> Star Wars didn't need to actually work, as such. It only need to panic the Soviet military brass enough to to get them to crash the Soviet economy. It's

> Star Wars didn't need to actually work, as such. It only need to panic the Soviet military brass enough to to get them to crash the Soviet economy. It's a good, and perhaps trivially true theory, insomuch as warfare is always bluff. I think by mid-80's the writing was already on the wall with respect to Soviet over-reach and CIA knew that. But don't you think the ruskie scientists knew "space lasers" were never going to happen? As I understand it, the best we ever got were some kinds of chemical MASERs (Ammonium liquid phase) that could take out a slow missile at a couple of kilometres on a perfect day. Any confirmed advances on that? Ironically enough, in the context of this thread, such weapons absolutely could not function without total computer control of the ranging and targeting angle.