A Step Closer to Star Wars

Can a U.S.-Soviet space-weapons race be slowed down in time?

In his Star Wars speech last spring, Ronald Reagan suggested that instead of deterring nuclear attack exclusively by threatening nuclear retaliation, the U.S. should build a kind of electronic shield to "intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reach our own soil." Last week that grandiose sci-fi vision moved closer to becoming U.S. policy. Reagan and his National Security Council approved in principle a fiveyear, $21 billion plan to begin more rapidly developing an arsenal of space weapons, in particular orbiting "ray...

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