Innumerable technological failures, fudged test results and gross pork-barrel politicking are stamped like hallmarks on America鈥檚 missile defence system, known as 鈥渟tar wars鈥�.
By now you would think that the very idea of battles in space would have withered and died. You鈥檇 be wrong, as Loring Wirbel points out in Star Wars (Pluto Press, 拢11.99). A peacenik, researcher and technology journalist, Wirbel has interesting things to say about the history and present status of weapons in space 鈥� and ideas about how to oppose them.