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National BMD
The US Army had considered the issue of ballistic missile defense as early as late in World War II. Since then, the entire topic of BMD became increasingly controversial. Early deployment plans were met with little interest, but by the late 1960s, public meetings on the Sentinel system were met by thousands of angry protesters. After thirty years, only one system would be built, only to shut down in February 1976. -
Edward Teller Lecture
A lecture by physicist Edward Teller, a main developer of the hydrogen bomb, was an important precursor to SDI. In the lecture, Teller talked about the idea of defending against nuclear missiles by using missiles. Held at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the lecture was attended by Reagan shortly after he became the governor of California. -
Reagan's visit to NORAD
Ronald Reagan visited the NORAD command base, Cheyenne Mountain Complex, where he was first introduced to the highly advanced tracking and detection systems. They could track the attack down to the individual targets, however there was nothing one could do to stop it. This feeling of helplessness was the first drive to start the of the SDI. -
BAMBI
Lieutenant General Daniel O. Graham, the former head of the DIA, briefed Reagan on BAMBI, a intercepting array of missiles whose purpose was to track and destroy enemy ballistic missiles, which would be possible because of emerging technologies. -
High Frontier
Graham formed a small think tank called High Frontier based in Virginia to continue research on BAMBI. The Heritage Foundation provided High Frontier with space to conduct research, and Graham published a 1982 report entitled, “High Frontier: A New National Strategy” that examined in greater detail how the system would function. -
SDI Announced
The concept was first announced publicly by President Ronald Reagan. He was a vocal critic of the doctrine of mutual assured destruction, which he described a "suicide pact", and he called upon the scientists and engineers of the United States to develop a system that would render nuclear weapons obsolete. -
SDIO
the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization was established to oversee the program, which was headed by Lt. General James Alan Abrahamson USAF, a past Director of the NASA Space Shuttle program. -
ERINT
The Extended Range Interceptor program was part of SDI's Theater Missile Defense Program and was an extension of the FLAGE, which developed targeting technology and demonstrated the guidance accuracy of a small, agile, radar-homing vehicle. FLAGE made a direct hit against a MGM-52 Lance missile in flight in 1987. ERINT was a prototype missile similar to the FLAGE, but it used a new solid-propellant rocket motor that allowed it to fly faster and higher than FLAGE. -
HOE
The US Army began developing non-nuclear, hit-to-kill missiles. The Homing Overlay Experiment was the first successful hit-to-kill to intercept of a mock ballistic missile warhead outside the Earth’s atmosphere. The HOE used a Kinetic Kill Vehicle. Once in space, the KKV could extend a folded structure similar to an umbrella skeleton. This would destroy the ICBM reentry vehicle on collision. After three failed tests, the DOD announced the fourth to be a success. -
Berlin Wall Destruction
The Cold War is coming to an end, the Soviet Union is backing down, and the SDI is becoming unnecessary. -
Proposal of SDS
Strategic Defense System was largely the Smart Rocks concept plus of ground-based missiles. These missiles were intended to attack the enemy warheads that the Smart Rocks had missed. In order to track them when they were below the radar horizon, they added a number of additional satellites flying at low altitude that would send tracking information to ground and orbital missile bases. -
GPALS
In sight of the fall of the Berlin Wall and dissolution of the Soviet Union, GPALS was approved by President George H.W. Bush in 1991. The new system would cut the proposed costs of the SDI system by $12 billion over a decade. Instead of making plans to protect against thousands of incoming missiles, the GPALS system would provide protection from up to two hundred nuclear missiles. It was also able to protect the United States from attacks coming from all different parts of the world. -
Fall of the Soviet Union
Development of the SDI is ceased as the Russian Nuclear threat cools off. -
BMDO
The Clinton administration shifted their attention toward ground-based interceptor missiles and theater scale systems, forming the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and closing the SDIO. The BMDO was renamed again by the George W. Bush administration as the Missile Defense Agency and focused onto limited National Missile Defense.
