The impact of the us strategic defence initiative on the space race

This paper models the space race between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War using time series econometric modelling. The analysis shows that, post the Vietnam‐war era, military considerations play a key role in explaining the behaviour of US space expenditure. In particular, the US Department of Defense (DoD) Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) of the early 1980s is shown to result in a changing structure of the space race. This is expected to continue in the future with the current anti‐ballistic missile (ABM) programme and the withdrawal of the US from the ABM treaty of on space militarization.