Word: lasered
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...American SDI. We are making much greater progress than we anticipated. The barriers we saw to progress are crumbling. For one thing, we are making very great progress with being able to focus and project laser beams through conditions that used to distort them in the atmosphere. One reason this is expensive is that we are pursuing about five different methods of trying to destroy missiles outside the atmosphere. We are not working down one path and giving that up if it does not work. I think if the Soviets see that we are obdurate and not going...
Concerning the technologies specifically involved in Star Wars, the booklet concludes that the Soviet effort "represents a far greater investment of plant space, capital and manpower" than the American SDI. It provides only one partial budgetary comparison: Soviet efforts to develop laser beams as warhead-killing weapons "would cost roughly $1 billion per year (to duplicate) in the U.S." That would be about triple the $340 million the U.S. spent on SDI laser development in fiscal 1985. The booklet does present some tantalizing, and disturbing, tidbits of more specific information. Samples...
...early as 1978 the Soviets developed a prototype of the gigantic mirrors that would be needed to aim laser beams at missiles or warheads...
...heaven, purgatory and (most likely) the deadlier, diabolical realms down under. Think about it. What does become a legend most--Natalie Wood in blackglama mink or Natalie Wood in a shroud? And who would Harvard students most want to see gracing their dorm walls--Mel Gibson brandishing a laser gun or James Dean brandishing a cigarette? And what picture better represents mock-native cinematic sexuality than Marilyn Monroe struggling with her out-of-control white frock over a dark subway grid? Even Madonna's hairy armpits can't compete...
...compete, we're in trouble." Other Star Wars supporters contend that the program need not lead to an escalation of the arms race. "We could offer to share our technology for stability and tie that to an arms build-down," says Robert McCrory, director of the Laboratory for Laser Energetics at the University of Rochester...