I'm currently making a schoolwork about USA:s Strategic Defense Initiative program, also known as the "Star Wars" program. Does anyone here know where (on the Internet) I could find some more information about it? I know that Reagan started it in 1983 to protect USA from Soviet missiles and that Bush has an interest in it as well, but I don't know much more about it...

Thanks in advance for any help!

Searching the MSNBC database should be a treasure trove of information. I remember reading numerous items on there over the last couple of years. Keep in mind that it has been put on the back burner again until fairly recently. With the going-ons in Afganistan and Iraq, and later with the Columbia disaster, expanding any type of space funding (even for national defense) has not been a top priority. I believe that a good amount of information you get will come from 2001 and 2002, as we're just now starting to get back to it. A lot of that info is going to be on the U.S. pulling out of the ballistic missile treaty.

If you are looking for actual scientific background for how this thing is supposed to work, I doubt that information is public. Any experiments conducted regarding feasibility of the project probably wouldn't have been released, as they would contain technological information that other nations may not have. Obviously, if you are going to do something like this, you'd prefer that yours is the only one in development.

Search: www.globalsecurity.org (http://www.globalsecurity.org) and www.fas.org (http://www.fas.org) and www.cdi.org (http://www.cdi.org) - everything you might like to know and more.
Also, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (http://www.bullatomsci.org/) comes to my mind.

PS: And alas, the Bulletin has an article just on Star Wars on the frontpage: Who’s kidding who? If you think a missile defense deployment will make the world safer, take a look at how the United States reacted to the Soviet missile defense of Moscow. (http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2004/ma04/ma04kristensen.html)

Also remember that, at the time, there was alot of dis-information going on in regards to the "star wars" program. The Government was feeding false info to the press and to the Soviets to make them think that the program was going better than planned. IIRC they continued with false reports and false tests well after the program was canceled to keep the Soviets busy spending money on their own programs to counter/copy SDI.

Of course, US reports on failed tests can be seen as a cunning cover to mask their real progress. Lure your enemy in safety ...

... but then, the cruel grilling they tend to get in congress and from GAO for wasting money on failing technolgy and for staggering costs and mismanagement is worth such a trick?

Plus, it undermines your credentials if the shield is meant to deter. That is, by playing weak you might invite a missile attack only to be able to show your strength by defeating it. Well, only a madman gambles with nukes that may wipe out metroples and kill millions. Talk about being irresponsible.
So, all in all, I think the reports on technical problems are not so much floated but simply true.

Not that that would have ever cared Bush and his crew. The missile shield could be a total crap and they would build it anyway just to make their clientel happy.
The person who wrote the pentagon requirement for a missile shield came iirc from Lockheed Martin to a think tank only to write that requirement and to go back to Lockheed Martin, as Director of Missile Defense programs. I forgot the actual names, but in due time I could dig them out again. Unfortunately I don't have the time atm. In due time I will.

Lovely, nearly posted a whole book and put it into the wrong thread. Sorry.

The Global Terran Missile Defense System (GTMDS...nicknamed "Got Doctors" by the developers) was completed and put in place during a series of top secret Space Shuttle missions in 1999 and 2000.

The 21 stealthed satellites maintain a geosynchronous orbit around the Earth, and are currently used on almost a daily basis to repel continual alien attacks that began in October of 2002.

So...before you go to bed at night, genuflect and kiss your picture of Ronald Reagan and thank the generosity of American taxpayers that you did not end up as processed food for Silicon based lifeforms from Andromeda.

OK, the medication has taken effect...

For the most part the SDI research over the last 10 years has focused on shorter range interceptors and the tracking and accuracy thereof...such as Patriot missile batteries. Some work has continued with ICBM style intercepts, but the funding has been significantly reduced...will try to find some links for more info...unless Ragusa is able to post them first.