Like a lot of Americans, I have formative memories of my first exposure to George Lucas’s epic tale of space Rebels defeating a planet-destroying Empire. I got so excited as a little kid in 1977 about seeing “Star Wars: A New Hope” that I threw up outside the theater.
Years later, I was thoroughly disoriented when I found out on the news that Star Wars was no longer a movie; it was a nuclear missile defense system described by Ronald Reagan as the most futuristic arsenal ever built. Officially called the Strategic Defense Initiative, the Star Wars weapons system never came to fruition.