Earth's moon (Photo : Reuters /Mike Blake)
Over 30 years ago, President Ronald Reagan of the United States, proposed to Americans that the country increase military spending and purchase new bombers and missiles. This planned real "Star Wars" program would have included using the resources of the Moon and asteroids as part of the U.S.'s Cold War with the Soviet Union.
The fancy term of the program Reagan was proposing was "Strategic Defense Initiative" (SDI). He appointed James Fletcher, ex-administrator of NASA (1972-1977) to determine if the Moon and asteroids could help to make Reagan's dream a reality.
Fletcher then requested the University of California's California Space Institute (Calspace) to hold a workshop about this possibility. On August 15-17, 1983, Calspace held the workshop in La Jolla, California.
In 1977 Fletcher had spoken to James Arnold, professor at Calspace, about the possibility of NASA focusing on the use of extraterrestrial resources, according to Wired. Arnold later gave a two-page written response to Fletcher, which included his theories.
The La Jolla workshop included 36 famous aerospace scientists and engineers, defense industry think-tanks, and the Department of Defense. Calspace submitted a revised version of the workshop's report on Oct. 31, 1983.
Since 1961 scientists had had a theory that impacts with comets could have deposited ice in the Moon's polar craters. The Jolla workshop's report encouraged the U.S. to explore this theory more.
In addition, the report suggested that NASA should study Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) more aggressively. It argued that NASA had not yet detected the best NEA targets that spacecraft could access.
The U.S. had plans to position weapons in outer space decades before Reagan's speech. In 1947, General Major General Walter Dornberger recommended launching nuclear bombs into orbit, which would then attack Soviet military installations and cities, according to Daily Kos.
