Donald Trump revives ideas of a Star Wars-like missile shield
He wants a swarm of missile-toting satellites to take out incoming threats
IN THE LATE 1980s Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb, and Lowell Wood, an astrophysicist, proposed a seemingly bizarre scheme to defend America against missile attack. The “Brilliant Pebbles” system envisaged thousands of small satellites in low-Earth orbit, each housing heat-seeking missiles to take out incoming Soviet nukes long before they released their warheads. The idea faded, not least because the technology seemed distant. Now Donald Trump is resuscitating it.
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This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Pebble dash”
From the February 1st 2025 edition
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