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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,

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Speaker 1: welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette and

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Speaker 1: I am an editor here at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: Sitting across from me, one of my favorite peeps in

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Speaker 1: the whole world is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Is it

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Speaker 1: a fast ship. It's the ship that made the Kessel

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Speaker 1: run in less than twelve post sex. She's fast enough

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Speaker 1: for you, old man. You have to get credit for

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Speaker 1: this quote. You actually have to. You can't just name

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Speaker 1: the original source. You have to figure out the secondary

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Speaker 1: source right well, and to be fair, the secondary source

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Speaker 1: paraphrases the primary source. So um, yes, we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk today about Star Wars Wars. This comes to us

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Speaker 1: courtesy of a little listener mail. This listener mail comes

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Speaker 1: from Eric, and Eric says, weeks ago, when Ronald Reagan's

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Speaker 1: on birthday came and went, it got me thinking about

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Speaker 1: his Star Wars satellite program. I know Star Wars involved

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Speaker 1: satellites and it theoretically would be able to kill any

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Speaker 1: bad guy. America set its sights on. However, I don't

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Speaker 1: know much about how it works. Could you do a

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Speaker 1: podcast on it? Thanks? Ps. Could Star Wars be able

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Speaker 1: to destroy Room Hilda and the Philosophizer? First of all, Eric,

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Speaker 1: it's not an assassination system, it's an anti missile system.

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Speaker 1: And second of all, nothing can stop Room Hilda and

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Speaker 1: the Philosophizer, So maybe some broad first, So you want

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Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about well, I guess before

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Speaker 1: we even talk about the Star Wars program, what we

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Speaker 1: need to do is take a little trip in the

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Speaker 1: way back machine. We haven't done that for a while. Now,

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Speaker 1: did uh? Did uh stuff you missed in history class?

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Speaker 1: Bring it back? Uh? You know? We actually we have

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Speaker 1: a secondary unit. Um. I when we when we did

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Speaker 1: the renovation on the the the studio space, I made

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Speaker 1: sure that we got a second one just for tech stuff. Okay,

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Speaker 1: good because they don't leave it plugged in. Right. Well,

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Speaker 1: this one over here, you'll you'll notice it looks kind

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Speaker 1: of like okay, so it looks like a third hand

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Speaker 1: um police call box. But trust me, it'll it'll work

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Speaker 1: just fine. So so let's all right, get in, all right,

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Speaker 1: I'm right behind here. Alright, you just budge over just

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Speaker 1: a little bit. Unfortunately, this one is not larger on

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Speaker 1: the inside than it is on the outside. Let's just

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Speaker 1: set this for October four, nineteen fifty seven, and uh,

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Speaker 1: push the button, Frank, I can't reach the button. All right,

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Speaker 1: I'll push the button, alright, And here we are October four,

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven in this what was then the Soviet Union.

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Speaker 1: Get out is not roomy in here. Oh sorry, all right,

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Speaker 1: that's better. Hey, there's that that tune that's in tetris um.

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Speaker 1: So anyway, it's nineteen fifty seven, October four, Soviet Union.

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Speaker 1: You know what's about to happen? Does it beep? It does?

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Speaker 1: In fact, that's pretty much all it does. There's going

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Speaker 1: to be the launch of the Sputnik satellite, the first

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Speaker 1: man made satellite launched into Earth orbit deep In fact,

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Speaker 1: that is a direct quote. Yes, it's pretty much. All

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Speaker 1: it did was orbit the Earth and beep. But here's

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Speaker 1: here's the other important thing about sput Nick. It was

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Speaker 1: not only was it the first man made satellite, but

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Speaker 1: it made America, like the general public of America realized

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Speaker 1: that the Russians had developed technology that would not just

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Speaker 1: allow them to launch a rocket into space, but theoretically

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Speaker 1: launch a rocket from the Soviet Union that could go

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Speaker 1: all the way and reach the United States of America

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Speaker 1: right now, keeping in mind that this is shortly after

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Speaker 1: the end of a Wars, or at least much closer

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Speaker 1: than it is now, and people were still very concerned

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Speaker 1: about what was dawning as the atomic Age. With the

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Speaker 1: dropping of the the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

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Speaker 1: that ended the Second World War, other countries were beginning

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Speaker 1: to test those realized that they were terrible weapons, all

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Speaker 1: of us in the world, everywhere, and you know, all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden it became a concern that other people,

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Speaker 1: especially you know, countries that were not necessarily friendly to

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Speaker 1: the United States and the Soviet Union had undergone what

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Speaker 1: can only be described as political turmoil over the decades

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Speaker 1: since World War One. Really, and sorry, I was dancing

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Speaker 1: around that. Yeah, but it's well, we have to talk

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Speaker 1: about it because the Cold War, that's what Star Wars

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Speaker 1: program is all about. Yes, it was so so we

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Speaker 1: had these political the strain on on the political relationship

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Speaker 1: between the United States of America and the Soviet Union.

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Speaker 1: They had dia trically opposing political philosophies, right, and now

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Speaker 1: these very very potent weapons which going from needing to

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Speaker 1: be dropped as bombs from planes to being equipped on

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Speaker 1: top of missile warheads. We're talking about longer and longer ranges.

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Speaker 1: What parts of the world can you hit with a

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Speaker 1: rocket of this type? And then suddenly there is a

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Speaker 1: thing in space that is beeping? But what does that mean?

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Speaker 1: Does that mean that you can hit anywhere in the

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Speaker 1: world if you launch the rocket from the right, you know,

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Speaker 1: at the right altitude and attitude and apogee right, yeah, yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: instead of having to send a bunch of aircraft to

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Speaker 1: fly over a target space and drop bombs, you know,

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Speaker 1: those aircraft could be intercepted and could be shot down. Um,

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Speaker 1: you could, uh, there were things that you could do

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Speaker 1: in that case. The thought of a missile being launched

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Speaker 1: across the world and then hitting your nation was much

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Speaker 1: more frightening because what could you do against that. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's what sort of propelled the whole idea of the

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Speaker 1: Strategy Strategic Defense Initiative or star Wars program. Well, let's

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Speaker 1: let's get back into the machine and get back to

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Speaker 1: modern day. Seriously, we have to cutphobic all right, well,

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Speaker 1: let's look just held deeply and get in all right,

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Speaker 1: shut up, we got to move this lever because okay,

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Speaker 1: great and we're back all right, let me just get

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Speaker 1: out of here. Okay, now somebody else can have that one.

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Speaker 1: The studio seems nice and room he now, doesn't it.

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Speaker 1: All right, So now that we're back in the present day,

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Speaker 1: we can talk a little bit about what happened after

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Speaker 1: the spot Nick launch. You essentially had a lot of

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Speaker 1: research and development poured into these these long range missile programs. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: the the intercontinental Ballistic missile or i C b M

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Speaker 1: became a product of this. So this began what was

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Speaker 1: a philosophy that was called later mutual assured destruction. Is

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Speaker 1: it a Is it any coincidence that the initials spell mad? Well,

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Speaker 1: you had to be mad to follow it, right, So

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Speaker 1: the idea of being that you, whoever has the most weapons,

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Speaker 1: gets to scare off everyone else from attacking you because

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Speaker 1: we have more than you. Yeah, the idea being that

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Speaker 1: that really the idea came down to each each side

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Speaker 1: of this opposing philosophy, this this cold war so called

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Speaker 1: because there weren't outright hostilities breaking out, uh that you

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Speaker 1: had to have enough weapons to ensure that you could

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Speaker 1: destroy your enemy, and both sides had it, and the

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Speaker 1: idea being that with both sides having these weapons, there'd

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Speaker 1: be it would be crazy to actually launch an attack,

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Speaker 1: because you would know that you would also be attacked

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Speaker 1: and that you would suffer just as your enemy suffered.

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Speaker 1: So that was the mutual assured destruction, the idea that

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Speaker 1: it's so dangerous to launch an attack, no one would

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Speaker 1: dare do so. Problem is that that relies on human

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Speaker 1: acting in a rational way, and that of course it's

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Speaker 1: not always the case. In fact, this you could argue

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Speaker 1: that this was the same philosophy that existed in Europe

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Speaker 1: prior to World War One, that European nations were building

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Speaker 1: up armed armies and navies. They were really pouring money

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Speaker 1: into their armed forces, with the idea being that if

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Speaker 1: you had a very strong armed force, no one would

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Speaker 1: ever dare attack you. So therefore, just by increasing tensions,

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Speaker 1: by by increasing the size of your military, you could

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Speaker 1: ensure peace, even though it would be a very tense piece. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: as World War One proved, that did not work. So

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Speaker 1: we tried it again with nuclear weapons um and and

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Speaker 1: to some I think just for the sake of clarification,

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Speaker 1: right now, I would say it's safe to say that

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Speaker 1: that that hasn't gone away. There's still huge nuclear stockpiles

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Speaker 1: in the United States and in USA, the former Soviet Union,

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Speaker 1: and and many other countries around the world now. And

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Speaker 1: even though the Soviet Union itself collapsed, it looks you

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Speaker 1: could you could say that the political and the political

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Speaker 1: attitude in what in the former Soviet Union is once

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Speaker 1: again at least at least somewhat antagonistic towards the United

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Speaker 1: States government. Right there, there are political tensions between the

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Speaker 1: United States and the countries that were in the former

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Speaker 1: Soviet Union. Well, you know, you can see, uh, even

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Speaker 1: some of our younger listeners will probably remember the tension,

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Speaker 1: uh if you follow the news at all, and I

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Speaker 1: recommend that you do. Um, the tension generated from North

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Speaker 1: Korea's fairly recent tests in the last two or three

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Speaker 1: years where they were testing nuclear weapons and and missile

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Speaker 1: technology bo um. And you know, of course this causes

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Speaker 1: a lot of tension with South Korea and Japan UM,

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Speaker 1: but also for for other countries around the world, even

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Speaker 1: even Europe, which you know probably you wouldn't wow. You know,

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Speaker 1: they're pretty far away, you know, still it affects these

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Speaker 1: things are no longer local conflicts with this technology. So, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, the ideas are it hasn't gone away, certainly, right.

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Speaker 1: You still have these political ideologies that are in opposition

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Speaker 1: with each other. But then you also have like global

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Speaker 1: corporations that span multiple countries, some of which have these

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Speaker 1: political ideologies that conflict with the corporation's home country. It's

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Speaker 1: main matters much more complicated. It's not just political, it's financial.

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Speaker 1: And you know, of course we're all nuclear weapons are nondiscriminatory, right,

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Speaker 1: they don't. They don't target just military installations, military personnel.

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Speaker 1: This is these are weapons that target enormous areas and

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Speaker 1: essentially are going to wipe out massive civilian populations were

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Speaker 1: they to be um uh, you know, hit by a

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Speaker 1: nuclear attack. So that's kind of what spawned this idea

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Speaker 1: of the Strategic Defense initiative. And you have you actually

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Speaker 1: looked at the the announcement that kind of unveiled this

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Speaker 1: to the world, right, Um, yeah, I. And in doing

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Speaker 1: the research for this this you can actually date the

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Speaker 1: Strategic Defense Initiative back to a specific date, although really

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Speaker 1: the idea goes back farther. But when people picking a

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Speaker 1: a significant date in the history of the s D,

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Speaker 1: I uh most pick March when President uh Ronald Reagan

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Speaker 1: addressed the country on issues of national security. Now, UM,

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Speaker 1: a while back, I actually had found a series of

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Speaker 1: podcasts on presidents that were being offered by UM, I

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Speaker 1: believe PBS. They were free, so I downloaded and watched

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Speaker 1: several of them, and I kind of, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: Reagan's term two terms were during my lifetime, but I

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Speaker 1: don't remember a lot about about him and what he

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Speaker 1: was like. And I, from what I understand, he you know,

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Speaker 1: although I think a lot of people see him a

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Speaker 1: sort of a a militarist in some respects because he

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Speaker 1: did he did stress in this message you know, look

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Speaker 1: we can't We've got to be tough. We want to

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Speaker 1: deter our enemies. But UM, I think he was also

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Speaker 1: he he kind of didn't like this stress. From what

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Speaker 1: I understand, he the stress that that brings on, because

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Speaker 1: it's a stressful environment. You're always wondering if you have

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Speaker 1: more weapons than the other people, if your arms cash is,

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Speaker 1: if you have more more soldiers and sailors and marines.

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Speaker 1: Looking at looking at uh as stressful. Yeah, you start

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Speaker 1: looking at statistics like if we were hit by a

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Speaker 1: first strike, how many of our weapons would remain operable

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Speaker 1: so that we could strike back. I mean, when you're

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Speaker 1: looking at that scenario, you're already saying, we've been hit

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Speaker 1: and we've lost a massive amount of our infrastructure, our citizens,

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Speaker 1: We've taken huge losses. Can we strike back? I mean,

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Speaker 1: when you when you have to ask yourself that question,

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Speaker 1: that is, I mean, that's a tough question because you're

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Speaker 1: already talking about defeat in a way, no one wins

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Speaker 1: in that situation, right right, right? So um he uh

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Speaker 1: And in this particular speech wasn't particularly long address, um,

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Speaker 1: but this was Yeah, it's not very long, and it's

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Speaker 1: easy to find, but it's kind of interesting because it

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Speaker 1: takes a different tack, if you will. Um basically said, look,

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Speaker 1: I want to offer you a different idea, an idea

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Speaker 1: that might bring you hope. Rather than trying to destroy

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Speaker 1: our enemies outright necessarily, why don't we embark on a

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Speaker 1: plan to uh to intercept and destroy these weapons before

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Speaker 1: they reach us? And that means we don't necessarily have

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Speaker 1: we can we can focus instead on protecting ourselves rather

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Speaker 1: than destroying our enemies. Um. Although to be sure, I'm

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Speaker 1: sure that he wanted to rely on uh mutually to

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Speaker 1: assure destruction to some degree as a defense initiative. And

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Speaker 1: I think, you know, frankly, you could argue that it

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Speaker 1: does have some value. But you know, he said, look,

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Speaker 1: let's instead of doing this, let's do something new and used.

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Speaker 1: We've got a lot of technology available to us to

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Speaker 1: make sophisticated weapons and defense systems. Let's create a network

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Speaker 1: of defenses that will intercept and destroy nuclear weapons before

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Speaker 1: they could actually reach us. UM. And you know, he

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Speaker 1: doesn't really get into a lot of the details in

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Speaker 1: the address, so that that comes later. And although although

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Speaker 1: I think it, I think it only took the next

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Speaker 1: day before someone called it the star Wars program. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it didn't, because you know, there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: pieces to it, and it's a lot of it is

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Speaker 1: about you know, weaponizing space espentially essentially, you know, where

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Speaker 1: you're saying, let's put stuff in the sky that can

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Speaker 1: shoot other stuff out of the sky and um, but

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Speaker 1: it's not just about that. There were ground defenses, there

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Speaker 1: were airborne defenses, there were space born defenses, all as

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Speaker 1: part of this overall network and uh it's not even

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Speaker 1: that simple because it's shifted over time to mean different

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Speaker 1: things during different presidents and different departments took over parts

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Speaker 1: of the of the What was originally all part of

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Speaker 1: the Strategic Defense Initiative, some of that broke off and became,

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Speaker 1: uh specifically an Air Force initiative, so it was no

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Speaker 1: longer part of s d I. It was a different program.

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Speaker 1: Um and uh so so yeah, I mean it's it's

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Speaker 1: kind of you think about it. How are you going

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Speaker 1: to do that? How are you going to stop missiles

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Speaker 1: before they even you know, come down and hit the earth.

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Speaker 1: And there were a lot of proposals, so it seems

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Speaker 1: pardon the not pun but weird pun like thing, uh

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Speaker 1: pie in the sky sort of thing. Yeah, um so

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Speaker 1: I am thinking of a giant pie stopping missiles. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: how are you going to spend money on that's going

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Speaker 1: to do this? Yeah, I've lost him so uh so, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was it was supposed to stop i c b

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Speaker 1: ms from reaching the United States. Now, part of it was, hey,

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Speaker 1: if you can destroy it in space before it even

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Speaker 1: reenters the atmosphere, because you know, some i c b

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Speaker 1: ms do they reach a low orbit and then at

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Speaker 1: their at their peak, they are in a low orbit

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Speaker 1: and then they re enter on a trajectory towards their target. Yes,

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Speaker 1: that's why they're intercontinental UM. But yes, there are other

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Speaker 1: weapons that don't reach that that altitude UM. And it's

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Speaker 1: interesting because if you look at the history and the

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Speaker 1: various proposals that were all part of s d I,

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Speaker 1: you start to realize that they were figuring this out

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Speaker 1: as they were going along as well, like there were

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Speaker 1: the Originally, a lot of the idea was that, well,

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Speaker 1: we can as long as we can shoot down the

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Speaker 1: missile or destroy the missile before it before it gets

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Speaker 1: uh you know, before it makes contact, then that's acceptable.

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Speaker 1: Except for the fact that there was the discovery of hey, uh,

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Speaker 1: these these blasts are releasing gig enormous electromagnetic pulses or

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Speaker 1: e m p s, and that means that were you

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Speaker 1: to detonate a nuclear weapon, even at a fairly high

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Speaker 1: altitude over the United States, that e MP could end

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Speaker 1: up affecting the electronics on the ground or even in

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Speaker 1: the air. So you're talking about all the airplanes that

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Speaker 1: maybe in the area, you're talking about all the electronics

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Speaker 1: in the area of like the power grid in the area.

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Speaker 1: It could create blackouts in over a massive range because

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Speaker 1: I mean a big enough EMP could put a load

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Speaker 1: not just on that region's power grid, but the neighboring

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Speaker 1: regions as well. So, uh, you know, we we did

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Speaker 1: an entire podcast about e m p s in the past,

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Speaker 1: so if you if you really want to know more

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Speaker 1: about them, I recommend you check that out because it

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Speaker 1: is it's interesting tactic as well as just a side

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Speaker 1: effect of the nuclear war arms program in the first place.

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Speaker 1: So that kind of led to discussions about, well, what

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Speaker 1: we really need our defense initiatives that would allow us

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Speaker 1: to shoot down missiles as as close to when they

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Speaker 1: launch as possible and um and to be perfectly clear,

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Speaker 1: I mean, if you go to the Department of Defense,

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Speaker 1: they have unclassified documents, lots of them, lots of them

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Speaker 1: that you can read. And there's one that's uh that's

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Speaker 1: a memorandum for the Secretary of Defense that is the

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Speaker 1: Space component of US Military Strategy and war Fighting Requirements

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Speaker 1: for US Military Space Systems. That document makes it very

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Speaker 1: clear they're talking specifically about the Soviets. The term Soviets

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Speaker 1: appears multiple times through this document, which is several pages long,

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Speaker 1: is written in n so you know there was there

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Speaker 1: were no illusions. This was not you know, some sort

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Speaker 1: of vague defense system that was meant to protect the

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Speaker 1: United States from any attacker. This was something that was

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Speaker 1: that was talked about with the Soviets in mind in particular. Um,

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Speaker 1: so part of that was talking about you know, we mentioned,

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Speaker 1: or you mentioned, Chris, that there were going to be

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Speaker 1: ground based systems as well as ones in space and

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Speaker 1: in the air. Uh. This this meant that your ground

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Speaker 1: based systems were essentially things like radar stations where you

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Speaker 1: can detect that missile had had launched, because as missiles

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Speaker 1: were going at altitudes that were high enough to be

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Speaker 1: detectable by radar. The the space element eventually came to

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Speaker 1: the conclusion that there needed to be satellites that would

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Speaker 1: be positioned directly over the Soviet Union in order for

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Speaker 1: this to be effective, so that we could launch a

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Speaker 1: counter measure from space to interfere with the I, C, B,

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Speaker 1: M S. And UM, you know, there were several systems

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Speaker 1: that we're going to rely on one of your favorite

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Speaker 1: technologies lasers. Actually, I would I would argue at least

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Speaker 1: I don't know about you, Chris, when I was a

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Speaker 1: kid in the eighties, my perception, and granted, remember I

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Speaker 1: was a kid, I only I only knew about this

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Speaker 1: kind of because adults talked about it, right, But as

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Speaker 1: a kid, I always imagined that the Star Wars program

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Speaker 1: was all about lasers. I never, I never knew as

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Speaker 1: a kid during the time when this was actually happening

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Speaker 1: that that was just one of many proposals. But to

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Speaker 1: talk about the lasers, the system them that was proposed,

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Speaker 1: the initial one with X ray lasers was really really

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Speaker 1: kind of interesting, and ultimately people like scientists and and

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Speaker 1: military personnel determined that it was not feasible. But the

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Speaker 1: idea was that you would launch satellites into orbit position

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Speaker 1: them over the Soviet Union. These satellites would actually contain

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Speaker 1: a nuclear warhead inside the satellite. The satellite would also

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Speaker 1: contain lazing material. You might want to go back and

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Speaker 1: listen to our Laser's podcast to hear about lazing material.

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Speaker 1: But that the nuclear explosion when you when you detonated

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Speaker 1: the warhead would provide the energy that would emit an

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Speaker 1: extremely powerful X ray laser using this lazing material, and

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Speaker 1: that you would include lots and lots of lasers in

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Speaker 1: a in a single satellite, like two dozen of them

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Speaker 1: in there, so that they could shoot down multiple targets

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Speaker 1: from one detonation. I believe at the time UH the

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Speaker 1: United States had estimated that the Soviet Union had lots

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Speaker 1: and lots of warheads, but only I think fewer than

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Speaker 1: two thousand actual missiles. So the idea was that you

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Speaker 1: had to have enough satellites to shoot down the majority

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Speaker 1: of those two thousand or so or fewer missiles in

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Speaker 1: order to protect the United States. So in order to

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Speaker 1: shoot them down, you would have to detonate a nuclear

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Speaker 1: warhead within this satellite and have it contained in such

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Speaker 1: a way that the energy is then UH directed into

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Speaker 1: a lasing medium shoots an X ray laser. The X

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Speaker 1: ray laser hits the missile and UH and shoots it down.

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Speaker 1: And to do that, of course, you also have to

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Speaker 1: have a tracking system. You have to figure out how

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Speaker 1: you're gonna track it. Originally I think they were looking

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Speaker 1: at um at at radar, but then there was the

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Speaker 1: possibility of having of the Soviet Union launching decoys using

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Speaker 1: radar reflectors so that the radar would have false readings saying, oh,

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Speaker 1: here's a missile over here, and by shooting lots and

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Speaker 1: lots of these up in the air all at once,

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Speaker 1: it would mean you would waste a lot of your

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Speaker 1: your defense initiative shooting down dummies essentially. There was also

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Speaker 1: a talk about using UH sensors that would detect heat signatures,

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Speaker 1: and you would see the heat signature from a missile

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Speaker 1: is going to be much larger than a decoy, So

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Speaker 1: then you just aim for the big ones, right, But

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Speaker 1: this is not this is a non trivial problem figuring

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Speaker 1: out not just how to make the laser work, which

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Speaker 1: by the way, no one really ever figured out a

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Speaker 1: reliable way of doing that, but figuring out the targeting

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Speaker 1: system so that you can look reliably target and shoot

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Speaker 1: down these missiles without missing them, because that energy is

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Speaker 1: gonna keep on going. If you miss that missile, it's

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Speaker 1: going to hit something else. Stupid physics. Yeah, and we're

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Speaker 1: talking X ray lasers. I mean this, this is really

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Speaker 1: X ray lasers powered by a nuclear explosion. This is

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Speaker 1: a very powerful beam of light. And then you have

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Speaker 1: you know, the brilliant pebbles. Alliant pebbles, yes, which were

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Speaker 1: the UH basically autonomous spacecraft. Yes, you know, just sort

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Speaker 1: of coasting around it. They're looking for stuff to shoot

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Speaker 1: down or collide with. Yeah, a lot of it was

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Speaker 1: was kind of the idea of not necessarily even shooting

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Speaker 1: something down, but just putting something in the way of

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Speaker 1: the missile so that it would, uh, it would end

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Speaker 1: up destroying itself or falling to the Earth, you know,

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Speaker 1: something like that, where you're not you're not necessarily trying

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Speaker 1: to destroy the missile in mid air. UM. There were

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Speaker 1: several missile systems that were proposed where you would actually

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Speaker 1: shoot a missile from space to the I, C. B

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Speaker 1: M to destroy it, and the idea being that you

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Speaker 1: wouldn't need as much fuel for the individual missiles or

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Speaker 1: rockets or whatever you want to call them, um in

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Speaker 1: the in the satellites that would be housing these weapons systems,

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Speaker 1: because they don't have to escape the Earth's gravity. They

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Speaker 1: just have to be aimed at the right direction and fired. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Some of them were would have tracking ability so that

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Speaker 1: they could change direction in midflight. I saw proposals for

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Speaker 1: a rail gun system. Railguns, in case you were wondering,

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Speaker 1: use electromagnetic energy to propel a a projectile down a pathway,

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Speaker 1: so you're actually it's the same sort of thing like

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Speaker 1: UM particle accelerators. Right, with a particle accelerator, for example,

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Speaker 1: the large hadron collider, you wanna accelerate a proton beam

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Speaker 1: faster and faster and faster around the circle until it

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Speaker 1: reaches the right speed where you make it collide with

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Speaker 1: another proton being traveling at the same speed but in

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Speaker 1: the opposite direction. You do that by using magnetic force,

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Speaker 1: because you know, protons are positively charged, so you use

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Speaker 1: a negative charge ahead of the proton to pull it,

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Speaker 1: or a positive charge behind the proton to push it,

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Speaker 1: and you just you increase that frequency until it's moving

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Speaker 1: at near the speed of light. Well, the railguns work

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Speaker 1: on a similar idea, except you're using a physical projectile

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Speaker 1: and you're using electromagnetic energy to to shoot the projectile

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Speaker 1: out of the system. The big problem there was that

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Speaker 1: even though it was possible to make a railgun UM

430
00:25:07,840 --> 00:25:12,440
Speaker 1: at the time it was, they could only fire infrequently,

431
00:25:12,600 --> 00:25:15,560
Speaker 1: like we're talking like once a day or once every

432
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:18,720
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, because it just took so much energy

433
00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:21,240
Speaker 1: to generate that and to make it work that you

434
00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:24,440
Speaker 1: couldn't just reload and fire and fire and fire UM.

435
00:25:24,560 --> 00:25:26,160
Speaker 1: So in order for that system to work, it would

436
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:28,119
Speaker 1: of course have to be able to fire lots of

437
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:30,840
Speaker 1: times in a in a short time frame. You'd also

438
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 1: have to figure out, all right, well, what kind of

439
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:34,320
Speaker 1: projectile are we using. We have to have one that

440
00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:37,240
Speaker 1: if we're shooting it from space, the projectile has to

441
00:25:37,240 --> 00:25:40,440
Speaker 1: be able to survive re entry into the Earth's atmosphere,

442
00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:42,959
Speaker 1: and so that there were a lot of problems with that.

443
00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:47,520
Speaker 1: So we were talking about missile systems, projectile systems, laser systems.

444
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:51,520
Speaker 1: There were even systems that projects that suggested nets like

445
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:54,680
Speaker 1: either missiles that would deploy a net that would foul

446
00:25:54,760 --> 00:25:56,679
Speaker 1: and I C B M and cause it to to

447
00:25:56,960 --> 00:26:02,440
Speaker 1: not uh too well to detonate essentially m m um.

448
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:05,600
Speaker 1: And the more we looked into this, and we being

449
00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:09,200
Speaker 1: scientists and engineers, the more it appeared that, at least

450
00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:13,160
Speaker 1: based on the nineteen eighties technology and even nineteen nineties technology,

451
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:16,480
Speaker 1: this did span more than a decade um and in fact,

452
00:26:16,600 --> 00:26:18,840
Speaker 1: some of the elements are still in place in the

453
00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:24,600
Speaker 1: in the United States military. Uh. It just became clear

454
00:26:24,760 --> 00:26:27,880
Speaker 1: that there was no easy or feasible or cost effective

455
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:30,679
Speaker 1: way of deploying this. You know, you eventually had to

456
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:32,439
Speaker 1: come to the conclusion of does it make sense to

457
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:36,520
Speaker 1: pour billions and billions of dollars or, as Karl Sagan

458
00:26:36,560 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 1: would put it, billions and billions of dollars into a

459
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:45,080
Speaker 1: program that you might not ever use right right, And

460
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:48,399
Speaker 1: the it did receive some initial funding from Congress. I

461
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:51,080
Speaker 1: mean back in the nineteen eighties, people were behind the

462
00:26:51,119 --> 00:26:55,359
Speaker 1: idea and and you know, jumped on the chance to

463
00:26:55,359 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 1: to fund this project. But I mean, immediately or seemingly

464
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 1: immediately out of the gate, there were people criticizing the

465
00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:09,440
Speaker 1: ideas being too expensive, too difficult to pardon upon otherworldly

466
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:11,680
Speaker 1: It's like, how are we you know, this is foreign

467
00:27:11,760 --> 00:27:14,600
Speaker 1: to us. And it earned you know, it earned the

468
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:18,600
Speaker 1: program the nickname, you know, Star Wars. It earned Reagan

469
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 1: the nickname Ronnie Rey gun Well. And and you know,

470
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 1: not only did it seem like it was unlikely to happen,

471
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:26,880
Speaker 1: but there were people who are saying, if we did

472
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:31,639
Speaker 1: have this in place, it would actually potentially lead to

473
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 1: a nuclear war, because because you would either that either

474
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 1: the side that has the technology would say, hey, now

475
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:41,879
Speaker 1: we have the advantage. We can launch an initial attack

476
00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:44,679
Speaker 1: against our enemy, and we have the defenses in place

477
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:47,600
Speaker 1: to prevent most of their missiles coming over here, So

478
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:49,600
Speaker 1: we should just wipe them out because we can do

479
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:52,439
Speaker 1: it now. And then the other side of the argument

480
00:27:52,520 --> 00:27:55,600
Speaker 1: is the the enemy. The Soviets could say, hey, they're

481
00:27:55,640 --> 00:27:58,920
Speaker 1: putting this this defense initiative in place. If we don't

482
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:01,959
Speaker 1: attack now, we're going to be at a weekend position.

483
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 1: So we should attack before they get the defense system up. Yes,

484
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:08,160
Speaker 1: and then you you have your you actually end up

485
00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:13,040
Speaker 1: causing the very event you're trying to prevent. Yes, And

486
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:16,639
Speaker 1: the Soviets were working on their own version of the system.

487
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 1: It it escalated tensions in the Cold War because suddenly

488
00:28:20,359 --> 00:28:25,040
Speaker 1: we were embarking on this new project. That UM was

489
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:28,399
Speaker 1: very scary because all of a sudden, and and Reagan

490
00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:30,480
Speaker 1: was right in that it does take some of the

491
00:28:30,560 --> 00:28:33,440
Speaker 1: sting out of the mutually assured destruction. So all of

492
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:36,639
Speaker 1: a sudden, they're going, wait a minute, that's what we

493
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 1: can shoot at them. And then once they neutralize all

494
00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:43,080
Speaker 1: our weapons or most of our weapons, they can shoot back,

495
00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 1: or they can shoot at us before we can even

496
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:47,000
Speaker 1: shoot at them, and then they shoot all our stuff

497
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:51,840
Speaker 1: down for us. Yes, So that that escalated tensions just

498
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:56,520
Speaker 1: that much more. UM. But UH, and and the Soviets

499
00:28:56,520 --> 00:28:59,240
Speaker 1: were working on their own system, which came to light

500
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:02,000
Speaker 1: years later. But and there were there were scientists and

501
00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 1: engineers who argued even at the beginning that really the

502
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 1: answer to this was not building an SDI system, but

503
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:13,240
Speaker 1: using diplomacy to try and and UH in the Cold

504
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:15,959
Speaker 1: Cold War, and as we know, that eventually did happen,

505
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:18,120
Speaker 1: although you could argue that we're in a new Cold

506
00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:21,720
Speaker 1: War now UM or at least the beginning stages of one.

507
00:29:22,320 --> 00:29:27,160
Speaker 1: The but the diplomacy was what several people had advocated for.

508
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:30,520
Speaker 1: And actually that when that started to work, when the

509
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:33,720
Speaker 1: Cold War began to kind of unravel, that that was

510
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:37,480
Speaker 1: bad news for the SDI initiative, which, by the way,

511
00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 1: it underwent several name changes. I'm just going to say

512
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 1: SDI because it's easier. I don't want to cop on

513
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:45,360
Speaker 1: going back and forth. But it meant that UM, getting

514
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 1: funding for those programs was more and more difficult because

515
00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:50,400
Speaker 1: there seemed to be less of a need for one.

516
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 1: You started to have nuclear disarmament disarmament programs, which you

517
00:29:55,320 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 1: know that that decreased the need for a space warfare initiative. UH.

518
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 1: Some of those elements though still got funding and continued

519
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:07,080
Speaker 1: to UH to be an important part in military strategy.

520
00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:09,720
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of our our spy satellites came

521
00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:13,800
Speaker 1: out of that program, and we've developed sensors and GPS

522
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:16,880
Speaker 1: systems that were initially in one way or another tied

523
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:20,800
Speaker 1: into sd I, and we've benefited from those. So not

524
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:25,800
Speaker 1: everything in s d I was um impossible or are

525
00:30:25,800 --> 00:30:30,520
Speaker 1: are too expensive or unnecessary? Right right, And some of

526
00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:33,880
Speaker 1: it does, you know, have clear application. Now I should

527
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:36,600
Speaker 1: point out I was curious about the GPS connection, and

528
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:40,959
Speaker 1: GPS did exist in forms before sd I, so but

529
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:44,000
Speaker 1: you know, the fact of the matter is the GPS

530
00:30:44,080 --> 00:30:47,440
Speaker 1: system is really very necessary to make something like sd

531
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 1: I work, you wherever to do that. Also, it spawned

532
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 1: a game for the Amiga called s d I, which

533
00:30:55,680 --> 00:30:59,240
Speaker 1: is very much about what this would have been about

534
00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 1: if you could just make it happen, also Missile Commander.

535
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 1: And we should point out that some of this, some

536
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 1: of the philosophies here have been used in in a

537
00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:16,080
Speaker 1: smaller UH capacity, Like instead of it being a global system,

538
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:19,000
Speaker 1: there are theater systems. And when I say theater systems,

539
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:21,040
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the regions in which there is an

540
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:24,800
Speaker 1: active conflict. So for example, in the initial the first

541
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: the First Gulf War, the first war in Iraq, uh,

542
00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:32,800
Speaker 1: we saw the Patriot system and the Patriot missile system

543
00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:37,440
Speaker 1: that was designed to shoot down incoming missiles anti missile missiles. Yes,

544
00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:41,040
Speaker 1: so that was that was a direct descendant from the

545
00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:44,680
Speaker 1: SDI program. It's just it was a smaller, uh, you know,

546
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:47,640
Speaker 1: surface to air missile system as opposed to one launched

547
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:51,920
Speaker 1: from space. But the Patriot system that came direct directly

548
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 1: out of the SDI initiative. And uh, another thing that

549
00:31:57,080 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 1: I wanted to point out is that we're at a

550
00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:00,800
Speaker 1: point now where a lot of the technology that was

551
00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:06,840
Speaker 1: talked about back in is completely feasible and possible now right,

552
00:32:06,880 --> 00:32:10,760
Speaker 1: We've we've technologically advanced to the point where but from

553
00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:14,520
Speaker 1: a hardware perspective, we could achieve many of the things

554
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 1: that were, um, we're proposed during the initial sd I announcement.

555
00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:23,720
Speaker 1: But there's still some some other problems, not just the

556
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 1: political problems and the ideological problems, but actual technical problems.

557
00:32:28,640 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 1: And I read an article in Time magazine. The article

558
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:35,320
Speaker 1: was called Computers, Star Wars, and Software. It was written

559
00:32:35,320 --> 00:32:39,080
Speaker 1: in two thousand five, and in it, uh, there was

560
00:32:39,200 --> 00:32:43,400
Speaker 1: a a computer scientist named David Parnass who was a

561
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:47,120
Speaker 1: part of a committee that worked on There was an

562
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:51,240
Speaker 1: advisory panel for the this initiative that in time it

563
00:32:51,320 --> 00:32:54,720
Speaker 1: just refers to it as the star Wars program, and

564
00:32:54,880 --> 00:33:00,840
Speaker 1: Partners said that he he resigned from the panel our

565
00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:05,200
Speaker 1: frustration because he felt that the goals they had were

566
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:08,440
Speaker 1: unachievable and his his perspective was that there was in

567
00:33:08,560 --> 00:33:10,760
Speaker 1: order for this system to work, to have a a

568
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 1: multi satellite system designed to shoot down missiles incoming missiles

569
00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:18,080
Speaker 1: meant that you would have to have a software program

570
00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:21,200
Speaker 1: so complex it would be the largest and most complex

571
00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:23,240
Speaker 1: program ever written, and you would have to have the

572
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:26,160
Speaker 1: most advanced computer system in the world to run it,

573
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:29,320
Speaker 1: because you would have to be able to identify target

574
00:33:29,800 --> 00:33:35,640
Speaker 1: and eliminate so many UH missiles in such a relatively

575
00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 1: small time frame that UH it would be it would

576
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:43,320
Speaker 1: be incredibly difficult, and it would need to work perfectly

577
00:33:43,400 --> 00:33:45,400
Speaker 1: the first time it was used, because if it didn't,

578
00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 1: you know, how do you test that. You can't really

579
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:51,720
Speaker 1: test it until it's necessary. And his point is that

580
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:56,000
Speaker 1: no software program ever works perfectly the first time you

581
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:58,280
Speaker 1: use it. You have to you know, you run a program,

582
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:00,280
Speaker 1: you see where it works, where it doesn't work. You

583
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:03,800
Speaker 1: do quality assurance, You test it, you write down all

584
00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:05,720
Speaker 1: the things that don't work. You go back to the

585
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:08,760
Speaker 1: drawing board, you start reprogramming it. You run it again,

586
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:11,120
Speaker 1: see if anything is fixed. Maybe you broke something even

587
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:14,839
Speaker 1: worse this time. And his point is that you don't

588
00:34:14,840 --> 00:34:18,359
Speaker 1: get that chance with this system. And and if if

589
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:20,880
Speaker 1: the system is not guaranteed to work perfectly, if it

590
00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:23,359
Speaker 1: has to be this complex, if it requires the most

591
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:26,640
Speaker 1: advanced computer system in the world, you're talking about costs

592
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:29,960
Speaker 1: for something not guaranteed to work, and that therefore it

593
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:33,960
Speaker 1: is not a worthwhile endeavor. You know, you should not

594
00:34:34,080 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 1: pour that huge amount of money into something that may

595
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:39,880
Speaker 1: not ever work, and it may actually escalate things to

596
00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 1: the point where there's a legitimate conflict. It's a it's

597
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:50,120
Speaker 1: it's funny now it seems much less of a big deal.

598
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:54,360
Speaker 1: But I remember a lot of stuff going on in

599
00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:58,920
Speaker 1: the news, just constant, constant talk about the Star Wars program,

600
00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:03,600
Speaker 1: and people still mean it now in legislative sessions about

601
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 1: sort of as a you know, well this didn't work,

602
00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:09,440
Speaker 1: but I think it in the end, or well, I

603
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:11,880
Speaker 1: doubt you could really say this is the end even

604
00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:13,880
Speaker 1: I mean some of it, some of it did survive,

605
00:35:13,880 --> 00:35:17,440
Speaker 1: and some of it is pretty successful. Um, it's just

606
00:35:17,680 --> 00:35:20,120
Speaker 1: not really in the way that it was originally and

607
00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:24,399
Speaker 1: not as a complete and not as a complete package. Um.

608
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:27,960
Speaker 1: But you know, if if it serves as a defensive

609
00:35:28,800 --> 00:35:32,799
Speaker 1: deterrent against having other people launch attacks against you, you know,

610
00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:36,839
Speaker 1: it seems like the idea behind that is is valuable. Yeah,

611
00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 1: the the concern now tends to be more toward well,

612
00:35:40,560 --> 00:35:43,480
Speaker 1: first of all, theater operations, so things that are happening

613
00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:46,080
Speaker 1: in the localized areas. You know, it's still worrying about those.

614
00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:48,920
Speaker 1: But also, I mean, we have a whole new world

615
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:53,239
Speaker 1: now where we're talking about worrying of things like briefcase bombs. Yes,

616
00:35:53,320 --> 00:35:55,319
Speaker 1: where you're talking about you know, you've got these warheads

617
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:58,160
Speaker 1: that were laying around, some of which were never installed

618
00:35:58,160 --> 00:35:59,960
Speaker 1: in missiles because like I said, they had they had

619
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:02,359
Speaker 1: more warheads than they had missiles to launch with them.

620
00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:04,960
Speaker 1: And then not all of them are necessarily accounted for.

621
00:36:05,800 --> 00:36:07,560
Speaker 1: And then that so there's a worry that there may

622
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:10,840
Speaker 1: be warheads out there in the world that could be

623
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:14,759
Speaker 1: used for terrorist purposes. And uh, and you know that

624
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:18,279
Speaker 1: no sd I is going to prevent that because we're

625
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 1: talking about you know, deploying an explosive device, a nuclear

626
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:26,600
Speaker 1: device without ever launching a missile. Yeah, and an sd

627
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:31,560
Speaker 1: I isn't going to protect soldiers from I e. D S.

628
00:36:31,719 --> 00:36:35,840
Speaker 1: Improvised explosive devices, you know, things that are much smaller

629
00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:39,759
Speaker 1: in scale, or people who are willing to sacrifice their

630
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:41,839
Speaker 1: lives for their cause to the point where they will

631
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:44,560
Speaker 1: walk into a building and blow it up. Um, you

632
00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:47,839
Speaker 1: know you can't. You can't defend against that with something

633
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:50,640
Speaker 1: like an sd I, and and even sd I at

634
00:36:50,719 --> 00:36:55,360
Speaker 1: it's like like the best case scenario for SDI was

635
00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:58,560
Speaker 1: not all about stopping every single missile. It was about

636
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:01,840
Speaker 1: stopping most of them, which would mean that no matter

637
00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:04,320
Speaker 1: what I mean, realistically you have to say, no system

638
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:06,800
Speaker 1: is perfect. You would not be able to stop everything,

639
00:37:07,239 --> 00:37:10,759
Speaker 1: and therefore there would be losses. It was just a

640
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 1: question of where the loss is going to be mitigated

641
00:37:14,239 --> 00:37:20,400
Speaker 1: enough for the system to be worthwhile. It's it's heavy topic,

642
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:26,080
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean, it's definitely an interesting uh program

643
00:37:26,120 --> 00:37:29,880
Speaker 1: that was was put into place, and you can see

644
00:37:29,880 --> 00:37:33,800
Speaker 1: why it was even though ultimately it may have been

645
00:37:34,880 --> 00:37:37,080
Speaker 1: the wrong direction to to move in. I mean, at

646
00:37:37,080 --> 00:37:40,680
Speaker 1: that point, the political pressure and the fear in the

647
00:37:40,760 --> 00:37:42,440
Speaker 1: United States. I mean, I remember as a kid that

648
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:44,960
Speaker 1: the Soviets were supposed to be the bad guys, you know.

649
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:47,440
Speaker 1: I mean, even if if no one directly said that.

650
00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:50,800
Speaker 1: I mean, here, here's all I have to say, Wolverines.

651
00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:54,839
Speaker 1: Of course, now people are gonna think that means North

652
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:58,160
Speaker 1: Korea because the new movie is going to have the

653
00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:01,520
Speaker 1: North Koreans as the bad guy. But yeah, but originally

654
00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:04,480
Speaker 1: there were the Soviets in the original version of that film.

655
00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:06,640
Speaker 1: I'm sure some of you are gonna have to look

656
00:38:06,719 --> 00:38:10,319
Speaker 1: up what that movie is. Yeah, Wolverines. Yeah, that's a

657
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:13,360
Speaker 1: nice hard one because it's one word, except for the

658
00:38:13,360 --> 00:38:16,359
Speaker 1: fact that's also a very famous one. So yeah. I mean,

659
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:19,319
Speaker 1: there was a very real concern both in UH, in

660
00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:22,560
Speaker 1: the news and in pop culture that the Soviets were

661
00:38:22,719 --> 00:38:26,720
Speaker 1: up to UH dangerous activities, and it was our duty

662
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 1: as Americans to make sure we supported every option we

663
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:34,040
Speaker 1: had to try and head that off. And um, yeah,

664
00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:39,080
Speaker 1: the whole patriotism directed towards supporting military militarism. I mean,

665
00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:45,320
Speaker 1: it's it's a it's a sticky subject to talk about right. Well, anyway,

666
00:38:45,719 --> 00:38:48,879
Speaker 1: I hope you guys found that interesting. I personally think

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00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:52,719
Speaker 1: that that's a fascinating era of history and hopefully one

668
00:38:52,760 --> 00:38:55,440
Speaker 1: that we will not see necessarily repeated in the future,

669
00:38:57,080 --> 00:39:01,160
Speaker 1: because that's not cool. Guys, you have any other questions,

670
00:39:01,160 --> 00:39:05,320
Speaker 1: like you want to know about other specific historical eras

671
00:39:05,360 --> 00:39:07,879
Speaker 1: and the technology involved in them, let us know. I mean,

672
00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:11,239
Speaker 1: you know, we've covered what fifteen ten and UH and

673
00:39:11,360 --> 00:39:15,720
Speaker 1: the Soviet American Cold War, so there's stuff in between

674
00:39:15,760 --> 00:39:19,480
Speaker 1: that we'll talk about. Let us know. Send us an

675
00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:22,479
Speaker 1: email at tech stuff at how stuff works dot com,

676
00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:24,960
Speaker 1: or let us know on Facebook or Twitter. Are handled,

677
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:27,799
Speaker 1: there is text stuff H S W and Chris and

678
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:32,080
Speaker 1: I will talk to you again really soon for more

679
00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:34,279
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how

680
00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:37,000
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. To learn more about the podcast,

681
00:39:37,200 --> 00:39:39,720
Speaker 1: click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner

682
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:43,359
Speaker 1: of our homepage. The How Stuff Works iPhone app has

683
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:51,000
Speaker 1: a ride. Download it today on iTunes. Brought to you

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00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:54,399
Speaker 1: by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are

685
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:54,680
Speaker 1: you