In a nationally televised speech, President Ronald Reagan called for developing space-based and ground-based systems capable of intercepting incoming nuclear missiles, a program quickly nicknamed "Star Wars." The proposal alarmed the Soviet Union, reshaped arms control talks, and poured billions into missile defense research over the following decades.
Reagan closed a routine speech on defense spending with a surprise vision: a shield of satellites and lasers that could render nuclear missiles "impotent and obsolete." He framed it as a moral alternative to mutually assured destruction, the doctrine that had underpinned nuclear strategy for decades.
Scientists were skeptical from the start. Critics, including many physicists, argued the technology was decades away if achievable at all, and derided the plan as "Star Wars" after the popular film franchise, a nickname Reagan's aides hated but that stuck permanently in public memory.
Despite the doubts, the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization received billions in funding through the 1980s. Soviet leaders, including Gorbachev, took the threat seriously enough that SDI became a major sticking point in arms negotiations, notably at the 1986 Reykjavik summit. Though a workable shield never materialized, the program's research fed into missile defense systems still pursued by the United States today.