Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Government & Politics SDI SDI he Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) traces its roots to the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program that President Ronald Reagan started in March 1983. Overseen by the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO), Reagan™s program was to explore the technical feasibility of missile defenses in the hope that such defenses, if feasible, might provide the basis for a shift from offense-dominated deterrence to a form of deterrence that relied increasingly on strategic defenses. By1987, there was sufficient progress in the SDI program to establish an architecture designed to defeat a major attack by Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces. Since the Cold War ended during the administration of President George Bush, he shifted the goal of the SDI program to the development of a new architecture that would protect the United States from limited missile attacks and defend deployed American forces and U.S. allies against attacks from theater missiles. The trend toward greater emphasis on Theater Missile Defense (TMD) in this new architecture continued into the presidency of William Clinton, which changed the name of SDIO to BMDO in May 1993. During the early years of the Clinton administration, the lion™s share of Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) funding went to TMD, with National Missile Defense (NMD) relegated to second priority and receiving only a quarter of the funding provided for TMD. By the end of President Clinton™s second term, however, NMD was overshadowing TMD. Laying the Foundation For Today's Missile Defense Program he SDI program spawned a number of significant technological advancements that underpin today™s missile defense program. This is especially true with regard to hit-to-kill (HTK) technology which is the basis of all interceptors employed in today™s missile defense systems. In 1984, shortly after the SDI Organization was chartered, the Army™s Homing Overlay Experiment demonstrated the feasibility of intercepting a reentry vehicle in mid-course with a hit-to-kill (HTK) interceptor. Building on the Army™s success, SDIO carried out a number of successful HTK programs. Included here are the small radar homing interceptor technology program, which became SDIO™s Flexible Lightweigh Agile Guidance Experiment, and the Exoatmospheric Reentry Vehicle Interceptor System. These programs clearly demonstrated the practicality of kinetic kill technology. Furthermore, because of the tremendous energy released when an HTK interceptor strikes its target, this approach has been judged most effective in destroying missiles armed with nuclear, chemical, and biological warheads. Capitalizing on the directed energy weapons (DEW) work of the Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Air Force, SDIO pushed back the frontiers of laser development to where it was possible to test a fully integrated laser system. Among SDIO™s other DEW accomplishments were the development of mirror coatings that eliminated the need for heavy cooling systems and the advancement of deformable mirrors which astronomers use extensively today. SDIO™s success in miniaturizing components in virtually all areas of missile defense technology has been fundamental to progress in missile defense systems over the past decade. One example of this miniaturization is SDIO™s development of small rocket motors that weighed little more than eleven pounds yet produced over ten thousand pounds of thrust. Through its accomplishments, SDI shifted the U.S.-Soviet rivalry from ballistic missile technology where the Soviets were at least on a par with the United States to the development of missile defenses where America™s edge in high technology was a decisive advantage. In the process, SDI renewed Western hope that there was an alternative to mutual assured destruction and forced Soviet leaders to recognize that they could not keep pace with U.S. missile defense efforts. As a result, restricting the SDI program became a central goal of Soviet arms control negotiators. Soviet obsession with SDI gave the United States powerful leverage in arms talks during the final years of the Cold War. By the fall of 1987, SDIO had developed a national missile defense concept called the Strategic Defense System Phase I Architecture, which was composed of a space-based interceptor, a ground-based interceptor, a ground-based sensor, two space-based sensors, and a battle management system. With its interceptors based on HTK technology, this architecture was to destroy a given percentage of warheads in a massive Soviet missile attack against the United States. Later phases of the architecture would increase the system™s operational effectiveness Bibliography: Word Count: 699
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