| "Star Wars"a phrase that once conjured up the exotic dream world of H. G. Wells, Isaac Asimov, or Stephen Spielbergis science fiction no longer. Over the last four years, since the media gave the popular tag to President Ronald Reagan's new American space priority, the term has entered into our everyday consciousness. It, or its more technical-sounding alter egothe strategic defense initiative (SDI)appears almost daily in news reports: "Iceland Summit Dissolves over SDI"; "Thatcher Supports U.S. Space Initiative"; "American Scientists Oppose Research Efforts in Space-based Missile Defense." |
| SDI has polarized the scientific community. As spending for SDI-related research continues in America and extends to Europe, critics grow more outspoken as their research status becomes more jeopardized. Meanwhile, issues of practicality, priority, funding, use, and risk divide the community at large. Many of those concerned know little about the system's hypothetical capabilities and proposed methods of deployment, yet studies undertaken to date have not generally helped to clarify the issues. They have tended instead to be either vague, superficial, or imprecise in their terminology, or they have been turgid, jargon-filled, and all but unreadable. |
| The aim of this dictionary is to clarify and simplify SDI's complex terrain, lay out the technology involved, and identify those areas under debate. The material is presented in a straightforward A-to-Z fashion, with accompanying illustrations in many cases. The emphasis is on terminology, and nearly 800 items are defined in the areas of ballistic missile defense, arms control, research and development, countermoves to defense, Soviet capabilities, the roles of U.S. allies, personalities in the field, and SDI software and hardware. Sources include the SDIO's reports and technical news releases, publications on ballistic missile defense by the Office of Technology Assessment, documents from the Department of Defense and related agencies, and my own experience with ballistic missile systems as a technical analyst on the Sentinel/Safeguard ABM system in the late 1960s and early 1970s. |
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