May 022014
Much of the Strategic Defense Initiative, begun three decades ago, remains murky at best. One little-reported area of study was the launch infrastructure that would be needed to put the vast array of stuff into orbit. Apart from the Delta Clipper, you’d be forgiven for thinking that space launch was nearly forgotten.
However, some study was put into it, as the page below from a 1988 government report shows. Read through it: the SDI needs for space launch would have been *vast.* The total amount of payload delivered to orbit would have ranged from, at the low end, one million kilograms, up to 80 million for the long-range forecast systems.
