defense project. . . .

S.D.I. will need much more than existing technology if it is ever

to fly. To get all the necessary advances, it will pump 3% to 4% of
its projected budget [$26 billion] over the next five years into
pushing innovations in technologies ranging from advanced
computers to optics. . . . Almost no cutting-edge technology will go
without a shot of new research funds. . . . Whether or not Star Wars
comes to fruition, Abrahamson and Ionson [head of S.D.I.'s
Innovative Science and Technology Office] are convinced that it will
produce a wealth of new technology. "Star Wars will create an
industrial revolution," insists Ionson.
Malcolme W. Browne, "The Star Wars Spinoff" (cover story), New York
Times Magazine, August 24, 1986, p. 18. The subtitles on the cover
and in the story read:
For better or worse, the controversial Strategic Defense Initiative is
already yielding new technologies that seem destined to change the
world. . . . It is estimated that adapted Star Wars technology will
eventually yield private-sector sales of $5 trillion to $20 trillion. . .
. Experts say the computers and programs S.D.I. is helping to bring
into being are powerful tools whose civilian counterparts will have
incalculable civilian value.
"Will star wars reward or retard science?," Economist (London),
September 7, 1985, p. 93. An excerpt:
[T]he share of American government R&D funds going for
defence . . . rose from 47% in 1980 to 70% this year. Japan, in
contrast, gives less than 1% of its government R&D funds to
defence. . . . Yet the differences in research priorities between,
say, America with its defence bias and Japan with its market bias
are less stark than the raw statistics suggest. The makers of
science policy in most industrial countries are investing in the same
group of core technologies -- computers, materials and
biotechnology. A review of science and technology policy by the
OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development]
notes that, biotechnology apart, the Pentagon and Japan's ministry
of international trade and industry (Miti) are putting their money into
very similar kinds of R&D.
In computer science, for example, both are trying to build