Strategic Defense Initiative: An Opinion Survey of Scientists, 1986

<p>This survey asked the opinions of selected scientists from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) regarding the prospects for successful solutions to the acknowledged difficult technical problems of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Care was taken to design the survey to have an impartial tone and receive a high return rate. The survey contained 10 questions covering the respondents' attitudes and opinions regarding overall attitude toward the current SDI program, appropriate level of federal funding, the technology feasibility of SDI, the relative position of the U.S. and the Soviet Union with respect to technologies critical to an SDI system, and the respondent's self-assessment of his or her familiarity with the technological issues.</p>