Does anyone remember the "star wars" program of early 1980s? It was a massive fraud smoke-and-mirrors program to lure the USSR into an area of weapon development where it could not sustain itself economically.
It included plans to build a colossal network of space-borne X-ray lasers powered by nuclear blasts, which would be able to destroy ICBMs before they finished acceleration and deployed warheads and decoys. This would allow the US to break out of the mutually-assured destruction balance.
None of that was true. The US did not (and still do not) have a technology to produce nuke-powered X-ray lasers. The US did not have the launch capacity to deploy the advertised number of space platforms. Not nearly.
Still, this was (or is believed to be) instrumental in the peaceful demise of USSR due to extreme economic difficulties resulting from a symmetric effort.
It might not have been fatally flawed, but it wasn’t completely smoke and mirrors. It was a real an research program employing scientists and engineers that built and tested laser platforms for deployment. It wasn’t viable using contemporary technology, but neither is commercial fusion power, and we have been working on it for several decades. Would you consider ITER smoke and mirrors?
It included plans to build a colossal network of space-borne X-ray lasers powered by nuclear blasts, which would be able to destroy ICBMs before they finished acceleration and deployed warheads and decoys. This would allow the US to break out of the mutually-assured destruction balance.
None of that was true. The US did not (and still do not) have a technology to produce nuke-powered X-ray lasers. The US did not have the launch capacity to deploy the advertised number of space platforms. Not nearly.
Still, this was (or is believed to be) instrumental in the peaceful demise of USSR due to extreme economic difficulties resulting from a symmetric effort.