_Live From Cape Canaveral_ - Jay Barbree [126]
The International Space Station grew and grew, and as the 50th anniversary of Sputnik approached, we learned that Pluto was no longer a planet, that the universe was bigger than we’d thought, and that we were probably not alone. Because I was the only reporter on the job for all of its fifty years, I was often asked what I considered the most important event in space. My answer startled and confused the questioners. I didn’t say the Apollo moon landings. But for the sake of clarity, permit me to qualify my judgment. I’m hard put to set anything above the achievement of sending twelve astronauts to walk on the moon. I’m all for sending astronauts back to build a lasting lunar base. But when it comes to the salvation of the human species, the achievement of the Strategic Defense Initiative was unequaled. Only providence knows the millions, possibly billions, of lives it most likely saved.
Yep! I’m talking about “Star Wars,” that project many academics and members of the media mocked and ridiculed at a time when earthly foes had some thirty thousand nuclear warheads aimed at each other—enough destructive fire and shock waves to destroy civilization.
My trusted friend Dr. Gene McCall was in the thick of it. He was a senior scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory working on nuclear missile defense and a senior advisor to the chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force. He recently wrote me: “There are still a few learned people who attempt to deny the importance of the United States Missile Defense Program to the ending of the Cold War. Those who have analyzed the history in detail, though, generally agree that the Strategic Defense Initiative was intimately connected to the fall of the Soviet Union.”
Dr. Michael Griffin, presently NASA’s administrator, who was then the deputy for technology of the Strategic Defense Initiative, echoed what Dr. McCall said. Dr. Griffin added, “Many feel the technological successes of SDI to stop nuclear strikes against the United States overwhelmed the Soviets’ ability to compete.”
As Dr. McCall, Dr. Griffin, and others have explained, operating SDI was something like trying to keep up with your neighbor. First you both build the best house and pool and garden and deck your money can buy, and then, suddenly, you decide to build an elaborate guesthouse. Your neighbor has had a series of failed economic setbacks and poor leadership. In other words, the Soviet Union was fresh out of rubles and could no longer match America weapon for weapon financially or technically.
Dr. McCall went on to write: “If we ask whether SDI were the cause of the fall of the Soviet Union, we can only answer that it was an important factor in all the events of the 1980s. While there were serious doubts about the chances of success of SDI expressed in the West—even in the U.S. Congress—the Soviets appear to have had no doubt that it would eventually work. The beginning of the development of SDI was surely the beginning of the end for the Soviet system. Given the intransigence of Ronald Reagan and his willingness to pursue missile defense—even in spite of objections from allies—SDI, or The Strategic Defense Initiative, finally caused the Soviet rulers to throw up their hands and surrender.”
Referring to the money spent on weapons during the four-decade standoff, Soviet chairman Mikhail Gorbachev said, “We all lost the Cold War.”
But the United States was still standing when the Soviet Union collapsed on President George H. Bush’s watch, and the weapons of the West had performed well. None had been fired. No one had been killed by nuclear strike. From America’s point of view, given the outcome, the price of the Cold War was priceless—monies well spent for a war we never fought.
As a father of four and a grandfather of six, it gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling to see the size of our nuclear arsenal reduced to a logical level of