The date of Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” speech is burned in my memory – March 23, 1983. I looked at today’s date on my computer and couldn’t help but think of it.
It’s the date that I sat up in my chair while watching Reagan and said “WTF??? This guy knows something that I don’t”
What he knew was basically Edward Teller’s “third generation” nuclear weapon, the X-ray laser, an untested bit of technology that makes less sense the more you think about it. But it appealed to Reagan. And, because he was so vague about it, lots of High Tech fixes to the Cold War situation started popping up, like Daniel O. Graham’s “High Frontier” strategy (that had the advantage of using mostly “Off he Shelf” technology, but which only really protected military targets). Heinlein loved it. Arthur C. Clarke and Asimov didn’t.
Some really weird ideas started popping out of the woodwork as people saw funding opportunities arise. The Mid Infra Red Advanced Chemical Laser (AKA MIRACL, appropriately enough) was shown to be effective in blasting open pressurized launch vehicle from a kilometer away (although actual launch vehicles in the boost phase would be a helluva lot farther from the lasers in orbit) Laser propulsion schemes were re-started as a way to get lots of hardware into space with minimal reaction mass. Railgun ideas were floated again. Weird electromagnetic field devices were suggested. A plethora of incompatible ideas jostled for support, until it all died away a few years later.