July 7, 2018 • 35 mins
Putting lasers in space to blast Soviet missiles out of the air was a very real part of Ronald Reagan's defense policy. While his "Star Wars" program was derided at home and abroad, historians are beginning to wonder if it didn't help win the Cold War after all.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, it's me Josh and for this week's s
Y s K Selects, I've chosen did Reagan Star Wars
program Win the Cold War, which we originally released back
in August of two thousand and twelve. It's a pretty
good look at the time Ronald Reagan bled the Soviet
Union dry so badly that it actually brought an end
to communism basically all over the world. It's a pretty
(00:24):
good episode and I hope you enjoy it. Let's listen now.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
(00:46):
There's Charles W. Chuckers Bryant sitting across from me. Hi. Yeah,
have you ever seen Hunty Darko? Oh dude, that's one
of my favorites. You know when he takes that mescaline
and like that thing comes out of his chest and
he starts following it. Yeah, he doesn't take mescalin. But yeah,
sometimes I feel when we're sitting across from or another,
(01:06):
we're connected by one of us, like a warm hole
of fellowship. Yeah, like from the Abyss that's what it
sort of looked like. Yeah, it did look a lot
like that. I love that movie. Yeah, when um, when
Ed Harris takes all that mescaline that movie and sees
the sees that thing come up out of the water,
it was just like that. No mescaline, no movies. How's
(01:30):
it coming in which people take mescalin? Ah, there's plenty
of those. Sure, this is what people have been complaining
about lately. Who's been complaining? Tell me their names, the
various people people have been complained. Oh, you bring something up.
I feel like we should address something. We haven't done
this in a really long time. It appears to me
(01:52):
that we have a lot of newcomers. Yeah, welcome, Yes, welcome, um,
And I think anyone who's been following the whole time
it kind of gets the stuff you should know jam right. Yeah,
But it seems like there's a lot of people who
don't quite understand what we're doing and think that we
purport to be infallible experts on everything and that we
(02:12):
don't just get things wrong from time to time. We're
just a couple of guys who are pretty decent at researching.
That doesn't mean like we invented the topic that we're
talking about, or that we didn't just walk right past.
Um a fact or something that we missed in our research.
It comes up. It happens from time time, So I
guess if you're just joining us, that's probably something good
(02:35):
to keep in mind. We don't claim to be experts,
so don't hold us to that standard because we're not
trying to reach that standard. We're just trying to impart
some really great information as factually as possible. Um and uh,
we love science and wonder great. Are you good? Ah? Yeah? Alright,
how are you doing? I'm awesome. Do you have anything
(02:57):
to get off of your chest? No, just welcome the
pamina cheese. Many sandwiches are in the corner. Help yourself,
so chuck. Yes. Do you remember a while back we talked, well,
we've talked about this stuff a lot, Mutual assured destruction.
We did a podcast on that, specifically, didn't we we did? Um?
We did one on who who won the Cold War?
(03:20):
Did one on how to steal a nuclear bomb? Yeah,
like we've done. It's just a fascinating period of world history,
the Cold War, agreed, incredibly tense, incredibly scary, and this
is our history. It is in part because you're half Russian. No,
but Um, I was alive and well and young war kids,
(03:43):
weren't we. Yeah, yeah, we've talked about this before, Ruskies,
little risk. Um. So uh, the central I guess, the
fulcrum of the Cold War, the fact that the reason
we're all still here is that was the doctrine of
mutual is sure destruction, Yes, which is basically like, we
had enough nukes to wipe out the entire world. The
(04:04):
Soviet Union had enough nukes to wipe out the entire world.
So we were just there in a tense, fragile they taunt,
how about a nice game of chess? Exactly, That's why
we're still here. So um, this was I guess this
accepted reality for every president and every premiere um from well,
(04:25):
I guess who for us from ke On, this mutual
assured destruction doctrine was just kind of a part of
daily life. Um. But when Ronald Reagan came into office,
he came up with a different plan. He did in need,
so instead of a tense standoff, he found that untoward.
(04:46):
I guess I think he found it. From my understanding
of Reagan, he would have found it untoward because it
didn't give America a clear advantage. Well, the article says
he found it morally and politically distasteful. I agree with
in that Reagan didn't like mutual or shore destruction for
one reason or another. So we came up with something
a game changer, you would call it today. If you
(05:09):
read books that of an airplane is also reading at
the same time, that's right, what is it, Josh? He
came up with the Strategic Defense Initiative, which the press
like to call start the star Wars program. And I
remember this very very well because it was largely derided
(05:29):
in the press for a bunch of reasons. Uh, we're
going to talk about Yeah, I remember very well too.
It was all over Mad magazine. Um, it was all
over time. There were awesome illustrations of like satellites with
laser shooting out of them that like you could see
in the mainstream media a lot. Sure, Um, But yeah,
I also remember it kind of just basically being generally
(05:53):
disliked by the public. Yeah, as well. Pretty much it was.
It was to be laughed at in many circles, although
it was a very serious thing. It was, and it
was laughed at for a lot of reasons. But that
we're gonna go over. So Reagan On March twe he
held an address to the nation, little televised speech, and
(06:17):
in it he challenged the um scientific community UM, who
he said had created nuclear weapons, to make those very
same weapons quote UM, impotent and obsolete. And that kind
of became the rallying cry, like, let's make nukes impotent
and obsolete. And the way you do that is to
(06:38):
make it so that we have a missile defense system
that can shoot down every single nuclear warhead that Russia
has in its arsenal, all at once, if need be. Yeah,
after launch. Um, that is so like if they launched
their missiles, we can shoot them down in space and UM.
In Reagan's view, which you know, I can see his
(07:00):
point at the time, UM, there would not be any
more need for He thought, it would like neuter the
Cold War in its tracks. Soviet Union thought that's not
too cool. They thought, yet, and yet, and yet, because
well a lot of a lot of people felt like
it was going to escalate the arms race, the Soviets thought,
(07:21):
this just means you have a clear advantage over us.
This doesn't neuter like it neuters us, It doesn't neuter you. Right,
And Reagan said as many times as the Soviets could
stand to hear it that, Um, this was strictly a
missile defense system, a net or a shield if you will, Um,
that that would only be used in the event that
(07:42):
a Soviet nuclear launch was detected. Right, But the Soviets
were saying, or you could just shoot all of our
missiles down and then launch a strike, a first strike
where we would have no way to retaliate. So, yeah,
this is totally unacceptable. And yeah, the Russian rallied against it,
but not just them the here at home, there are
(08:04):
a lot of people who didn't really care for it,
including the public who thought it was a pipe dream,
or who thought it would escalate a new arms racist Soviets,
or who just thought it was going to be a
huge like money pit. Yeah, and it was a lot
of those things. Um. And when we say, Soviets, let's
go ahead and call out the premiere that I didn't
(08:26):
remember Yuri and drop off. I didn't remember him. I
don't remember him either, and I looked him up. He
was only I mean that it seems like there was
a lot of premiers there for a while that like
died thereafter. I think he was in like like less
than a year and a half. H he was like
the KGB had something to do with it in vodka
(08:47):
o um. So he was the premier at the time.
He wasn't a fan. They launched a big propaganda campaign,
it says sevent Their propaganda went toward UH poopoo ing
the Star Wars defense program, even though they didn't think
it was gonna work. Our Congress apparently right Apparently the
(09:08):
Soviets were like, this is not a feasible program. Well,
and they said it violates a couple of important treatise
UM the a b M, the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty
of seventy two, which the Soviet Union in in UH
the United States were both a part of, said that
at the time that was two ground based missile defense
systems you were allowed. Later on it was one, and
(09:28):
I guess this would have been more than two. Not
only that ground based is a an operative term in
this case, because this was going to be this the
strategic defense initiative was going to be space based, and
that violates another treaty. N seven Outer Space treaty says
that you cannot use weapons of mass destruction in space,
(09:48):
and that's pretty much what was going on or that
was what was planned, right? So UM, all right, so
that's that's why they don't like it, right why And
Congress didn't like it. Congress didn't like either. Most people
in Congress they they apparently the UM, the Missile Defense
Agency attributes UM coining the term star wars to describe
(10:11):
the strategic convinced the nation initiative to mock it, really
UM to Ted Kennedy and an interview in the Washington Post,
like almost right after Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative,
and Reagan spent the rest of the time he was
in office trying to simultaneously get this push through and
to get everyone to stop calling it star wars, because
(10:33):
luck had had it caught the American public's imagination like, oh, yeah,
star wars, let's just go ahead and blow up Russia
with star wars, he would have been like, yeah, let's
call it star wars. It's awesome. But it was like
Reagan star wars, that crazy old kok he's got all time,
and he wants to put weapons in space and just
shoot lasers around and all that. So he spent a
(10:55):
lot of time lobbying against people calling it star wars.
But it didn't work. Uh No, he tried to go
by the name Strategic Defense in Initiative. And you know
how the press is. I think he is to get
ahold of something. It's all over. He was probably even
willing to to um allow it to be called the
sd I. I'll bet he was even like sd I.
(11:36):
So Europe wasn't all in favor the Allies. They had
some concerns about the balance of power and how this
would affect it. Obviously, and like you said, Congress, Um,
not everyone was against it, but they had some major issues,
largely a the cost and be is it even possible?
Like are we just pipe dreaming here on these lasers?
(12:00):
And they were kind of right well at the time,
they were so in in Reagan's defense, he said from
the outset like this can take years, decades. This is
not going to be an overnight thing. And he also said,
we're going to test a lot of different stuff. Right
that he was like he was well aware of the
technology didn't exist, or if it did exist, it was
(12:20):
like a glimmer in some national laboratory scientists eyes and
it was just in the nascent stages. So um, from
the outside he commissioned some reports, and the one that
kind of got picked up was the Fletcher Report. And
the Fletcher Report basically said, here are eight things you
need to build the Strategic Defense Initiative, everything from sensors
that can detect when uh intercontinental ballistic missile launch is
(12:46):
launched because they don't phone you up and say we've
launched exactly right, and you need to make sure that
they're accurate. And it's not going to be like a
wargames thing where it's like whatever. Um, you also need
to come up with some incredible guided miss systems. Um.
Just this, Like I think there were like eight different
different aspects that basically either needed to be created or
(13:08):
needed to be refined to the point where they might
as well be created from scratch. And Reagan said do this. Yeah,
he said, press on. And I think a lot of
people at the time in Congress at least we're saying,
good idea, let's use this as a bargaining tool in
the arms race, like we don't really have to do
it right there, like everyone thinks you're serious exactly, And
he said this could work as a bargaining chip and
(13:29):
he was like, no, I really want the Star wars. Uh,
I'm sorry, sd Ift. So apparently um Gorbach got Reagan
to meet him for UM Arms Limitations talks in Iceland
in October, and Reagan went and they had this great
talk and like basically Gorbach was like, let's end mutual
(13:52):
sure destruction. Let's basically get rid of our arsenals. And
the Soviets were just throwing like bone after bone out
the table, and Reagan just can't believe his luck. And
then all of a sudden, gorbacho at the end is like, okay,
so we'll go ahead and sign off on this, but
all of this is contingent that you give up Star Wars, right,
And Reagan stood up in the left. Really he left, yeah,
(14:14):
which is kind of like that's a little crazy maybe,
but that's the level of commitment. He apparently had two
Star Wars. Well yeah, not too long after, the Soviet says, well,
you know what, we got to do something. We can't
build a Star Wars. And it's actually a pretty good
idea they said we can, well, at least they thought
they could. UM undertake what they called the Polus Skiff,
(14:36):
which was will invent a network of weapons to destroy
your Star Wars machine UM, which was Hey, that's pretty
good thinking. But they didn't have the funding, and uh,
it was not very successful either. No, they didn't. And
that leads us to um a point if I may
skip around a little chuckture, but um, history is kind
(15:00):
have vindicated Reagan in one way, Like his Star Wars
program didn't go anywhere, but it wasn't given very much time.
And the reason why is because the fall of the
Soviet Union happened within less than a decade after he
announced the star Wars initiative. The program, Uh, the Soviet
Union fell collapsed entirely. Uh. And some people attribute that
(15:24):
to the defense spending that he immediately caused them to
to start expending because of the Star Wars program. True,
so he did kind of ratchet up this arms race,
but the Soviets couldn't keep up. This came on the
heels of US bleeding them dry in Afghanistan secretly funding
the muja Hadeen which became the Taliban by the way,
(15:46):
but we I don't know how much Reagan knew, but
the the Soviets were hurting financially, and then all of
a sudden he introduced Star Wars and they couldn't keep up. Yea,
and the follow Soviet union. With that came obviously the
at least huge threat of all out nuclear war because
they were the major players. Um you didn't have to
(16:08):
worry about the smaller countries, you know, as far as
M A. D goes, right, but you had to worry
about rogue states and all that, right, making sure that
the Russians could hang onto their arsenal, which they didn't
do very well necessarily. But yes, the mutual sure destruction
just went the way the dinosaur. When the Soviets fell. Um,
H W. Bush comes along, people get annoyed by the way,
and when we don't say President so and so, who
(16:30):
does here? Are you see as this on Facebook? Now,
I've seen people right in before, and I've heard other
people say you should always address them as President so
and so. But I hear all the time people say Obama, Clinton, Reagan.
So no no disrespect intended, folks. H W. Bush comes along,
Soviet union has fallen, So he's like, you know what,
(16:51):
we need to really cut back on this scope of
this sd I. He probably would have just scrapped it
all together. But he was pretty loyal to Reagan, of course,
and um so he refocuses a program, cuts it back.
Clinton comes along President Clinton and refines it even more
and cuts it back even more. And by the time
(17:13):
that happened, it wasn't anything like Reagan's initial Star Wars program. No,
not at all. No, but it would become handy, which
we'll get too. So let's talk about what Star Wars was.
We've kind of given like a little bit of a
broad overview. But um, until I started researching this, I
hadn't really thought about it. But intercontinental ballistic missiles once
(17:33):
capable of saying, traveling from Moscow to New York, I
have to leave Earth's atmosphere and enter orbit. And so
the idea was we would have something up there that
could shoot it down when it entered orbit, That's right,
Which meant that we had to place. We had to
(17:53):
weaponize space. Yeah, and I wonder if they ever gave
any thought to what nuclear bomb is going off in
space would mean. I mean, surely there's repercussions there. I
know it's space, But you can't just go willie nilly
setting off nuclear bombs in space? Right did in Nevada? Well,
that's that's true, but Kin Toll, Yeah, and look what
(18:15):
happened there? What happened there? Well, I'm just saying it.
It's it's got to cause some kind of harm to
space even though it's space, right, or does it just
suck into it? Like, I have no idea. This is
something I could not find. I mean a research that
couldn't find anything. Yeah. No, I understand what you're saying.
In space is a vacuum, so it should have some
(18:35):
effect or no effect whatsoever, but it's got to and
got to do something. There's someone out there really smart
that hopefully is going to email me. I guess though.
The the idea behind this was fairly utilitarian, where it
was like, okay, this possible consequence in space or saving
millions of lives here on Earth, and they just said whatever,
(18:55):
that's fine, of course. Um, But so you have something
up in space that's capable of shooting down an intercontinental
ballistic missile, like an X ray laser. That's this is
like where we kind of come to some of them,
Like there were a lot of proposals that were kind
of out there, but they went ahead and spent a
(19:16):
lot of money testing these things like the X ray laser,
And that was a physicist Edward Teller. Um it was
created the hydrogen bomb. Yeah, I saw that. It was
his proposal, so they obviously listened to him, and um,
it was gonna use power generated by a nuclear blast.
And it never performed well, and it really became the
(19:38):
focus point for the press and for David Letterman and
for Johnny Carson to make fun of because it was
an X ray laser and this is coming off the
heels of the Star Wars movies themselves with their X
ray blasters. Actually they were star blowing up yeah, or
the dust star blowing up that planet Aldern. I think
(19:59):
they focused the laser and boom, Um, you just saved
me from a lot of ire because I was gonna say, tattooing,
I might have got it wrong. I think it was
all the wrong. Man. I hope you got it. If
there's one thing that I ever hope you got right,
it was that one. So so many Star Trek fans
would be writing in so that there's the X ray
(20:20):
laser and it doesn't go over very well, which was
very much the focus of the media, and they were
being chided for the fact that they you know, sounded
really far out right, but they they tested it it
just wouldn't work. The idea behind it was that they
were going to have a small controlled nuclear explosion that
would power this laser right to create a massive amount
(20:41):
of X rays, a concentrated amount of X rays UM
that would be focused on a missile and the go kaboom.
It was called Project X Caliber, so it had a
cool name to but apparently Teller or the people behind
it were accused of falsifying the initial UH test the result. Yeah,
(21:02):
so it kind of went down and scandal and mockery
and everything. So in the little boxes said worked or
didn't work, they just checked worked and like we shuffled
away with cartoons to it like coming off. And therefore,
(21:44):
so some of the other ideas that they tried UM
and spent billions of dollars trying um kinetic warheads, apparently
they would collide in the orbit. It's like shooting a
shooting a missile at another missile UM And that one
actually was like the big dog on the block for
a while at first in the early stages of Star Wars,
because they figured out that you could have this thing
(22:07):
like basically a satellite based garage with like ten missiles
in it, and you just have it floating up there
and then shoot at a missile. You know. When one
came up and it was a good idea, they're like,
we can actually do that, Like, I think we can
do this. The problem is that somebody pointed out that
all the Russians had to do is shoot a missile
at your garage, and for their one missile, they took
(22:29):
out ten. So people said, okay, let's get back to it,
and they started exploring other one. It's like bringing a
knife to a gunfight. It's like bringing a missile to
a multi missile fight. No that I don't think that
analogy works at all. I know. I think it's like
a sitting duck. Okay. Uh. The other thing they wanted
(22:49):
to try, Josh, was US rail guns mounted on satellites.
Did you see the popular mechanics drawing of it. I did,
and it's pretty wicked. Yeah. I gotta admit. It looks
like an I beam coming out of this out of like,
but it's shooting like a three ounce slug at two
hundred miles a second. It's pretty wicked. Yeah. Um, that
one didn't go very far because of the um energy requirements. Yeah,
(23:10):
it was just way too expensive in an energy sense. Uh.
And then the m I R A C L miracle laser. Um.
It was another laser, but it was ground based using mirrors. Right.
It was a chemical laser. It wasn't like an uh,
nuclear X ray laser. It's like they just started to
(23:30):
try to throw cool sci fi terms of the time together,
like let's make laser, but let's make it a nuclear
X ray laser, and we'll shoot missiles out of this
guy with tron laser Tron, let's ad that. Um. So
then this article doesn't really go into it. But after
after some of these were kind of asked and answered. Um.
(23:54):
Up until and even beyond the fall of the Soviet Union,
the Shining Star and all this became the these things
called bright pebbles. Does that ring a bell? It did
for me when I ran across it, I was like, Ahi,
those two words sound very familiar. So bright Pebbles was
the little garage with ten missiles. These were very small ones,
like say, um, twenty to fifty pound mini garages that
(24:19):
would shoot slugs or would ram themselves. But I think
they would shoot slugs. And rather than having one garage
with ten missiles, you would have thousands of these little
things all over the country, all over the all over space.
They're in space. Yeah, so they were hoping for a
constellation of up to like four thousand of these things
just floating around in space. The cool thing about him
was if you took one out, there were still three
(24:42):
thousand nine left right. They were autonomous, so they could
attack on their own if they if they wanted to.
They could also coordinate and communicate with one another to
launch coordinated attacks against missiles. It would be very tough
to overwhelm these things, um and they would have been
designed to protect US space based assets like satellites, and
(25:07):
if the Soviets ever launched anything like it, these things
were trained to just go right after them and blow
them out of the sky too. So basically they were
like little sentinels in space and they were going to
be cost effected to It was gonna cost about eleven
billion in UM in nineteen eighty four dollars I think,
which is about twenty billion a day. It was considering
(25:28):
that they were looking at like twenty billion, which is
about forty three billion in UH today's dollars, just to
get some of the other ones off the ground. So
to get a thousand off the ground that you could
mass produce just eleven billion dollars at the time was
quite a bargain and had the fall of the Soviet
Union not coming gone, we probably would have bright pebbles
(25:48):
up in space right now. And as a matter of fact,
they were proven. They were tested. Um the Clementine probe
which mapped the Moon in that was a bright pebble
that they basically redesigned instead of uh well as a weapon.
They used it to map the Moon and it did
so successfully, so they would have worked. And lastly, yes,
(26:11):
a computer model of bright pebbles found that had they
been in operation during the first GO four um, they
would have shot down Saddam scuds scud missiles with accuracy.
Pretty crazy, but well cheap. I was gonna say expensive, No,
they're cheap. They just didn't have time to come along. Well,
(26:32):
the problem with the rest of the plans is I
saw one quote that said that at the time they
were just sort of taking these ideas almost from science fiction,
and they felt like they were or some scientists felt
like they were a decade away from even like they're saying,
we can't even start this for ten years. We need
to research for ten years to see if any of
(26:54):
this is even feasible. But I think instead of sort
of like trying these things out, Reagan was encourageding that though.
I mean, I'm sure he was like, hurry up. But
at the same time, and I think he got the
impression he was saying, like sky's limit, guys like us,
your imagination, do whatever you can come up with. Definitely,
the sky's the limit beyonda So did any of these
ever work at all? So apparently a couple did. Like
(27:16):
they shot down three, they shot down a stationary object
on Earth, they shot down, um, a mock warhead in
the Earth's atmosphere, and they shot down another mock warhead
in space. And one of those things was going twenty
one an. So so some of these technologies, because they
(27:37):
had a bunch of different groups testing all these different things,
and some of them were successful for the most part now,
but it eventually led to a different sort of defense
system that we still had today, right or is it
that what some people say, yeah, like the ballistic missile
defense system, um is it's the out growth of star Wars.
(27:59):
Like the idea that we have a missile defense system
comes from Star Wars. So even though we're not using
X ray lasers, a lot of people say it had
some benefit in the end after all. Yeah, because we're
using sensors, those same sensors like a lot of the
research that was not like X ray lasers, but that
still had practical applications. We're still doing the day and
(28:21):
apparently in Pearl Harbor last month, a missile shot down
another missile over the Pacific successfully as a test. Yeah.
I was like, somebody's attacking Pearl Harbor again. You don't
really want They figured the American public doesn't wunt here.
But yeah, the Chinese shot a missile at us and
we shot it down. So everything's cool. Was close. So
(28:41):
I guess that's about it. Huh yeah, Um, that's all
I got. Okay, So if you want to learn more
about Star Wars, I think it bring up a bunch
of crazy stuff. If you type star Wars in the
search bar, how stuff works, Like the one Man Star Wars. Uh,
Star Wars one Man show. Yeah, that's pretty good. Uh,
(29:04):
Landau Dr Pepper calories Ian remember that one? I do. Yeah,
there's a lot of stuff. Just type star Wars in
the search part how stuff works. Dot com and I
said that, which means it's time for a listener mail.
Josh and Louid listener mail. We're gonna do a little
Facebook question to stuff that we like to do from
(29:25):
time to time. And this is happening live, which is
pretty exciting. That is scary because I didn't have a
listener mail ready and this was a good thing to do.
So let's just look through some of these and you
let me know what you want to read. Uh. Our
friend Kubi don Kuby says, uh, is there a particular
(29:47):
side of the recording booth that you each always sit on?
The answer to that is yes. Um, I guess if
you were facing from here, Josh, it's on the right.
I sit on the left, But you really come in
from the other side, So Josh sits on the far
side and I sit on the near side. It's the
best way to say it. That's very well put. Yeah,
(30:08):
and I think all the podcasters probably no one ever
sits in a different seat. That'd be really weird. Yeah,
I'm sure everybody sits in there same seat. Like if
I said over there, they'd be disconcerting. It'd be you'd
have to be a like bona fide nihilist to do that,
that would just be odd. Um. I've got one from
Jerome Hanson. I would say Jerome right. Uh, who is
(30:32):
your favorite Marvel superhero? Uh? I guess I would say Punisher,
And I know he's not a superhero. He's just a
straight up hero because he doesn't have any superpowers. But
he's definitely the comic I was into the most as
a youngster. I'm gonna go spider Man really yeah, yeah,
(30:53):
I identified with Peter Parker, not spider Man. Um favorite
band of all time. I feel like we they through
that many times. Okay, I'm going with Pavement Still, Pixie's
still okay. Um. I would like to know your opinion
of and Margaret. That's from Brian Throckmorton. I think and
Margaret in her day was one of the most smoking
(31:16):
hot women on the planet. So my only familiarity with
and Margaret was from The flat Stones when they had
that character and Mark Rock and she always seemed like
she was on lithium. So I don't have a great
opinion of and Margaret. Gotcha, Oh this is good. William Bear,
if you were speed Limit, what would you be and why?
(31:37):
You know what I would be, Well, I would be
one of those special speed limits in state parks. It's
like five miles an hour. Do you know that there's
the parking garage here is four and a half? Is
it really? Yeah? Yeah, that's what I would be. Then
four and a half miles an hour. It's like they're
showing off because just take your foot off and let
the idol take you. Man, that's where. That's where I'm at.
What would you be? This is arguably the strangest question
(32:00):
and I've ever been asked. I would say, Okay, that's good. Okay,
it's fast, but it's not super dangerous. I'm not even
to read into it. I just that's what comes to mind. Okay, gotcha,
you got one. Uh, let's see. Lisa to Shaa asks us,
(32:21):
what's our least favorite food? Lisa's a big regular too.
If I read that, I recognize the name here you there?
What are you going with? Least favorite food would have
to be Oh, I was just talking to hear me
about this the other day. It's like one thing I
really don't like and I can't remember it because I
(32:42):
generally like everything. What's yours? Let me think about it.
Probably mushrooms on anything. I'm just not a fan. Yeah,
I know they say they don't have taste, but then
I'm always like cold. Then why are you putting it
in something they can virtually ruin? Um? The pizza? Yeah? Yeah,
Oh I've got it. Cream cheese cream cheese with stuffed
in it. Like she's spread a cream cheese ball, cream
(33:05):
cheese on just about anything. Like if you have a
plain bagel hot with cream cheese, that's fine, that's just
a regular and your man. Once you put like a
garden style cream cheese with something else, yeah, I don't
like that stuff either, Okay, Matt sailor boxers or briefs.
We've been asked that before. I'm a boxer guy. Katie
(33:27):
Hart favorite punch line to a joke. Uh, those aren't pillows.
I don't. I can't say anyone's I know. Uh, you
got any more on here? Why don't we do like
two more? Let's see Charlotte Jean asks, how do we
take our coffee? I take mine black at two? So
(33:48):
there you go, that's kind of boring. I got a
lot of hair on the old chest from it, and
you know, Jason Domini from our friends at Uh, back
Doorphin Bronson, the amazing coffee makers. Yeah, and roasters, which
you should not coffee makers roasters, you should support them
by the way. Um. He says. He gave me a
personal tour of the thing and a coffee one on
(34:08):
one and he says, if you drink good coffee and
it's roasted properly, you don't want sugar. Oh yeah, I
definitely don't want milk, but you definitely don't want sugar.
Because he's like, it's really sweet. He's like, coffee beans
are exceptionally sweet and when you roast it right, um,
and he called it char bucks, which I thought was
kind of funny. He said their stuff is just like
(34:30):
bitter because they char it too much because they get
beans from all over the place and when they do that,
they want to make them all taste the same, and
the way to do that is to over roast. This
is our friend Rob Pointer who's telling us that, like
there's he goes to a coffee place in l A
where like they don't even have creamer sugar. I really like,
(34:52):
they don't even offer it if you want it, like
they tell you to leave. Awesome. When he made his
coffee Daday it was great. Yeah. Um, all right, so
I think that that's good enough for now. We'll hit
this up on the next one, are we will? Yeah, okay,
we'll be back people in the meantime. You can contact
us at s Y s K Podcast on Twitter. You
can hit us up on Facebook dot com whether we
(35:14):
have a question out or otherwise at Facebook dot com
slash stuff you should know, and you can send us
an email to
Hey, everybody, it's me Josh and for this week's s
Y s K Selects, I've chosen did Reagan Star Wars
program Win the Cold War, which we originally released back
in August of two thousand and twelve. It's a pretty
good look at the time Ronald Reagan bled the Soviet
Union dry so badly that it actually brought an end
to communism basically all over the world. It's a pretty
(00:24):
good episode and I hope you enjoy it. Let's listen now.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
(00:46):
There's Charles W. Chuckers Bryant sitting across from me. Hi. Yeah,
have you ever seen Hunty Darko? Oh dude, that's one
of my favorites. You know when he takes that mescaline
and like that thing comes out of his chest and
he starts following it. Yeah, he doesn't take mescalin. But yeah,
sometimes I feel when we're sitting across from or another,
(01:06):
we're connected by one of us, like a warm hole
of fellowship. Yeah, like from the Abyss that's what it
sort of looked like. Yeah, it did look a lot
like that. I love that movie. Yeah, when um, when
Ed Harris takes all that mescaline that movie and sees
the sees that thing come up out of the water,
it was just like that. No mescaline, no movies. How's
(01:30):
it coming in which people take mescalin? Ah, there's plenty
of those. Sure, this is what people have been complaining
about lately. Who's been complaining? Tell me their names, the
various people people have been complained. Oh, you bring something up.
I feel like we should address something. We haven't done
this in a really long time. It appears to me
(01:52):
that we have a lot of newcomers. Yeah, welcome, Yes, welcome, um,
And I think anyone who's been following the whole time
it kind of gets the stuff you should know jam right. Yeah,
But it seems like there's a lot of people who
don't quite understand what we're doing and think that we
purport to be infallible experts on everything and that we
(02:12):
don't just get things wrong from time to time. We're
just a couple of guys who are pretty decent at researching.
That doesn't mean like we invented the topic that we're
talking about, or that we didn't just walk right past.
Um a fact or something that we missed in our research.
It comes up. It happens from time time, So I
guess if you're just joining us, that's probably something good
(02:35):
to keep in mind. We don't claim to be experts,
so don't hold us to that standard because we're not
trying to reach that standard. We're just trying to impart
some really great information as factually as possible. Um and uh,
we love science and wonder great. Are you good? Ah? Yeah? Alright,
how are you doing? I'm awesome. Do you have anything
(02:57):
to get off of your chest? No, just welcome the
pamina cheese. Many sandwiches are in the corner. Help yourself,
so chuck. Yes. Do you remember a while back we talked, well,
we've talked about this stuff a lot, Mutual assured destruction.
We did a podcast on that, specifically, didn't we we did? Um?
We did one on who who won the Cold War?
(03:20):
Did one on how to steal a nuclear bomb? Yeah,
like we've done. It's just a fascinating period of world history,
the Cold War, agreed, incredibly tense, incredibly scary, and this
is our history. It is in part because you're half Russian. No,
but Um, I was alive and well and young war kids,
(03:43):
weren't we. Yeah, yeah, we've talked about this before, Ruskies,
little risk. Um. So uh, the central I guess, the
fulcrum of the Cold War, the fact that the reason
we're all still here is that was the doctrine of
mutual is sure destruction, Yes, which is basically like, we
had enough nukes to wipe out the entire world. The
(04:04):
Soviet Union had enough nukes to wipe out the entire world.
So we were just there in a tense, fragile they taunt,
how about a nice game of chess? Exactly, That's why
we're still here. So um, this was I guess this
accepted reality for every president and every premiere um from well,
(04:25):
I guess who for us from ke On, this mutual
assured destruction doctrine was just kind of a part of
daily life. Um. But when Ronald Reagan came into office,
he came up with a different plan. He did in need,
so instead of a tense standoff, he found that untoward.
(04:46):
I guess I think he found it. From my understanding
of Reagan, he would have found it untoward because it
didn't give America a clear advantage. Well, the article says
he found it morally and politically distasteful. I agree with
in that Reagan didn't like mutual or shore destruction for
one reason or another. So we came up with something
a game changer, you would call it today. If you
(05:09):
read books that of an airplane is also reading at
the same time, that's right, what is it, Josh? He
came up with the Strategic Defense Initiative, which the press
like to call start the star Wars program. And I
remember this very very well because it was largely derided
(05:29):
in the press for a bunch of reasons. Uh, we're
going to talk about Yeah, I remember very well too.
It was all over Mad magazine. Um, it was all
over time. There were awesome illustrations of like satellites with
laser shooting out of them that like you could see
in the mainstream media a lot. Sure, Um, But yeah,
I also remember it kind of just basically being generally
(05:53):
disliked by the public. Yeah, as well. Pretty much it was.
It was to be laughed at in many circles, although
it was a very serious thing. It was, and it
was laughed at for a lot of reasons. But that
we're gonna go over. So Reagan On March twe he
held an address to the nation, little televised speech, and
(06:17):
in it he challenged the um scientific community UM, who
he said had created nuclear weapons, to make those very
same weapons quote UM, impotent and obsolete. And that kind
of became the rallying cry, like, let's make nukes impotent
and obsolete. And the way you do that is to
(06:38):
make it so that we have a missile defense system
that can shoot down every single nuclear warhead that Russia
has in its arsenal, all at once, if need be. Yeah,
after launch. Um, that is so like if they launched
their missiles, we can shoot them down in space and UM.
In Reagan's view, which you know, I can see his
(07:00):
point at the time, UM, there would not be any
more need for He thought, it would like neuter the
Cold War in its tracks. Soviet Union thought that's not
too cool. They thought, yet, and yet, and yet, because
well a lot of a lot of people felt like
it was going to escalate the arms race, the Soviets thought,
(07:21):
this just means you have a clear advantage over us.
This doesn't neuter like it neuters us, It doesn't neuter you. Right,
And Reagan said as many times as the Soviets could
stand to hear it that, Um, this was strictly a
missile defense system, a net or a shield if you will, Um,
that that would only be used in the event that
(07:42):
a Soviet nuclear launch was detected. Right, But the Soviets
were saying, or you could just shoot all of our
missiles down and then launch a strike, a first strike
where we would have no way to retaliate. So, yeah,
this is totally unacceptable. And yeah, the Russian rallied against it,
but not just them the here at home, there are
(08:04):
a lot of people who didn't really care for it,
including the public who thought it was a pipe dream,
or who thought it would escalate a new arms racist Soviets,
or who just thought it was going to be a
huge like money pit. Yeah, and it was a lot
of those things. Um. And when we say, Soviets, let's
go ahead and call out the premiere that I didn't
(08:26):
remember Yuri and drop off. I didn't remember him. I
don't remember him either, and I looked him up. He
was only I mean that it seems like there was
a lot of premiers there for a while that like
died thereafter. I think he was in like like less
than a year and a half. H he was like
the KGB had something to do with it in vodka
(08:47):
o um. So he was the premier at the time.
He wasn't a fan. They launched a big propaganda campaign,
it says sevent Their propaganda went toward UH poopoo ing
the Star Wars defense program, even though they didn't think
it was gonna work. Our Congress apparently right Apparently the
(09:08):
Soviets were like, this is not a feasible program. Well,
and they said it violates a couple of important treatise
UM the a b M, the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty
of seventy two, which the Soviet Union in in UH
the United States were both a part of, said that
at the time that was two ground based missile defense
systems you were allowed. Later on it was one, and
(09:28):
I guess this would have been more than two. Not
only that ground based is a an operative term in
this case, because this was going to be this the
strategic defense initiative was going to be space based, and
that violates another treaty. N seven Outer Space treaty says
that you cannot use weapons of mass destruction in space,
(09:48):
and that's pretty much what was going on or that
was what was planned, right? So UM, all right, so
that's that's why they don't like it, right why And
Congress didn't like it. Congress didn't like either. Most people
in Congress they they apparently the UM, the Missile Defense
Agency attributes UM coining the term star wars to describe
(10:11):
the strategic convinced the nation initiative to mock it, really
UM to Ted Kennedy and an interview in the Washington Post,
like almost right after Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative,
and Reagan spent the rest of the time he was
in office trying to simultaneously get this push through and
to get everyone to stop calling it star wars, because
(10:33):
luck had had it caught the American public's imagination like, oh, yeah,
star wars, let's just go ahead and blow up Russia
with star wars, he would have been like, yeah, let's
call it star wars. It's awesome. But it was like
Reagan star wars, that crazy old kok he's got all time,
and he wants to put weapons in space and just
shoot lasers around and all that. So he spent a
(10:55):
lot of time lobbying against people calling it star wars.
But it didn't work. Uh No, he tried to go
by the name Strategic Defense in Initiative. And you know
how the press is. I think he is to get
ahold of something. It's all over. He was probably even
willing to to um allow it to be called the
sd I. I'll bet he was even like sd I.
(11:36):
So Europe wasn't all in favor the Allies. They had
some concerns about the balance of power and how this
would affect it. Obviously, and like you said, Congress, Um,
not everyone was against it, but they had some major issues,
largely a the cost and be is it even possible?
Like are we just pipe dreaming here on these lasers?
(12:00):
And they were kind of right well at the time,
they were so in in Reagan's defense, he said from
the outset like this can take years, decades. This is
not going to be an overnight thing. And he also said,
we're going to test a lot of different stuff. Right
that he was like he was well aware of the
technology didn't exist, or if it did exist, it was
(12:20):
like a glimmer in some national laboratory scientists eyes and
it was just in the nascent stages. So um, from
the outside he commissioned some reports, and the one that
kind of got picked up was the Fletcher Report. And
the Fletcher Report basically said, here are eight things you
need to build the Strategic Defense Initiative, everything from sensors
that can detect when uh intercontinental ballistic missile launch is
(12:46):
launched because they don't phone you up and say we've
launched exactly right, and you need to make sure that
they're accurate. And it's not going to be like a
wargames thing where it's like whatever. Um, you also need
to come up with some incredible guided miss systems. Um.
Just this, Like I think there were like eight different
different aspects that basically either needed to be created or
(13:08):
needed to be refined to the point where they might
as well be created from scratch. And Reagan said do this. Yeah,
he said, press on. And I think a lot of
people at the time in Congress at least we're saying,
good idea, let's use this as a bargaining tool in
the arms race, like we don't really have to do
it right there, like everyone thinks you're serious exactly, And
he said this could work as a bargaining chip and
(13:29):
he was like, no, I really want the Star wars. Uh,
I'm sorry, sd Ift. So apparently um Gorbach got Reagan
to meet him for UM Arms Limitations talks in Iceland
in October, and Reagan went and they had this great
talk and like basically Gorbach was like, let's end mutual
(13:52):
sure destruction. Let's basically get rid of our arsenals. And
the Soviets were just throwing like bone after bone out
the table, and Reagan just can't believe his luck. And
then all of a sudden, gorbacho at the end is like, okay,
so we'll go ahead and sign off on this, but
all of this is contingent that you give up Star Wars, right,
And Reagan stood up in the left. Really he left, yeah,
(14:14):
which is kind of like that's a little crazy maybe,
but that's the level of commitment. He apparently had two
Star Wars. Well yeah, not too long after, the Soviet says, well,
you know what, we got to do something. We can't
build a Star Wars. And it's actually a pretty good
idea they said we can, well, at least they thought
they could. UM undertake what they called the Polus Skiff,
(14:36):
which was will invent a network of weapons to destroy
your Star Wars machine UM, which was Hey, that's pretty
good thinking. But they didn't have the funding, and uh,
it was not very successful either. No, they didn't. And
that leads us to um a point if I may
skip around a little chuckture, but um, history is kind
(15:00):
have vindicated Reagan in one way, Like his Star Wars
program didn't go anywhere, but it wasn't given very much time.
And the reason why is because the fall of the
Soviet Union happened within less than a decade after he
announced the star Wars initiative. The program, Uh, the Soviet
Union fell collapsed entirely. Uh. And some people attribute that
(15:24):
to the defense spending that he immediately caused them to
to start expending because of the Star Wars program. True,
so he did kind of ratchet up this arms race,
but the Soviets couldn't keep up. This came on the
heels of US bleeding them dry in Afghanistan secretly funding
the muja Hadeen which became the Taliban by the way,
(15:46):
but we I don't know how much Reagan knew, but
the the Soviets were hurting financially, and then all of
a sudden he introduced Star Wars and they couldn't keep up. Yea,
and the follow Soviet union. With that came obviously the
at least huge threat of all out nuclear war because
they were the major players. Um you didn't have to
(16:08):
worry about the smaller countries, you know, as far as
M A. D goes, right, but you had to worry
about rogue states and all that, right, making sure that
the Russians could hang onto their arsenal, which they didn't
do very well necessarily. But yes, the mutual sure destruction
just went the way the dinosaur. When the Soviets fell. Um,
H W. Bush comes along, people get annoyed by the way,
and when we don't say President so and so, who
(16:30):
does here? Are you see as this on Facebook? Now,
I've seen people right in before, and I've heard other
people say you should always address them as President so
and so. But I hear all the time people say Obama, Clinton, Reagan.
So no no disrespect intended, folks. H W. Bush comes along,
Soviet union has fallen, So he's like, you know what,
(16:51):
we need to really cut back on this scope of
this sd I. He probably would have just scrapped it
all together. But he was pretty loyal to Reagan, of course,
and um so he refocuses a program, cuts it back.
Clinton comes along President Clinton and refines it even more
and cuts it back even more. And by the time
(17:13):
that happened, it wasn't anything like Reagan's initial Star Wars program. No,
not at all. No, but it would become handy, which
we'll get too. So let's talk about what Star Wars was.
We've kind of given like a little bit of a
broad overview. But um, until I started researching this, I
hadn't really thought about it. But intercontinental ballistic missiles once
(17:33):
capable of saying, traveling from Moscow to New York, I
have to leave Earth's atmosphere and enter orbit. And so
the idea was we would have something up there that
could shoot it down when it entered orbit, That's right,
Which meant that we had to place. We had to
(17:53):
weaponize space. Yeah, and I wonder if they ever gave
any thought to what nuclear bomb is going off in
space would mean. I mean, surely there's repercussions there. I
know it's space, But you can't just go willie nilly
setting off nuclear bombs in space? Right did in Nevada? Well,
that's that's true, but Kin Toll, Yeah, and look what
(18:15):
happened there? What happened there? Well, I'm just saying it.
It's it's got to cause some kind of harm to
space even though it's space, right, or does it just
suck into it? Like, I have no idea. This is
something I could not find. I mean a research that
couldn't find anything. Yeah. No, I understand what you're saying.
In space is a vacuum, so it should have some
(18:35):
effect or no effect whatsoever, but it's got to and
got to do something. There's someone out there really smart
that hopefully is going to email me. I guess though.
The the idea behind this was fairly utilitarian, where it
was like, okay, this possible consequence in space or saving
millions of lives here on Earth, and they just said whatever,
(18:55):
that's fine, of course. Um, But so you have something
up in space that's capable of shooting down an intercontinental
ballistic missile, like an X ray laser. That's this is
like where we kind of come to some of them,
Like there were a lot of proposals that were kind
of out there, but they went ahead and spent a
(19:16):
lot of money testing these things like the X ray laser,
And that was a physicist Edward Teller. Um it was
created the hydrogen bomb. Yeah, I saw that. It was
his proposal, so they obviously listened to him, and um,
it was gonna use power generated by a nuclear blast.
And it never performed well, and it really became the
(19:38):
focus point for the press and for David Letterman and
for Johnny Carson to make fun of because it was
an X ray laser and this is coming off the
heels of the Star Wars movies themselves with their X
ray blasters. Actually they were star blowing up yeah, or
the dust star blowing up that planet Aldern. I think
(19:59):
they focused the laser and boom, Um, you just saved
me from a lot of ire because I was gonna say, tattooing,
I might have got it wrong. I think it was
all the wrong. Man. I hope you got it. If
there's one thing that I ever hope you got right,
it was that one. So so many Star Trek fans
would be writing in so that there's the X ray
(20:20):
laser and it doesn't go over very well, which was
very much the focus of the media, and they were
being chided for the fact that they you know, sounded
really far out right, but they they tested it it
just wouldn't work. The idea behind it was that they
were going to have a small controlled nuclear explosion that
would power this laser right to create a massive amount
(20:41):
of X rays, a concentrated amount of X rays UM
that would be focused on a missile and the go kaboom.
It was called Project X Caliber, so it had a
cool name to but apparently Teller or the people behind
it were accused of falsifying the initial UH test the result. Yeah,
(21:02):
so it kind of went down and scandal and mockery
and everything. So in the little boxes said worked or
didn't work, they just checked worked and like we shuffled
away with cartoons to it like coming off. And therefore,
(21:44):
so some of the other ideas that they tried UM
and spent billions of dollars trying um kinetic warheads, apparently
they would collide in the orbit. It's like shooting a
shooting a missile at another missile UM And that one
actually was like the big dog on the block for
a while at first in the early stages of Star Wars,
because they figured out that you could have this thing
(22:07):
like basically a satellite based garage with like ten missiles
in it, and you just have it floating up there
and then shoot at a missile. You know. When one
came up and it was a good idea, they're like,
we can actually do that, Like, I think we can
do this. The problem is that somebody pointed out that
all the Russians had to do is shoot a missile
at your garage, and for their one missile, they took
(22:29):
out ten. So people said, okay, let's get back to it,
and they started exploring other one. It's like bringing a
knife to a gunfight. It's like bringing a missile to
a multi missile fight. No that I don't think that
analogy works at all. I know. I think it's like
a sitting duck. Okay. Uh. The other thing they wanted
(22:49):
to try, Josh, was US rail guns mounted on satellites.
Did you see the popular mechanics drawing of it. I did,
and it's pretty wicked. Yeah. I gotta admit. It looks
like an I beam coming out of this out of like,
but it's shooting like a three ounce slug at two
hundred miles a second. It's pretty wicked. Yeah. Um, that
one didn't go very far because of the um energy requirements. Yeah,
(23:10):
it was just way too expensive in an energy sense. Uh.
And then the m I R A C L miracle laser. Um.
It was another laser, but it was ground based using mirrors. Right.
It was a chemical laser. It wasn't like an uh,
nuclear X ray laser. It's like they just started to
(23:30):
try to throw cool sci fi terms of the time together,
like let's make laser, but let's make it a nuclear
X ray laser, and we'll shoot missiles out of this
guy with tron laser Tron, let's ad that. Um. So
then this article doesn't really go into it. But after
after some of these were kind of asked and answered. Um.
(23:54):
Up until and even beyond the fall of the Soviet Union,
the Shining Star and all this became the these things
called bright pebbles. Does that ring a bell? It did
for me when I ran across it, I was like, Ahi,
those two words sound very familiar. So bright Pebbles was
the little garage with ten missiles. These were very small ones,
like say, um, twenty to fifty pound mini garages that
(24:19):
would shoot slugs or would ram themselves. But I think
they would shoot slugs. And rather than having one garage
with ten missiles, you would have thousands of these little
things all over the country, all over the all over space.
They're in space. Yeah, so they were hoping for a
constellation of up to like four thousand of these things
just floating around in space. The cool thing about him
was if you took one out, there were still three
(24:42):
thousand nine left right. They were autonomous, so they could
attack on their own if they if they wanted to.
They could also coordinate and communicate with one another to
launch coordinated attacks against missiles. It would be very tough
to overwhelm these things, um and they would have been
designed to protect US space based assets like satellites, and
(25:07):
if the Soviets ever launched anything like it, these things
were trained to just go right after them and blow
them out of the sky too. So basically they were
like little sentinels in space and they were going to
be cost effected to It was gonna cost about eleven
billion in UM in nineteen eighty four dollars I think,
which is about twenty billion a day. It was considering
(25:28):
that they were looking at like twenty billion, which is
about forty three billion in UH today's dollars, just to
get some of the other ones off the ground. So
to get a thousand off the ground that you could
mass produce just eleven billion dollars at the time was
quite a bargain and had the fall of the Soviet
Union not coming gone, we probably would have bright pebbles
(25:48):
up in space right now. And as a matter of fact,
they were proven. They were tested. Um the Clementine probe
which mapped the Moon in that was a bright pebble
that they basically redesigned instead of uh well as a weapon.
They used it to map the Moon and it did
so successfully, so they would have worked. And lastly, yes,
(26:11):
a computer model of bright pebbles found that had they
been in operation during the first GO four um, they
would have shot down Saddam scuds scud missiles with accuracy.
Pretty crazy, but well cheap. I was gonna say expensive, No,
they're cheap. They just didn't have time to come along. Well,
(26:32):
the problem with the rest of the plans is I
saw one quote that said that at the time they
were just sort of taking these ideas almost from science fiction,
and they felt like they were or some scientists felt
like they were a decade away from even like they're saying,
we can't even start this for ten years. We need
to research for ten years to see if any of
(26:54):
this is even feasible. But I think instead of sort
of like trying these things out, Reagan was encourageding that though.
I mean, I'm sure he was like, hurry up. But
at the same time, and I think he got the
impression he was saying, like sky's limit, guys like us,
your imagination, do whatever you can come up with. Definitely,
the sky's the limit beyonda So did any of these
ever work at all? So apparently a couple did. Like
(27:16):
they shot down three, they shot down a stationary object
on Earth, they shot down, um, a mock warhead in
the Earth's atmosphere, and they shot down another mock warhead
in space. And one of those things was going twenty
one an. So so some of these technologies, because they
(27:37):
had a bunch of different groups testing all these different things,
and some of them were successful for the most part now,
but it eventually led to a different sort of defense
system that we still had today, right or is it
that what some people say, yeah, like the ballistic missile
defense system, um is it's the out growth of star Wars.
(27:59):
Like the idea that we have a missile defense system
comes from Star Wars. So even though we're not using
X ray lasers, a lot of people say it had
some benefit in the end after all. Yeah, because we're
using sensors, those same sensors like a lot of the
research that was not like X ray lasers, but that
still had practical applications. We're still doing the day and
(28:21):
apparently in Pearl Harbor last month, a missile shot down
another missile over the Pacific successfully as a test. Yeah.
I was like, somebody's attacking Pearl Harbor again. You don't
really want They figured the American public doesn't wunt here.
But yeah, the Chinese shot a missile at us and
we shot it down. So everything's cool. Was close. So
(28:41):
I guess that's about it. Huh yeah, Um, that's all
I got. Okay, So if you want to learn more
about Star Wars, I think it bring up a bunch
of crazy stuff. If you type star Wars in the
search bar, how stuff works, Like the one Man Star Wars. Uh,
Star Wars one Man show. Yeah, that's pretty good. Uh,
(29:04):
Landau Dr Pepper calories Ian remember that one? I do. Yeah,
there's a lot of stuff. Just type star Wars in
the search part how stuff works. Dot com and I
said that, which means it's time for a listener mail.
Josh and Louid listener mail. We're gonna do a little
Facebook question to stuff that we like to do from
(29:25):
time to time. And this is happening live, which is
pretty exciting. That is scary because I didn't have a
listener mail ready and this was a good thing to do.
So let's just look through some of these and you
let me know what you want to read. Uh. Our
friend Kubi don Kuby says, uh, is there a particular
(29:47):
side of the recording booth that you each always sit on?
The answer to that is yes. Um, I guess if
you were facing from here, Josh, it's on the right.
I sit on the left, But you really come in
from the other side, So Josh sits on the far
side and I sit on the near side. It's the
best way to say it. That's very well put. Yeah,
(30:08):
and I think all the podcasters probably no one ever
sits in a different seat. That'd be really weird. Yeah,
I'm sure everybody sits in there same seat. Like if
I said over there, they'd be disconcerting. It'd be you'd
have to be a like bona fide nihilist to do that,
that would just be odd. Um. I've got one from
Jerome Hanson. I would say Jerome right. Uh, who is
(30:32):
your favorite Marvel superhero? Uh? I guess I would say Punisher,
And I know he's not a superhero. He's just a
straight up hero because he doesn't have any superpowers. But
he's definitely the comic I was into the most as
a youngster. I'm gonna go spider Man really yeah, yeah,
(30:53):
I identified with Peter Parker, not spider Man. Um favorite
band of all time. I feel like we they through
that many times. Okay, I'm going with Pavement Still, Pixie's
still okay. Um. I would like to know your opinion
of and Margaret. That's from Brian Throckmorton. I think and
Margaret in her day was one of the most smoking
(31:16):
hot women on the planet. So my only familiarity with
and Margaret was from The flat Stones when they had
that character and Mark Rock and she always seemed like
she was on lithium. So I don't have a great
opinion of and Margaret. Gotcha, Oh this is good. William Bear,
if you were speed Limit, what would you be and why?
(31:37):
You know what I would be, Well, I would be
one of those special speed limits in state parks. It's
like five miles an hour. Do you know that there's
the parking garage here is four and a half? Is
it really? Yeah? Yeah, that's what I would be. Then
four and a half miles an hour. It's like they're
showing off because just take your foot off and let
the idol take you. Man, that's where. That's where I'm at.
What would you be? This is arguably the strangest question
(32:00):
and I've ever been asked. I would say, Okay, that's good. Okay,
it's fast, but it's not super dangerous. I'm not even
to read into it. I just that's what comes to mind. Okay, gotcha,
you got one. Uh, let's see. Lisa to Shaa asks us,
(32:21):
what's our least favorite food? Lisa's a big regular too.
If I read that, I recognize the name here you there?
What are you going with? Least favorite food would have
to be Oh, I was just talking to hear me
about this the other day. It's like one thing I
really don't like and I can't remember it because I
(32:42):
generally like everything. What's yours? Let me think about it.
Probably mushrooms on anything. I'm just not a fan. Yeah,
I know they say they don't have taste, but then
I'm always like cold. Then why are you putting it
in something they can virtually ruin? Um? The pizza? Yeah? Yeah,
Oh I've got it. Cream cheese cream cheese with stuffed
in it. Like she's spread a cream cheese ball, cream
(33:05):
cheese on just about anything. Like if you have a
plain bagel hot with cream cheese, that's fine, that's just
a regular and your man. Once you put like a
garden style cream cheese with something else, yeah, I don't
like that stuff either, Okay, Matt sailor boxers or briefs.
We've been asked that before. I'm a boxer guy. Katie
(33:27):
Hart favorite punch line to a joke. Uh, those aren't pillows.
I don't. I can't say anyone's I know. Uh, you
got any more on here? Why don't we do like
two more? Let's see Charlotte Jean asks, how do we
take our coffee? I take mine black at two? So
(33:48):
there you go, that's kind of boring. I got a
lot of hair on the old chest from it, and
you know, Jason Domini from our friends at Uh, back
Doorphin Bronson, the amazing coffee makers. Yeah, and roasters, which
you should not coffee makers roasters, you should support them
by the way. Um. He says. He gave me a
personal tour of the thing and a coffee one on
(34:08):
one and he says, if you drink good coffee and
it's roasted properly, you don't want sugar. Oh yeah, I
definitely don't want milk, but you definitely don't want sugar.
Because he's like, it's really sweet. He's like, coffee beans
are exceptionally sweet and when you roast it right, um,
and he called it char bucks, which I thought was
kind of funny. He said their stuff is just like
(34:30):
bitter because they char it too much because they get
beans from all over the place and when they do that,
they want to make them all taste the same, and
the way to do that is to over roast. This
is our friend Rob Pointer who's telling us that, like
there's he goes to a coffee place in l A
where like they don't even have creamer sugar. I really like,
(34:52):
they don't even offer it if you want it, like
they tell you to leave. Awesome. When he made his
coffee Daday it was great. Yeah. Um, all right, so
I think that that's good enough for now. We'll hit
this up on the next one, are we will? Yeah, okay,
we'll be back people in the meantime. You can contact
us at s Y s K Podcast on Twitter. You
can hit us up on Facebook dot com whether we
(35:14):
have a question out or otherwise at Facebook dot com
slash stuff you should know, and you can send us
an email to
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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