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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.
In this regard, what was Ronald Reagan's Star Wars program?
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons (intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles).
In this manner, how much did Reagan spend on Star Wars?
The ambitious and costly program, dubbed “Star Wars,” is now in its fourth decade, having consumed $209 billion while never being tested, even on a limited scale, in the heat of battle.
The plan, called the Strategic Defense Initiative, or S.D.I., was dubbed “Star Wars” by its critics. They called it “Star Wars,” first because it sounded like something out of a science fiction movie, and second because the announcement came just weeks after President Reagan's “Evil Empire” speech.