Word: interceptor
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...necessarily mean that it ought to be built. Even if the S.D.I. proves technologically feasible, serious questions would arise as to whether it would really strengthen deterrence, and at what cost. Estimates of the money required start at $60 billion for a rudimentary system that would rely on interceptor rockets. Calculations of the cost of a fully developed laser- or particle-beam system run all the way from $100 billion to a staggering $1 trillion. Such a broad range means that all the figures are fairly wild guesses. Indeed, Cory Coll, leader of an S.D.I. research group at the University...
...plunge through the atmosphere. But if there are, say, 5,000 left out of an original launch of 10,000, they could easily overwhelm any conceivable "terminal" defense. Besides, by then it might be too late to prevent terrible damage. Warheads can be set to detonate if struck by interceptor rockets or projectiles, and though hardened missile silos are almost impervious to anything except a direct hit, nuclear explosions even in the upper atmosphere can rain ghastly destruction on cities...
Terminal defense is easiest, technologically. Warheads, heated and slowed by friction with the atmosphere on re-entry to speeds of about two miles per second, could be tracked by airborne or even ground-based radar. They could be hit by interceptor rockets or pellets discharged by fragmentation bombs. But enough missiles would have to be destroyed in boost, and enough warheads in post-boost phase or mid-course, to keep the terminal defense from being overwhelmed. And then there is the problem of hitting the warheads high enough to minimize the effect of blast, fire and radiation on the ground...
...novel gadgetry that made Homing Overlay successful is a sophisticated guidance system in the interceptor's warhead. It is able, thanks to a remarkable infrared sensor, to fix in space a target as small as a human being 1,000 miles away...
...missiles raced toward each other at a combined speed of 18,000 m.p.h., the interceptor's warhead expanded into an umbrella-shaped array of aluminum "ribs," 15 feet in diameter. As it turned out, the sensor aboard the killer rocket was so accurate that the ribs were unnecessary: the missiles themselves collided. The feat has been compared to one bullet hitting another, but, said Wilkinson, the two missiles were moving "about twice as fast as bullets...