Word: rails
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...effort to make it "survivable," or impervious to a Soviet first strike, Pentagon planners studied at least 37 basing ideas, including one that would have kept the MX arsenal permanently airborne and another that would have shunted 200 missiles in and out of 4,600 shelters along underground rail tracks, keeping the enemy guessing about which shelters were in use at any given time. The Reagan Administration even proposed, and then quickly dropped, a "dense pack" cluster of missiles on the theory that some of the weapons would survive an attack if they were concentrated in one location...
...based rockets might be fired into the upper atmosphere. Each rocket would release a swarm of so- called smart rocks--vehicles powered by little thrusters and guided by tiny sensors--to hit warheads and decoys in space. An alternative is to fire the smart rocks out of devices called rail guns placed in orbit. The rail guns use a burst of electric current to accelerate the smart rocks along a rail. One problem is sheer numbers: immense swarms of smart rocks would be needed to hit warheads and decoys indiscriminately. The other option, picking out the warheads from the decoys...
...wants to increase research funding for the SDI from $1.4 billion this year to $3.7 billion in 1986 and spend a whopping $30 billion during the next six years. Because a space-based defense system is still highly speculative, the research encompasses a dizzying array of technologies, like electromagnetic "rail guns" to fire projectiles at extremely high speeds across hundreds of miles of space and particle accelerators to hit a missile with a stream of atoms traveling near the speed of light...
...comparison, Conrail has made a full-throttle recovery. Formed in 1976 from the bankrupt Penn Central and six other failed lines, the Consolidated Rail Corporation cost the Government about $7 billion before it began turning a profit in 1981. The line earned an estimated $500 million in 1984, up from $313 million in 1983. To reach that goal, Conrail cut its work force from 100,000 to 39,000, trimmed track mileage from 17,500 to 14,000 and turned over passenger lines to state authorities in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. The company won major concessions from...
With their born-again efficiency, U.S. freight railroads no doubt will be profitably hauling goods into the 21st century. But the day of judgment for the passenger train has arrived. Unless Congress decides to help keep Amtrak rolling, the only long-haul rail passengers left in America may be the hobos who ride the boxcars...