Advanced Sensors, Telecommunications and Data Processing: Technological Spin-Offs from the Strategic Defense Initiative

摘要

While the details of Nitze Criteria-satisfying architectures for defense against strategic attack with ballistic missiles are still being worked out, it is already clear that quite advanced sensors, telecommunications and data processing technologies will be features of all of them. It is concluded that the SDI, due to its institutional youthfulness, its charter for large-scale research and its self-evident need for such technologies, is likely to dominate many aspects of these technology development areas during the next two decades, especially if it continues more-or-less as the current American Administration contemplates. Both the technical and the economic aspects of data-gathering and manipulation seem likely to be substantially enhanced, due to the existence of the SDI. (ERA citation 12:017632)