Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette and
Speaker 1: I am an editor here at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me, one of my favorite peeps in
Speaker 1: the whole world is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Is it
Speaker 1: a fast ship. It's the ship that made the Kessel
Speaker 1: run in less than twelve post sex. She's fast enough
Speaker 1: for you, old man. You have to get credit for
Speaker 1: this quote. You actually have to. You can't just name
Speaker 1: the original source. You have to figure out the secondary
Speaker 1: source right well, and to be fair, the secondary source
Speaker 1: paraphrases the primary source. So um, yes, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk today about Star Wars Wars. This comes to us
Speaker 1: courtesy of a little listener mail. This listener mail comes
Speaker 1: from Eric, and Eric says, weeks ago, when Ronald Reagan's
Speaker 1: on birthday came and went, it got me thinking about
Speaker 1: his Star Wars satellite program. I know Star Wars involved
Speaker 1: satellites and it theoretically would be able to kill any
Speaker 1: bad guy. America set its sights on. However, I don't
Speaker 1: know much about how it works. Could you do a
Speaker 1: podcast on it? Thanks? Ps. Could Star Wars be able
Speaker 1: to destroy Room Hilda and the Philosophizer? First of all, Eric,
Speaker 1: it's not an assassination system, it's an anti missile system.
Speaker 1: And second of all, nothing can stop Room Hilda and
Speaker 1: the Philosophizer, So maybe some broad first, So you want
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about well, I guess before
Speaker 1: we even talk about the Star Wars program, what we
Speaker 1: need to do is take a little trip in the
Speaker 1: way back machine. We haven't done that for a while. Now,
Speaker 1: did uh? Did uh stuff you missed in history class?
Speaker 1: Bring it back? Uh? You know? We actually we have
Speaker 1: a secondary unit. Um. I when we when we did
Speaker 1: the renovation on the the the studio space, I made
Speaker 1: sure that we got a second one just for tech stuff. Okay,
Speaker 1: good because they don't leave it plugged in. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: this one over here, you'll you'll notice it looks kind
Speaker 1: of like okay, so it looks like a third hand
Speaker 1: um police call box. But trust me, it'll it'll work
Speaker 1: just fine. So so let's all right, get in, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm right behind here. Alright, you just budge over just
Speaker 1: a little bit. Unfortunately, this one is not larger on
Speaker 1: the inside than it is on the outside. Let's just
Speaker 1: set this for October four, nineteen fifty seven, and uh,
Speaker 1: push the button, Frank, I can't reach the button. All right,
Speaker 1: I'll push the button, alright, And here we are October four,
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven in this what was then the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: Get out is not roomy in here. Oh sorry, all right,
Speaker 1: that's better. Hey, there's that that tune that's in tetris um.
Speaker 1: So anyway, it's nineteen fifty seven, October four, Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: You know what's about to happen? Does it beep? It does?
Speaker 1: In fact, that's pretty much all it does. There's going
Speaker 1: to be the launch of the Sputnik satellite, the first
Speaker 1: man made satellite launched into Earth orbit deep In fact,
Speaker 1: that is a direct quote. Yes, it's pretty much. All
Speaker 1: it did was orbit the Earth and beep. But here's
Speaker 1: here's the other important thing about sput Nick. It was
Speaker 1: not only was it the first man made satellite, but
Speaker 1: it made America, like the general public of America realized
Speaker 1: that the Russians had developed technology that would not just
Speaker 1: allow them to launch a rocket into space, but theoretically
Speaker 1: launch a rocket from the Soviet Union that could go
Speaker 1: all the way and reach the United States of America
Speaker 1: right now, keeping in mind that this is shortly after
Speaker 1: the end of a Wars, or at least much closer
Speaker 1: than it is now, and people were still very concerned
Speaker 1: about what was dawning as the atomic Age. With the
Speaker 1: dropping of the the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Speaker 1: that ended the Second World War, other countries were beginning
Speaker 1: to test those realized that they were terrible weapons, all
Speaker 1: of us in the world, everywhere, and you know, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden it became a concern that other people,
Speaker 1: especially you know, countries that were not necessarily friendly to
Speaker 1: the United States and the Soviet Union had undergone what
Speaker 1: can only be described as political turmoil over the decades
Speaker 1: since World War One. Really, and sorry, I was dancing
Speaker 1: around that. Yeah, but it's well, we have to talk
Speaker 1: about it because the Cold War, that's what Star Wars
Speaker 1: program is all about. Yes, it was so so we
Speaker 1: had these political the strain on on the political relationship
Speaker 1: between the United States of America and the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: They had dia trically opposing political philosophies, right, and now
Speaker 1: these very very potent weapons which going from needing to
Speaker 1: be dropped as bombs from planes to being equipped on
Speaker 1: top of missile warheads. We're talking about longer and longer ranges.
Speaker 1: What parts of the world can you hit with a
Speaker 1: rocket of this type? And then suddenly there is a
Speaker 1: thing in space that is beeping? But what does that mean?
Speaker 1: Does that mean that you can hit anywhere in the
Speaker 1: world if you launch the rocket from the right, you know,
Speaker 1: at the right altitude and attitude and apogee right, yeah, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: instead of having to send a bunch of aircraft to
Speaker 1: fly over a target space and drop bombs, you know,
Speaker 1: those aircraft could be intercepted and could be shot down. Um,
Speaker 1: you could, uh, there were things that you could do
Speaker 1: in that case. The thought of a missile being launched
Speaker 1: across the world and then hitting your nation was much
Speaker 1: more frightening because what could you do against that. Well,
Speaker 1: that's what sort of propelled the whole idea of the
Speaker 1: Strategy Strategic Defense Initiative or star Wars program. Well, let's
Speaker 1: let's get back into the machine and get back to
Speaker 1: modern day. Seriously, we have to cutphobic all right, well,
Speaker 1: let's look just held deeply and get in all right,
Speaker 1: shut up, we got to move this lever because okay,
Speaker 1: great and we're back all right, let me just get
Speaker 1: out of here. Okay, now somebody else can have that one.
Speaker 1: The studio seems nice and room he now, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: All right, So now that we're back in the present day,
Speaker 1: we can talk a little bit about what happened after
Speaker 1: the spot Nick launch. You essentially had a lot of
Speaker 1: research and development poured into these these long range missile programs. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the the intercontinental Ballistic missile or i C b M
Speaker 1: became a product of this. So this began what was
Speaker 1: a philosophy that was called later mutual assured destruction. Is
Speaker 1: it a Is it any coincidence that the initials spell mad? Well,
Speaker 1: you had to be mad to follow it, right, So
Speaker 1: the idea of being that you, whoever has the most weapons,
Speaker 1: gets to scare off everyone else from attacking you because
Speaker 1: we have more than you. Yeah, the idea being that
Speaker 1: that really the idea came down to each each side
Speaker 1: of this opposing philosophy, this this cold war so called
Speaker 1: because there weren't outright hostilities breaking out, uh that you
Speaker 1: had to have enough weapons to ensure that you could
Speaker 1: destroy your enemy, and both sides had it, and the
Speaker 1: idea being that with both sides having these weapons, there'd
Speaker 1: be it would be crazy to actually launch an attack,
Speaker 1: because you would know that you would also be attacked
Speaker 1: and that you would suffer just as your enemy suffered.
Speaker 1: So that was the mutual assured destruction, the idea that
Speaker 1: it's so dangerous to launch an attack, no one would
Speaker 1: dare do so. Problem is that that relies on human
Speaker 1: acting in a rational way, and that of course it's
Speaker 1: not always the case. In fact, this you could argue
Speaker 1: that this was the same philosophy that existed in Europe
Speaker 1: prior to World War One, that European nations were building
Speaker 1: up armed armies and navies. They were really pouring money
Speaker 1: into their armed forces, with the idea being that if
Speaker 1: you had a very strong armed force, no one would
Speaker 1: ever dare attack you. So therefore, just by increasing tensions,
Speaker 1: by by increasing the size of your military, you could
Speaker 1: ensure peace, even though it would be a very tense piece. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: as World War One proved, that did not work. So
Speaker 1: we tried it again with nuclear weapons um and and
Speaker 1: to some I think just for the sake of clarification,
Speaker 1: right now, I would say it's safe to say that
Speaker 1: that that hasn't gone away. There's still huge nuclear stockpiles
Speaker 1: in the United States and in USA, the former Soviet Union,
Speaker 1: and and many other countries around the world now. And
Speaker 1: even though the Soviet Union itself collapsed, it looks you
Speaker 1: could you could say that the political and the political
Speaker 1: attitude in what in the former Soviet Union is once
Speaker 1: again at least at least somewhat antagonistic towards the United
Speaker 1: States government. Right there, there are political tensions between the
Speaker 1: United States and the countries that were in the former
Speaker 1: Soviet Union. Well, you know, you can see, uh, even
Speaker 1: some of our younger listeners will probably remember the tension,
Speaker 1: uh if you follow the news at all, and I
Speaker 1: recommend that you do. Um, the tension generated from North
Speaker 1: Korea's fairly recent tests in the last two or three
Speaker 1: years where they were testing nuclear weapons and and missile
Speaker 1: technology bo um. And you know, of course this causes
Speaker 1: a lot of tension with South Korea and Japan UM,
Speaker 1: but also for for other countries around the world, even
Speaker 1: even Europe, which you know probably you wouldn't wow. You know,
Speaker 1: they're pretty far away, you know, still it affects these
Speaker 1: things are no longer local conflicts with this technology. So, um,
Speaker 1: you know, the ideas are it hasn't gone away, certainly, right.
Speaker 1: You still have these political ideologies that are in opposition
Speaker 1: with each other. But then you also have like global
Speaker 1: corporations that span multiple countries, some of which have these
Speaker 1: political ideologies that conflict with the corporation's home country. It's
Speaker 1: main matters much more complicated. It's not just political, it's financial.
Speaker 1: And you know, of course we're all nuclear weapons are nondiscriminatory, right,
Speaker 1: they don't. They don't target just military installations, military personnel.
Speaker 1: This is these are weapons that target enormous areas and
Speaker 1: essentially are going to wipe out massive civilian populations were
Speaker 1: they to be um uh, you know, hit by a
Speaker 1: nuclear attack. So that's kind of what spawned this idea
Speaker 1: of the Strategic Defense initiative. And you have you actually
Speaker 1: looked at the the announcement that kind of unveiled this
Speaker 1: to the world, right, Um, yeah, I. And in doing
Speaker 1: the research for this this you can actually date the
Speaker 1: Strategic Defense Initiative back to a specific date, although really
Speaker 1: the idea goes back farther. But when people picking a
Speaker 1: a significant date in the history of the s D,
Speaker 1: I uh most pick March when President uh Ronald Reagan
Speaker 1: addressed the country on issues of national security. Now, UM,
Speaker 1: a while back, I actually had found a series of
Speaker 1: podcasts on presidents that were being offered by UM, I
Speaker 1: believe PBS. They were free, so I downloaded and watched
Speaker 1: several of them, and I kind of, um, you know,
Speaker 1: Reagan's term two terms were during my lifetime, but I
Speaker 1: don't remember a lot about about him and what he
Speaker 1: was like. And I, from what I understand, he you know,
Speaker 1: although I think a lot of people see him a
Speaker 1: sort of a a militarist in some respects because he
Speaker 1: did he did stress in this message you know, look
Speaker 1: we can't We've got to be tough. We want to
Speaker 1: deter our enemies. But UM, I think he was also
Speaker 1: he he kind of didn't like this stress. From what
Speaker 1: I understand, he the stress that that brings on, because
Speaker 1: it's a stressful environment. You're always wondering if you have
Speaker 1: more weapons than the other people, if your arms cash is,
Speaker 1: if you have more more soldiers and sailors and marines.
Speaker 1: Looking at looking at uh as stressful. Yeah, you start
Speaker 1: looking at statistics like if we were hit by a
Speaker 1: first strike, how many of our weapons would remain operable
Speaker 1: so that we could strike back. I mean, when you're
Speaker 1: looking at that scenario, you're already saying, we've been hit
Speaker 1: and we've lost a massive amount of our infrastructure, our citizens,
Speaker 1: We've taken huge losses. Can we strike back? I mean,
Speaker 1: when you when you have to ask yourself that question,
Speaker 1: that is, I mean, that's a tough question because you're
Speaker 1: already talking about defeat in a way, no one wins
Speaker 1: in that situation, right right, right? So um he uh
Speaker 1: And in this particular speech wasn't particularly long address, um,
Speaker 1: but this was Yeah, it's not very long, and it's
Speaker 1: easy to find, but it's kind of interesting because it
Speaker 1: takes a different tack, if you will. Um basically said, look,
Speaker 1: I want to offer you a different idea, an idea
Speaker 1: that might bring you hope. Rather than trying to destroy
Speaker 1: our enemies outright necessarily, why don't we embark on a
Speaker 1: plan to uh to intercept and destroy these weapons before
Speaker 1: they reach us? And that means we don't necessarily have
Speaker 1: we can we can focus instead on protecting ourselves rather
Speaker 1: than destroying our enemies. Um. Although to be sure, I'm
Speaker 1: sure that he wanted to rely on uh mutually to
Speaker 1: assure destruction to some degree as a defense initiative. And
Speaker 1: I think, you know, frankly, you could argue that it
Speaker 1: does have some value. But you know, he said, look,
Speaker 1: let's instead of doing this, let's do something new and used.
Speaker 1: We've got a lot of technology available to us to
Speaker 1: make sophisticated weapons and defense systems. Let's create a network
Speaker 1: of defenses that will intercept and destroy nuclear weapons before
Speaker 1: they could actually reach us. UM. And you know, he
Speaker 1: doesn't really get into a lot of the details in
Speaker 1: the address, so that that comes later. And although although
Speaker 1: I think it, I think it only took the next
Speaker 1: day before someone called it the star Wars program. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it didn't, because you know, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: pieces to it, and it's a lot of it is
Speaker 1: about you know, weaponizing space espentially essentially, you know, where
Speaker 1: you're saying, let's put stuff in the sky that can
Speaker 1: shoot other stuff out of the sky and um, but
Speaker 1: it's not just about that. There were ground defenses, there
Speaker 1: were airborne defenses, there were space born defenses, all as
Speaker 1: part of this overall network and uh it's not even
Speaker 1: that simple because it's shifted over time to mean different
Speaker 1: things during different presidents and different departments took over parts
Speaker 1: of the of the What was originally all part of
Speaker 1: the Strategic Defense Initiative, some of that broke off and became,
Speaker 1: uh specifically an Air Force initiative, so it was no
Speaker 1: longer part of s d I. It was a different program.
Speaker 1: Um and uh so so yeah, I mean it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of you think about it. How are you going
Speaker 1: to do that? How are you going to stop missiles
Speaker 1: before they even you know, come down and hit the earth.
Speaker 1: And there were a lot of proposals, so it seems
Speaker 1: pardon the not pun but weird pun like thing, uh
Speaker 1: pie in the sky sort of thing. Yeah, um so
Speaker 1: I am thinking of a giant pie stopping missiles. But yeah,
Speaker 1: how are you going to spend money on that's going
Speaker 1: to do this? Yeah, I've lost him so uh so, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was it was supposed to stop i c b
Speaker 1: ms from reaching the United States. Now, part of it was, hey,
Speaker 1: if you can destroy it in space before it even
Speaker 1: reenters the atmosphere, because you know, some i c b
Speaker 1: ms do they reach a low orbit and then at
Speaker 1: their at their peak, they are in a low orbit
Speaker 1: and then they re enter on a trajectory towards their target. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's why they're intercontinental UM. But yes, there are other
Speaker 1: weapons that don't reach that that altitude UM. And it's
Speaker 1: interesting because if you look at the history and the
Speaker 1: various proposals that were all part of s d I,
Speaker 1: you start to realize that they were figuring this out
Speaker 1: as they were going along as well, like there were
Speaker 1: the Originally, a lot of the idea was that, well,
Speaker 1: we can as long as we can shoot down the
Speaker 1: missile or destroy the missile before it before it gets
Speaker 1: uh you know, before it makes contact, then that's acceptable.
Speaker 1: Except for the fact that there was the discovery of hey, uh,
Speaker 1: these these blasts are releasing gig enormous electromagnetic pulses or
Speaker 1: e m p s, and that means that were you
Speaker 1: to detonate a nuclear weapon, even at a fairly high
Speaker 1: altitude over the United States, that e MP could end
Speaker 1: up affecting the electronics on the ground or even in
Speaker 1: the air. So you're talking about all the airplanes that
Speaker 1: maybe in the area, you're talking about all the electronics
Speaker 1: in the area of like the power grid in the area.
Speaker 1: It could create blackouts in over a massive range because
Speaker 1: I mean a big enough EMP could put a load
Speaker 1: not just on that region's power grid, but the neighboring
Speaker 1: regions as well. So, uh, you know, we we did
Speaker 1: an entire podcast about e m p s in the past,
Speaker 1: so if you if you really want to know more
Speaker 1: about them, I recommend you check that out because it
Speaker 1: is it's interesting tactic as well as just a side
Speaker 1: effect of the nuclear war arms program in the first place.
Speaker 1: So that kind of led to discussions about, well, what
Speaker 1: we really need our defense initiatives that would allow us
Speaker 1: to shoot down missiles as as close to when they
Speaker 1: launch as possible and um and to be perfectly clear,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you go to the Department of Defense,
Speaker 1: they have unclassified documents, lots of them, lots of them
Speaker 1: that you can read. And there's one that's uh that's
Speaker 1: a memorandum for the Secretary of Defense that is the
Speaker 1: Space component of US Military Strategy and war Fighting Requirements
Speaker 1: for US Military Space Systems. That document makes it very
Speaker 1: clear they're talking specifically about the Soviets. The term Soviets
Speaker 1: appears multiple times through this document, which is several pages long,
Speaker 1: is written in n so you know there was there
Speaker 1: were no illusions. This was not you know, some sort
Speaker 1: of vague defense system that was meant to protect the
Speaker 1: United States from any attacker. This was something that was
Speaker 1: that was talked about with the Soviets in mind in particular. Um,
Speaker 1: so part of that was talking about you know, we mentioned,
Speaker 1: or you mentioned, Chris, that there were going to be
Speaker 1: ground based systems as well as ones in space and
Speaker 1: in the air. Uh. This this meant that your ground
Speaker 1: based systems were essentially things like radar stations where you
Speaker 1: can detect that missile had had launched, because as missiles
Speaker 1: were going at altitudes that were high enough to be
Speaker 1: detectable by radar. The the space element eventually came to
Speaker 1: the conclusion that there needed to be satellites that would
Speaker 1: be positioned directly over the Soviet Union in order for
Speaker 1: this to be effective, so that we could launch a
Speaker 1: counter measure from space to interfere with the I, C, B,
Speaker 1: M S. And UM, you know, there were several systems
Speaker 1: that we're going to rely on one of your favorite
Speaker 1: technologies lasers. Actually, I would I would argue at least
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, Chris, when I was a
Speaker 1: kid in the eighties, my perception, and granted, remember I
Speaker 1: was a kid, I only I only knew about this
Speaker 1: kind of because adults talked about it, right, But as
Speaker 1: a kid, I always imagined that the Star Wars program
Speaker 1: was all about lasers. I never, I never knew as
Speaker 1: a kid during the time when this was actually happening
Speaker 1: that that was just one of many proposals. But to
Speaker 1: talk about the lasers, the system them that was proposed,
Speaker 1: the initial one with X ray lasers was really really
Speaker 1: kind of interesting, and ultimately people like scientists and and
Speaker 1: military personnel determined that it was not feasible. But the
Speaker 1: idea was that you would launch satellites into orbit position
Speaker 1: them over the Soviet Union. These satellites would actually contain
Speaker 1: a nuclear warhead inside the satellite. The satellite would also
Speaker 1: contain lazing material. You might want to go back and
Speaker 1: listen to our Laser's podcast to hear about lazing material.
Speaker 1: But that the nuclear explosion when you when you detonated
Speaker 1: the warhead would provide the energy that would emit an
Speaker 1: extremely powerful X ray laser using this lazing material, and
Speaker 1: that you would include lots and lots of lasers in
Speaker 1: a in a single satellite, like two dozen of them
Speaker 1: in there, so that they could shoot down multiple targets
Speaker 1: from one detonation. I believe at the time UH the
Speaker 1: United States had estimated that the Soviet Union had lots
Speaker 1: and lots of warheads, but only I think fewer than
Speaker 1: two thousand actual missiles. So the idea was that you
Speaker 1: had to have enough satellites to shoot down the majority
Speaker 1: of those two thousand or so or fewer missiles in
Speaker 1: order to protect the United States. So in order to
Speaker 1: shoot them down, you would have to detonate a nuclear
Speaker 1: warhead within this satellite and have it contained in such
Speaker 1: a way that the energy is then UH directed into
Speaker 1: a lasing medium shoots an X ray laser. The X
Speaker 1: ray laser hits the missile and UH and shoots it down.
Speaker 1: And to do that, of course, you also have to
Speaker 1: have a tracking system. You have to figure out how
Speaker 1: you're gonna track it. Originally I think they were looking
Speaker 1: at um at at radar, but then there was the
Speaker 1: possibility of having of the Soviet Union launching decoys using
Speaker 1: radar reflectors so that the radar would have false readings saying, oh,
Speaker 1: here's a missile over here, and by shooting lots and
Speaker 1: lots of these up in the air all at once,
Speaker 1: it would mean you would waste a lot of your
Speaker 1: your defense initiative shooting down dummies essentially. There was also
Speaker 1: a talk about using UH sensors that would detect heat signatures,
Speaker 1: and you would see the heat signature from a missile
Speaker 1: is going to be much larger than a decoy, So
Speaker 1: then you just aim for the big ones, right, But
Speaker 1: this is not this is a non trivial problem figuring
Speaker 1: out not just how to make the laser work, which
Speaker 1: by the way, no one really ever figured out a
Speaker 1: reliable way of doing that, but figuring out the targeting
Speaker 1: system so that you can look reliably target and shoot
Speaker 1: down these missiles without missing them, because that energy is
Speaker 1: gonna keep on going. If you miss that missile, it's
Speaker 1: going to hit something else. Stupid physics. Yeah, and we're
Speaker 1: talking X ray lasers. I mean this, this is really
Speaker 1: X ray lasers powered by a nuclear explosion. This is
Speaker 1: a very powerful beam of light. And then you have
Speaker 1: you know, the brilliant pebbles. Alliant pebbles, yes, which were
Speaker 1: the UH basically autonomous spacecraft. Yes, you know, just sort
Speaker 1: of coasting around it. They're looking for stuff to shoot
Speaker 1: down or collide with. Yeah, a lot of it was
Speaker 1: was kind of the idea of not necessarily even shooting
Speaker 1: something down, but just putting something in the way of
Speaker 1: the missile so that it would, uh, it would end
Speaker 1: up destroying itself or falling to the Earth, you know,
Speaker 1: something like that, where you're not you're not necessarily trying
Speaker 1: to destroy the missile in mid air. UM. There were
Speaker 1: several missile systems that were proposed where you would actually
Speaker 1: shoot a missile from space to the I, C. B
Speaker 1: M to destroy it, and the idea being that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't need as much fuel for the individual missiles or
Speaker 1: rockets or whatever you want to call them, um in
Speaker 1: the in the satellites that would be housing these weapons systems,
Speaker 1: because they don't have to escape the Earth's gravity. They
Speaker 1: just have to be aimed at the right direction and fired. Uh.
Speaker 1: Some of them were would have tracking ability so that
Speaker 1: they could change direction in midflight. I saw proposals for
Speaker 1: a rail gun system. Railguns, in case you were wondering,
Speaker 1: use electromagnetic energy to propel a a projectile down a pathway,
Speaker 1: so you're actually it's the same sort of thing like
Speaker 1: UM particle accelerators. Right, with a particle accelerator, for example,
Speaker 1: the large hadron collider, you wanna accelerate a proton beam
Speaker 1: faster and faster and faster around the circle until it
Speaker 1: reaches the right speed where you make it collide with
Speaker 1: another proton being traveling at the same speed but in
Speaker 1: the opposite direction. You do that by using magnetic force,
Speaker 1: because you know, protons are positively charged, so you use
Speaker 1: a negative charge ahead of the proton to pull it,
Speaker 1: or a positive charge behind the proton to push it,
Speaker 1: and you just you increase that frequency until it's moving
Speaker 1: at near the speed of light. Well, the railguns work
Speaker 1: on a similar idea, except you're using a physical projectile
Speaker 1: and you're using electromagnetic energy to to shoot the projectile
Speaker 1: out of the system. The big problem there was that
Speaker 1: even though it was possible to make a railgun UM
Speaker 1: at the time it was, they could only fire infrequently,
Speaker 1: like we're talking like once a day or once every
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, because it just took so much energy
Speaker 1: to generate that and to make it work that you
Speaker 1: couldn't just reload and fire and fire and fire UM.
Speaker 1: So in order for that system to work, it would
Speaker 1: of course have to be able to fire lots of
Speaker 1: times in a in a short time frame. You'd also
Speaker 1: have to figure out, all right, well, what kind of
Speaker 1: projectile are we using. We have to have one that
Speaker 1: if we're shooting it from space, the projectile has to
Speaker 1: be able to survive re entry into the Earth's atmosphere,
Speaker 1: and so that there were a lot of problems with that.
Speaker 1: So we were talking about missile systems, projectile systems, laser systems.
Speaker 1: There were even systems that projects that suggested nets like
Speaker 1: either missiles that would deploy a net that would foul
Speaker 1: and I C B M and cause it to to
Speaker 1: not uh too well to detonate essentially m m um.
Speaker 1: And the more we looked into this, and we being
Speaker 1: scientists and engineers, the more it appeared that, at least
Speaker 1: based on the nineteen eighties technology and even nineteen nineties technology,
Speaker 1: this did span more than a decade um and in fact,
Speaker 1: some of the elements are still in place in the
Speaker 1: in the United States military. Uh. It just became clear
Speaker 1: that there was no easy or feasible or cost effective
Speaker 1: way of deploying this. You know, you eventually had to
Speaker 1: come to the conclusion of does it make sense to
Speaker 1: pour billions and billions of dollars or, as Karl Sagan
Speaker 1: would put it, billions and billions of dollars into a
Speaker 1: program that you might not ever use right right, And
Speaker 1: the it did receive some initial funding from Congress. I
Speaker 1: mean back in the nineteen eighties, people were behind the
Speaker 1: idea and and you know, jumped on the chance to
Speaker 1: to fund this project. But I mean, immediately or seemingly
Speaker 1: immediately out of the gate, there were people criticizing the
Speaker 1: ideas being too expensive, too difficult to pardon upon otherworldly
Speaker 1: It's like, how are we you know, this is foreign
Speaker 1: to us. And it earned you know, it earned the
Speaker 1: program the nickname, you know, Star Wars. It earned Reagan
Speaker 1: the nickname Ronnie Rey gun Well. And and you know,
Speaker 1: not only did it seem like it was unlikely to happen,
Speaker 1: but there were people who are saying, if we did
Speaker 1: have this in place, it would actually potentially lead to
Speaker 1: a nuclear war, because because you would either that either
Speaker 1: the side that has the technology would say, hey, now
Speaker 1: we have the advantage. We can launch an initial attack
Speaker 1: against our enemy, and we have the defenses in place
Speaker 1: to prevent most of their missiles coming over here, So
Speaker 1: we should just wipe them out because we can do
Speaker 1: it now. And then the other side of the argument
Speaker 1: is the the enemy. The Soviets could say, hey, they're
Speaker 1: putting this this defense initiative in place. If we don't
Speaker 1: attack now, we're going to be at a weekend position.
Speaker 1: So we should attack before they get the defense system up. Yes,
Speaker 1: and then you you have your you actually end up
Speaker 1: causing the very event you're trying to prevent. Yes, And
Speaker 1: the Soviets were working on their own version of the system.
Speaker 1: It it escalated tensions in the Cold War because suddenly
Speaker 1: we were embarking on this new project. That UM was
Speaker 1: very scary because all of a sudden, and and Reagan
Speaker 1: was right in that it does take some of the
Speaker 1: sting out of the mutually assured destruction. So all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, they're going, wait a minute, that's what we
Speaker 1: can shoot at them. And then once they neutralize all
Speaker 1: our weapons or most of our weapons, they can shoot back,
Speaker 1: or they can shoot at us before we can even
Speaker 1: shoot at them, and then they shoot all our stuff
Speaker 1: down for us. Yes, So that that escalated tensions just
Speaker 1: that much more. UM. But UH, and and the Soviets
Speaker 1: were working on their own system, which came to light
Speaker 1: years later. But and there were there were scientists and
Speaker 1: engineers who argued even at the beginning that really the
Speaker 1: answer to this was not building an SDI system, but
Speaker 1: using diplomacy to try and and UH in the Cold
Speaker 1: Cold War, and as we know, that eventually did happen,
Speaker 1: although you could argue that we're in a new Cold
Speaker 1: War now UM or at least the beginning stages of one.
Speaker 1: The but the diplomacy was what several people had advocated for.
Speaker 1: And actually that when that started to work, when the
Speaker 1: Cold War began to kind of unravel, that that was
Speaker 1: bad news for the SDI initiative, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: it underwent several name changes. I'm just going to say
Speaker 1: SDI because it's easier. I don't want to cop on
Speaker 1: going back and forth. But it meant that UM, getting
Speaker 1: funding for those programs was more and more difficult because
Speaker 1: there seemed to be less of a need for one.
Speaker 1: You started to have nuclear disarmament disarmament programs, which you
Speaker 1: know that that decreased the need for a space warfare initiative. UH.
Speaker 1: Some of those elements though still got funding and continued
Speaker 1: to UH to be an important part in military strategy.
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of our our spy satellites came
Speaker 1: out of that program, and we've developed sensors and GPS
Speaker 1: systems that were initially in one way or another tied
Speaker 1: into sd I, and we've benefited from those. So not
Speaker 1: everything in s d I was um impossible or are
Speaker 1: are too expensive or unnecessary? Right right, And some of
Speaker 1: it does, you know, have clear application. Now I should
Speaker 1: point out I was curious about the GPS connection, and
Speaker 1: GPS did exist in forms before sd I, so but
Speaker 1: you know, the fact of the matter is the GPS
Speaker 1: system is really very necessary to make something like sd
Speaker 1: I work, you wherever to do that. Also, it spawned
Speaker 1: a game for the Amiga called s d I, which
Speaker 1: is very much about what this would have been about
Speaker 1: if you could just make it happen, also Missile Commander.
Speaker 1: And we should point out that some of this, some
Speaker 1: of the philosophies here have been used in in a
Speaker 1: smaller UH capacity, Like instead of it being a global system,
Speaker 1: there are theater systems. And when I say theater systems,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the regions in which there is an
Speaker 1: active conflict. So for example, in the initial the first
Speaker 1: the First Gulf War, the first war in Iraq, uh,
Speaker 1: we saw the Patriot system and the Patriot missile system
Speaker 1: that was designed to shoot down incoming missiles anti missile missiles. Yes,
Speaker 1: so that was that was a direct descendant from the
Speaker 1: SDI program. It's just it was a smaller, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: surface to air missile system as opposed to one launched
Speaker 1: from space. But the Patriot system that came direct directly
Speaker 1: out of the SDI initiative. And uh, another thing that
Speaker 1: I wanted to point out is that we're at a
Speaker 1: point now where a lot of the technology that was
Speaker 1: talked about back in is completely feasible and possible now right,
Speaker 1: We've we've technologically advanced to the point where but from
Speaker 1: a hardware perspective, we could achieve many of the things
Speaker 1: that were, um, we're proposed during the initial sd I announcement.
Speaker 1: But there's still some some other problems, not just the
Speaker 1: political problems and the ideological problems, but actual technical problems.
Speaker 1: And I read an article in Time magazine. The article
Speaker 1: was called Computers, Star Wars, and Software. It was written
Speaker 1: in two thousand five, and in it, uh, there was
Speaker 1: a a computer scientist named David Parnass who was a
Speaker 1: part of a committee that worked on There was an
Speaker 1: advisory panel for the this initiative that in time it
Speaker 1: just refers to it as the star Wars program, and
Speaker 1: Partners said that he he resigned from the panel our
Speaker 1: frustration because he felt that the goals they had were
Speaker 1: unachievable and his his perspective was that there was in
Speaker 1: order for this system to work, to have a a
Speaker 1: multi satellite system designed to shoot down missiles incoming missiles
Speaker 1: meant that you would have to have a software program
Speaker 1: so complex it would be the largest and most complex
Speaker 1: program ever written, and you would have to have the
Speaker 1: most advanced computer system in the world to run it,
Speaker 1: because you would have to be able to identify target
Speaker 1: and eliminate so many UH missiles in such a relatively
Speaker 1: small time frame that UH it would be it would
Speaker 1: be incredibly difficult, and it would need to work perfectly
Speaker 1: the first time it was used, because if it didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, how do you test that. You can't really
Speaker 1: test it until it's necessary. And his point is that
Speaker 1: no software program ever works perfectly the first time you
Speaker 1: use it. You have to you know, you run a program,
Speaker 1: you see where it works, where it doesn't work. You
Speaker 1: do quality assurance, You test it, you write down all
Speaker 1: the things that don't work. You go back to the
Speaker 1: drawing board, you start reprogramming it. You run it again,
Speaker 1: see if anything is fixed. Maybe you broke something even
Speaker 1: worse this time. And his point is that you don't
Speaker 1: get that chance with this system. And and if if
Speaker 1: the system is not guaranteed to work perfectly, if it
Speaker 1: has to be this complex, if it requires the most
Speaker 1: advanced computer system in the world, you're talking about costs
Speaker 1: for something not guaranteed to work, and that therefore it
Speaker 1: is not a worthwhile endeavor. You know, you should not
Speaker 1: pour that huge amount of money into something that may
Speaker 1: not ever work, and it may actually escalate things to
Speaker 1: the point where there's a legitimate conflict. It's a it's
Speaker 1: it's funny now it seems much less of a big deal.
Speaker 1: But I remember a lot of stuff going on in
Speaker 1: the news, just constant, constant talk about the Star Wars program,
Speaker 1: and people still mean it now in legislative sessions about
Speaker 1: sort of as a you know, well this didn't work,
Speaker 1: but I think it in the end, or well, I
Speaker 1: doubt you could really say this is the end even
Speaker 1: I mean some of it, some of it did survive,
Speaker 1: and some of it is pretty successful. Um, it's just
Speaker 1: not really in the way that it was originally and
Speaker 1: not as a complete and not as a complete package. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, if if it serves as a defensive
Speaker 1: deterrent against having other people launch attacks against you, you know,
Speaker 1: it seems like the idea behind that is is valuable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the the concern now tends to be more toward well,
Speaker 1: first of all, theater operations, so things that are happening
Speaker 1: in the localized areas. You know, it's still worrying about those.
Speaker 1: But also, I mean, we have a whole new world
Speaker 1: now where we're talking about worrying of things like briefcase bombs. Yes,
Speaker 1: where you're talking about you know, you've got these warheads
Speaker 1: that were laying around, some of which were never installed
Speaker 1: in missiles because like I said, they had they had
Speaker 1: more warheads than they had missiles to launch with them.
Speaker 1: And then not all of them are necessarily accounted for.
Speaker 1: And then that so there's a worry that there may
Speaker 1: be warheads out there in the world that could be
Speaker 1: used for terrorist purposes. And uh, and you know that
Speaker 1: no sd I is going to prevent that because we're
Speaker 1: talking about you know, deploying an explosive device, a nuclear
Speaker 1: device without ever launching a missile. Yeah, and an sd
Speaker 1: I isn't going to protect soldiers from I e. D S.
Speaker 1: Improvised explosive devices, you know, things that are much smaller
Speaker 1: in scale, or people who are willing to sacrifice their
Speaker 1: lives for their cause to the point where they will
Speaker 1: walk into a building and blow it up. Um, you
Speaker 1: know you can't. You can't defend against that with something
Speaker 1: like an sd I, and and even sd I at
Speaker 1: it's like like the best case scenario for SDI was
Speaker 1: not all about stopping every single missile. It was about
Speaker 1: stopping most of them, which would mean that no matter
Speaker 1: what I mean, realistically you have to say, no system
Speaker 1: is perfect. You would not be able to stop everything,
Speaker 1: and therefore there would be losses. It was just a
Speaker 1: question of where the loss is going to be mitigated
Speaker 1: enough for the system to be worthwhile. It's it's heavy topic,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean, it's definitely an interesting uh program
Speaker 1: that was was put into place, and you can see
Speaker 1: why it was even though ultimately it may have been
Speaker 1: the wrong direction to to move in. I mean, at
Speaker 1: that point, the political pressure and the fear in the
Speaker 1: United States. I mean, I remember as a kid that
Speaker 1: the Soviets were supposed to be the bad guys, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, even if if no one directly said that.
Speaker 1: I mean, here, here's all I have to say, Wolverines.
Speaker 1: Of course, now people are gonna think that means North
Speaker 1: Korea because the new movie is going to have the
Speaker 1: North Koreans as the bad guy. But yeah, but originally
Speaker 1: there were the Soviets in the original version of that film.
Speaker 1: I'm sure some of you are gonna have to look
Speaker 1: up what that movie is. Yeah, Wolverines. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: nice hard one because it's one word, except for the
Speaker 1: fact that's also a very famous one. So yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: there was a very real concern both in UH, in
Speaker 1: the news and in pop culture that the Soviets were
Speaker 1: up to UH dangerous activities, and it was our duty
Speaker 1: as Americans to make sure we supported every option we
Speaker 1: had to try and head that off. And um, yeah,
Speaker 1: the whole patriotism directed towards supporting military militarism. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's a it's a sticky subject to talk about right. Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: I hope you guys found that interesting. I personally think
Speaker 1: that that's a fascinating era of history and hopefully one
Speaker 1: that we will not see necessarily repeated in the future,
Speaker 1: because that's not cool. Guys, you have any other questions,
Speaker 1: like you want to know about other specific historical eras
Speaker 1: and the technology involved in them, let us know. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, we've covered what fifteen ten and UH and
Speaker 1: the Soviet American Cold War, so there's stuff in between
Speaker 1: that we'll talk about. Let us know. Send us an
Speaker 1: email at tech stuff at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: or let us know on Facebook or Twitter. Are handled,
Speaker 1: there is text stuff H S W and Chris and
Speaker 1: I will talk to you again really soon for more
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