Word: warheaded
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Dole and the rest of the Senate provided a lot more than that. Late that afternoon they gave approval of the new ten-warhead missiles by the surprisingly wide vote of 55 to 45, a crucial boost for Reagan's campaign to double the size of the nation's MX arsenal. It was a reluctant majority; although most Senators have qualms about the MX, many feared that a vote against it would jeopardize the newly restarted arms talks in Geneva. In part the vote reflected U.S. concerns that two Soviet missiles believed to be mobile, the MX-size...
...nuclear explosion can be converted to powerful X rays by rods projecting from an atomic device in the microsecond or so before the rods themselves are vaporized. The beams are so powerful that they need no "dwell time" at all; they could knock out a missile or warhead instantaneously. Less precision is necessary in aiming them; an X-ray laser "beam" as wide as two football fields would have great destructive power...
Even in space, particle beams that carried an electrical charge would be bent off course by the earth's magnetic field. To be effective as missile or warhead zappers, the beams would have to be made neutral, which involves a process of accelerating, aiming and focusing charged particles by electromagnets, then stripping off the charge just before the beams are shot out the end of an orbiting device. Why bother with them then? Primarily because the beams, which work by frying the innards of a missile or warhead with radiation, in principle are more lethal and yield a surer kill...
KINETIC-ENERGY WEAPONS. They are simply objects like rockets, homing vehicles or even pellets fired at a missile, bus or warhead to destroy it by sheer impact. They are potentially effective at any stage from boost to re-entry, and can be fired either from the ground or from space. Their technology is well enough developed to make them available by the 1990s, much earlier than any of the beam weapons. Indeed, a terminal defense of sorts could be put into place right now. Main drawbacks: the range of kinetic-energy weapons is measured in hundreds rather than thousands...
...rifle bullet from the top of the John Hancock Building in Chicago. The sensors also would have to flash back instantaneous assessments of what targets had been hit, so that a battle station would not waste vital seconds aiming a laser or particle beam at a missile or warhead already destroyed...