Does any one know anything about this. I am forced to research this matter.  But it was before my time. Does anyone have an explanation?

This probably isn't what you are looking for, but it is a good story.

After the iron curtain fell my company was visited by some senior russian scientists and I was assigned as a tour guide.

I asked one senior member why Gorbachev had thrown in the towel.  His reply was simply "Star Wars".

According to him, when Reagan started promoting the ABM program, Gorbachev got worried and asked his senior scientists:
1)would the americans be able to pull it off
2)if yes then when
3)what are the possible defenses.

This gentleman said that his group responded:
1)Yes, if they want to they can build it
2) 10 years minimum
3) other than a preemptive strike, build more missiles and warheads.

At this time a significant portion of russian resources were already being spent on the military.  After a few weeks, Gorbachev called this man and said they could not afford to increase military spending, that he would NOT launch a first strike.  He then stated that the only sane option was the dismemberment of the Soviet system.

That memory always floors me.

SRM

Tell the truth. There is no star wars defense initiative. It was some of the best wool we pulled over the russians eyes. I always thought it existed.
GG

It was for the most part all deception. forcing the russians to realize they could not keep up with the amount of money we were spending on defense. it worked.

Thanks guys. Thats what I needed to know.

it's already up & running. but do you really think the government is ever going to admit it and let the secret out??

SDI was based on a layered architecture to begin with. Satellites in GSO armed with chemical laser or rail gun would pick off the ICBM's and SLBM's in the boost phase. Each layer was designed to destroy 90% of an attack to afford some redundancy. The next layer would be more sat's armed with laser's or rail gun's that would attempt to pick off the busses before they could MIRV, thus bipassing the problem of figuring out the difference between warheads and decoys. The final layer is a F-15 launched kinetic kill missile designed to destroy reentering war heads. A later design called Brilliant Pebbles took the shotgun approach so to speak, 1000's of independent missiles would be orbited so the loss of one or two by enemy ASAT's would not affect the system to any meaningful degree. When the missiles got information from NORAD from EW satellites they would home in on the warheads and busses and destroy them with kinetic energy. Obviously a lot of these technologies would have an affect on the conventional battle field, because they could be used offensively as well as defensively with minimal modification. The problem with SDI was that instead of being a program to claim space superiority, it was too defensive minded. Now we should focus on militarizing space, since it promises to be the biggest force multiplier since the introduction of the bomber. (IE Rail gun satellites picking off tanks before out troops are sent in, or orbital radars that give 24/7/365 coverage that are more accurate then AWACS and could give our aircraft real-time data without them giving away their positions with active radar, or an alternative to nuclear weapons by being able to destroy silo in a preemptive strike with non nuclear weapons, a 10 kilogram depleted uranium kinetic re-entry vehicle, impacting the ground at mach 12 would carry as much energy as a 20kt nuclear bomb with out the both literal and political fallout)

[rail]