Summary

Since the first successful Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile test in August 1957, the United States has been preoccupied with developing an adequate line of defense against these nuclear weapons. This effort culminated in the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)--a space-based defense system first proposed in 1983 as a way to knock out incoming nuclear missiles. Although the United States has spent more than $30 billion to develop SDI, the Secretary of Defense recently announced the "end of the Star Wars era." Theater missile defense is now the first priority, and national missile defense is the second priority. The total request for fiscal year 1994 is $3.8 billion. This report provides information on the evolution of SDI, its oversight by the Defense Department, investments in major projects, technical progress and remaining challenges, commercial spin-offs of SDI technology, use of retired missiles as launch vehicles for SDI sites, and plans for using nuclear power in space.

GAO found that: (1) SDI began in 1983 focusing on defending against a massive Soviet attack, but the focus changed in 1991 to providing protection from limited ballistic missile strikes against the United States, overseas U.S. forces, and allies; (2) SDI plans changed due to technological improvements, unavailable funding, and changing world events; (3) DOD and the Department of Energy have spent $30.4 billion on BMD since 1985 for the development of various system components; (4) the executive branch has hampered BMD research and development with unrealistic and overly optimistic funding requests and schedules; (5) DOD believes that it urgently needs improved theater missile defense (TMD) systems because of the increasing proliferation of ballistic missile weapon systems and technology; (6) initial TMD and national missile defense (NMD) development will cost about $12.1 billion and $21.8 million, respectively, but funding will depend on compliance with the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; (7) TMD and NMD development programs are making use of earlier technologies, but they face challenges in critical areas such as lethality, integration of complex components, and testing; (8) DOD has a technology applications program to transfer appropriate technologies to the commercial sector through a variety of activities; (9) DOD plans to use retired ballistic and other missiles to build suborbital launch vehicles for planned BMD tests and commercial and Air Force space-launch vehicles for orbital flights; and (10) DOD has no plans to use nuclear reactors for electricity generation in proposed deployments, but it continues to study reactor technology.