Asked by: Ivy Diekmannshemke
business and finance defense industry

How much did Reagan's Star Wars cost?

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To the Editor: Richard Halloran (news article, Oct. 27) reports a Council on Economic Priorities study of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, which estimates the final cost of a United States space defense system at $400 billion to $800 billion.


Considering this, how much did the SDI cost?

The new system would cut the proposed costs of the SDI system from $53 billion to $41 billion over a decade. Also, instead of making plans to protect against thousands of incoming missiles, the GPALS system sought to provide flawless protection from up to two hundred nuclear missiles.

Secondly, what was Reagan's Star Wars program? The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as Star Wars, was a program first initiated on March 23, 1983 under President Ronald Reagan. The intent of this program was to develop a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system in order to prevent missile attacks from other countries, specifically the Soviet Union.

Similarly, how much did the government spend on research for Star Wars?

Over the course of 10 years, the government spent up to $30 billion on developing the concept, but the futuristic program remained just that—futuristic. It was formally scrapped by President Bill Clinton in 1993.

Did Reagan Star Wars work?

It didn't help that, in order for Reagan's missile defense system to work, it would have to destroy Soviet missiles as they orbited the Earth -- an incredibly difficult task that would require putting weapons in space -- earning Reagan's initiative the name "Star Wars." (In case you're wondering, the Missile Defense

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Reagan's Star Wars. On March 23, 1983, President Reagan proposed the creation of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), an ambitious project that would construct a space-based anti-missile system. This program was immediately dubbed "Star Wars." An artist's rendering of an X-ray laser hit an incoming missile.

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What was the Strategic Defense Initiative answers?

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23rd June, 2020

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