[psikeyhackr]

Now this is funny.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=19850318&id=8RhXAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Eu8DAAAAIBAJ&pg=5244,1562138

What from Star ?Wars ever actually worked?

psik

[Omphalos]

A few pages back from that article is a pretty good Far Side.

[Philzilla]

Now this is funny.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=19850318&id=8RhXAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Eu8DAAAAIBAJ&pg=5244,1562138

What from Star ?Wars ever actually worked?

psik

Does it really matter? The Soviets thought it would.

[psikeyhackr]

Does it really matter? The Soviets thought it would.

I wonder what the politicians thought versus what the scientists and engineers thought.

But we always hear about Star Wars affecting The Wall coming down and not how much Chernobyl had to do with it.

psik

[Fung Koo]

But we always hear about Star Wars affecting The Wall coming down

I've never once heard that... :eek:

[psikeyhackr]

I've never once heard that... :eek:

In the U.S. the Reagan Administration increased the budget for the military and presented the possibility that it would implement a Star Wars antiballistic missile system. To maintain a parity with the U.S. under those developments would have required an even larger share of industrial ouput going to the military. The planners and decision-makers had to face the fact that it was economically impossible for the Soviet Union to increase the share of its output going to the military. The Soviet authorities then ended the arms race and called off the Cold War. When the justification of an external threat was removed there was no reason for the Russian public to toleratel the totalitarian regime and the political system fell apart.
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/sovietcollapse.htm

There is no mention of Chernobyl on that page.

I have encountered this perspective mentioned on television a number of times. That was easy to find.

psik