How much money was wasted by Reagan's Star Wars SDI?

[mnmoderatedem]

I know it was widely derided by experts as completely unfeasible, and I know ultimately Clinton salvaged a small part of it, the small core that may have actually been practical and worthwhile, but all told, how much taxpayer money went down the drain as part of Ronnie's far fetch wet dream?

Yet another notch to take down the darling of conservatives.

[Bosso 63]

1. It was a lot, but on the other hand we got . . . . .something . . . .

Well I forget what it was . . . .but I'll bet it was pretty shiny and cool.

[Kaleva]

2. Tang?

[bluestate10]

11. Tang was invented by NASA for use by astronauts. nt

[Motown_Johnny]

3. There are anti missile lasers now

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/04/laser-warfare-system/


^snip^


The video above is what the Navy’s top officers view as the future of their dominance on the surface of the world’s waterways. A laser cannon, its magazine limited only by the amount of energy pumped into it and costing pocket change to fire, punching through an adversary’s cheap anti-ship weapons — at the speed of light.

Long in testing and even older in ambition, the chief of naval operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, triumphantly heralded the dawn age of the shipboard laser gun during the Navy’s annual conference outside Washington. In tests aboard the destroyer USS Dewey last summer off the California coast, the Laser Weapon System successfully shot down surveillance drones and fast boats in its first round of sea trials aboard a surface combatant, according to Rear Adm. Thomas Eccles, one of the Navy’s top engineers. (Three of the shoot-downs were aboard the Dewey, while nine others happened on shore, Eccles clarifies.)

“This system,” Greenert told the naval community at the Sea Air Space conference, showing the above video to a hushed crowd, “it works.”

The tubular Laser Weapon System (LaWS) is a solid-state laser that’s been in development for six years, at a cost of $40 million. It’s a directed-energy descendent of the the radar-guided Close In Weapons System (CIWS; it rhymes with “Gee Whiz”) gun already aboard surface ships. In December, following the successful Dewey tests, Greenert ordered the laser “out to the fleet for an operational demonstration,” said Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder, the Navy’s chief of research. And so next year, LaWS will have its trial by fire, when the Navy puts it on the deck of its new afloat staging base USS Ponce for its maiden voyage to the Middle East — right in Iran’s backyard.

[Bosso 63]

4. Seriously, when I have a little more time, I want to read that,

(I'm making dinner for my kids).
I have no doubt that there is interesting spin off technology from that level of MASSIVE spending, but is it cost effective when compared to old school kinetic weapons, and is it ready for prime time. Its one thing for a system to function in a controlled test, and quite another in the chaos of live fire. Maybe it is, I honestly don't know enough about it. In any event, I believe we could have gotten a better "bang for the buck" if we had invested all that money in something else, i.e. early childhood education.
After thirty years, that investment would definitely be paying off now.

[Motown_Johnny]

5. It is hard to hit a missile with a missile

They compare it to hitting a bullet with a bullet, but since the missile has guidance systems I think that is a bit of an overstatement.

A radar guided laser or particle beam is different. It is just point and track.

Of course there are problems with it still, but the technology does exist and is still improving.

[Jenoch]

6. I don't know what the context of this question is,

but that crazy SDI stuff did bring down the Soviet Union.

[jazzimov]

8. Actually, although that's what I was told and

what I believed for a long time, after more research I found that the former Soviet Union imploded on it's own.

I was told that the Soviet Union went broke trying to keep up with SDI technology, but I have since discovered that there were long-term problems with the USSR that finally caught up with it. It had nothing to do with SDI or Raygun.

[Wolf Frankula]

9. It Also Damned Near Brought Down the United States.

The money spent would have better have been used for toilet paper. At least that's good for something.

Wolf

[Demo_Chris]

7. I believe the Patriot, among other things, originated with this. nt

[bluestate10]

10. Doesn't matter. To justify the spending republicans yell "national defense" and Democrats,

especially liberals who hate defense spending fall silent. I saw that with Al Sharpton tonight when a republican mouth-speaker from Florida was trying to pin then nation's debt and the post Bush deficits on President Obama. The Florida asshole pointed to the 16 trillion debt and claimed that is the reason why he was not going to vote to raise the debt limit. Sharpton challenged his logic only to have the asshole pull the national defense/9-11 card. Sharpton fell too silent for my liking. Sharpton failed to come back at the asshole with the fact that Bush left 11-12 trillion dollars ALREADY spent and fixed obligations that would cause 2-3 trillion more spending EVEN if President Obama hadn't proposed a cent of spending. The spending that President Obama did do made the budget deficit BETTER by holding down unemployment and stabilizing tax collection.