The race to the moon was much like
the voyage of Columbus in that, in the end, Americans felt that they
had discovered a new land and conquered a new frontier. Although
it remains diplomatic to state that the moon belongs to all humans,
in fact, it is perceived by the military as an American outpost. Ronald
Reagan took the concept of space-based weapons to new imaginative
heights with his 1983 "Star
Wars" speech.
On March 23, 1983 in his "Star
Wars" speech President Reagan announced, "I call upon the
scientific community who gave us nuclear weapons to turn their great
talents to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means
of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete." His
proposed Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) forwarded
the concept of using space-based lasers to shoot
down incoming Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)
armed with nuclear warheads.
This speech, following upon Reagan's earlier Evil
Empire speech on March 8, 1983, ushered in the last phase of
the Cold War, bringing the nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union
to its most critical point before the collapse of the Soviet Union
later in 1991.
See "Strategic Defense Initiative" in Wikipedia.
