This
week we missed having a dying satellite fall from space with poisonous Hydrazine fumes. This is thanks to a Naval air defense missile that had been modified to track the “cold” satellite rather then to detect the exhaust heat from an incoming warhead. Even with the satellite traveling at 17,000 miles an hour, and just a 10-second window to fire, it was one-shot-one-kill from the Navy AEGIS warship, the USS Lake Erie, when it fired a single modified tactical Standard Missile-3.
I watched this with more then a little pride. It brought me back in time to when my brother was serving on the USS Enterprise. Twenty-five years ago, I had just turned old enough to vote when Ronald Reagan gave his SDI Speech (Missile Defense). I was enthralled by his speech and the technology seemed to be just around the corner. 
I know the critics called it “star wars” but the cynicisms fell short for me. I cut my teeth on Star Trek with many trips on the Starship Enterprise and topped it off with a generous helping of Star Wars. It may have been a galaxy far away, but I knew that we could do anything here in America. Today the real space ship Enterprise sits in the Smithsonian museum.
A few years later my business mentor was the former vice president of Lear-Siglar,
most commonly known for it’s Lear Jet. I found out that they made many more
“systems” including the aisle-way emergency lighting used in all commercial
jets today. 
I
also learned that there was many "years of difference" between what
the public knew and what was developed and used, but was “top secret”.
In the late 80’s my roommate was a top salesman for multi-million dollar
computer CAD/CAM system used by aerospace contractors in southern California.
One day he brought home an ashtray that was from one of these companies, which
was a 6" circle of steel about 4" thick. It was concave on top and
equally convex at the bottom. It clearly looked like armor that had somehow been
punched out. When I looked very closely, I could see small fragments of copper
embedded into the concave top.
I was looking at a test result of a battlefield tactical nuclear “particle
beam” weapon. It was, in fact, from the top of a tank over the engine
compartment. I was holding a $60 million dollar ashtray! Only five years out
from President Reagan’s SDI initiative, and I had proof positive.
The short explanation is that when computer geeks get together, they tend to
forget about security clearances when the “cool” factor is too awesome to
keep secret.
The longer explanation goes like this. In physics, speed = mass, or something
very massive moving slow has equal energy to something very small that is moving
very fast. A “particle beam” weapon is not as exotic as it may sound. Take a
36'' long canister that is 6'' in diameter, put a nuclear bomb at one end with a
very thin sheet of copper in front of it, and presto, a particle beam. As the
bomb explodes, it converts the flat sheet of copper into a long conical shaped
thing where the molecular stack up one on top of the other. Now this cone is
moving incredibly fast, nearing the speed of light! The sheet of copper has
become a beam of copper particles three feet long and a fraction of an inch
wide.
Although the copper is very light, only 1 micron thick to start, it is now going
incredibly fast. Remembering that energy is a factor of mass times speed, we see
that this "lightweight" is now super powerful because it is going
super fast. That is the “particle beam” part. The weapon part is just as
fascinating. Launch this “tube” over a battlefield, let it hang from a
parachute, and on the way down it takes aim. No half-hearted aim, this is Star
Wars stuff here! It identifies all of the armor on the battlefield, picks out
the enemies, then shoots the engine. 
The engine, because it is no good to kill a tank crew just to have some others
jump in and start it up. When the weapon fires, a beam hits the tank, the copper
flattens back out to it’s original shape, and embeds into the armor plating as
it pushes it right through the tank!
This was twenty years ago, so I hope that no “secret” police come to see
me about this disclosure.
Just as this experience with the technology of Reagan’s SDI filled me with
confidence and pride today when we used a missile fired from a ship to shoot
down a satellite in space, the words of his speech about the Strategic Defense
Initiative given to the Nation on March 23, 1983, fills me with foreboding
today.
You see, I am a true believer in not just the technology of SDI, but also of the
fundamental truth of the concept of "peace through strength".
President Reagan said, “We can't afford to believe that we will never be
threatened. There have been two world wars in my lifetime. We didn't start
them and, indeed, did everything we could to avoid being drawn into them. But we
were ill-prepared for both. Had we been better prepared, peace might have been
preserved.”
He went on to say, “We maintain the peace through our strength; weakness only
invites aggression.” This is where the foreboding comes. When I hear some of
today’s presidential candidates try to outdo each other in a "tail
between the legs, run out of Iraq", I wonder what will happen to the peace
when we show such weakness. The peace within our office buildings, within our
daycare centers. Some would say that there is no peace because we are
fighting in Iraq, but I say that is why we have peace at home. After years of
showing weak responses to having our embassies and ships attacked by terrorist,
even after the first try at the World Trade Towers, it took the destruction of
those towers, and the death of innocent men, women, and children to get us back
into a position of strength.
We took the fight right to our enemies. For those that say that they were never
there, then why have they been so absent from US interest outside of Iraq and
Afghanistan since we fought back. Today both Democratic candidates espouse a
policy of cut and run. Are they simply ignoring the fact that Islamic Jihadism
is alive and dedicated to physically destroying us, the so-called infidels! Have
they forgotten that Jimmy Carter’s attempt at the Christian ethic of turning
the other cheek is only a signal of weakness in the Muslim context and that the
Islamic religion mandates that a good Muslim should pro-actively take advantage
of his enemy’s weakness? Are they just pandering to liberals, do they
even care?
If we show weakness from the President of the United States of America, what
will the consequences be? These consequences are what instills my heart with
foreboding. I am proud of the sacrifices that our volunteer men and women have
given to keep this nation free, but there are no similar redeeming qualities to
our losses when they are to innocents and children killed by indiscriminate
homicidal bombers right here at home.
My only hope is that the voters will remember some words spoken by President
Ronald Reagan 25 years ago that are just as true and poignant today as ever.
“If we stop in midstream, we will send a signal of decline, of lessened will,
to friends and adversaries alike. Free people must voluntarily through open
debate and democratic means, meet the challenge that totalitarians pose by
compulsion. It's up to us, in our time, to choose and choose wisely between the
hard but necessary task of preserving peace and freedom and the temptation to
ignore our duty and blindly hope for the best while the enemies of freedom grow
stronger day by day.”
“The solution is well within our grasp. But to reach it, there is simply no
alternative but to continue ...”
Twenty years ago America broke the back of the Soviet Empire by pursuing a policy of strength and today the totalitarians are limited to bitterly complaining that we are sharing our defensive anti-missile technology with countries like Poland. In the future, will we have broken the back of Islamic Jihadist through a position of strength, or will we be trapped in a protracted struggle where innocent children are the victims of homicidal bombers in our own homeland, as they are in many Muslim homelands today?
To all those that have served in the military, or have family members that has served, I owe my freedom. To all those that have served as politicians, I owe my appreciation of Democracy. From Robert Oppenheimer to today's geniuses of military might, we owe the countless lives of all those that lived, only because wars were ended more quickly through superior firepower. To leaders like Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan, whom possessed the ability to learn and evolve from life's experiences, and the iron will to hold steadfastly to the knowledge learned even in the face of an impatient and fickle public, the free World owes its very existence.
As we reach the 25th anniversary of the Strategic Defense Initiative, I thank God for the intellect, the foresight, and the wisdom that he has give our leaders over the years. I pray that this divine providence will continue.
God Bless America.
Cris Alarcon
