by US surveillance. However in the end skif did even less when
Gorbachev it expected. When the Energia rocket was launched and released polyus,
a software error caused the payload to rotate too far facing backwards
polyus fired its engines slowing to fall and breakup in the atmosphere
Shortly afterwards. Although the Soviet space laser never made it into a stable
orbit Reagan had successfully bluffed his opponent into developing and testing
a symmetric response to a phantom threat. As the Polyus crashed to earth a major
review of the american technology found that the space borne x-ray laser still
faced huge challenges and remained out of reach. However by this time the US had
effectively outmaneuvered the Soviet Union forcing them into an arms race
they could not win. While the American economy enjoyed strong growth throughout
the mid to late 1980s, Soviet productivity fell further and further
behind. By 1989 the USSR was in a death spiral
Gorbachev's reforms had resulted in a domino effect, the policy of glasnost or
freedom of speech had led to public criticism of the fathers of a communist
party, destabilizing the state's legitimacy. Gorbachev announcement of
non-intervention in Eastern Europe resulted in Warsaw Pact countries
calling democratic elections, then in 1991 the Baltic states ceded from the
Soviet Union. In December of that year Gorbachev
resigned and officially dissolved the USSR and the superpower but it kicked
off the space race with Sputnik and had launched the first man into orbit was
finished. So as always thanks for watching but before I go I just like to
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