The time to shoot down a missile is when it is going “ballistic”, meaning when the rocket engines shut off and it starts to come back to earth. They are going too fast after they have started their path downward.
SDI was planning to fire stuff at the missiles on the way up.
Star Wars wasn’t putting nukes in space. The closest thing to the original Star Wars plan is the Iron Dome system.
“Star Wars wasn’t putting nukes in space”
OK—but the idea was to shoot down missiles any way you can—from wherever you can.
If nukes were the best choice then they would have used them.
The notion that “nukes in space” is a new horrible threat is absurd on its face.
The technology is old—it is just a question of whether it was useful or not.
“Star Wars wasn’t putting nukes in space. The closest thing to the original Star Wars plan is the Iron Dome system.”
THAAD, GMD, Patriot PAC3, AEGIS BMD, and AEGIS Ashore have all benefitted from the original Star Wars program developments.