TheEvanCat said
Or the longterm political ramifications of "everyone will hate you forever."
Whats ironic is that the Russians developed their own system, which would launch nuclear missiles into low orbit, and at a moments notice would re-enter and land on a target. The system had no range, initial launch would yield no possible targets, and it would have been able to avoid detection when it came back into Earth to strike.
The US Orion project and the Russian Fractional Orbital Bombardment System came around at the same time, the Americans didn't let the project live long, while the Russians kept their own on until 1983 with the number of treaties that were signed, prohibiting space weapons.
The Russians had the first orbital missile regimen on alert by 1969, however they suffered a high fail rate of 20-25% during tests and only 16 or so missiles were ever built.
They (Russia) wouldn't have had any political ground if the Orion-class had been launched, it would have been a justified US response to the Russian program. Though paper ended it in the 1980s.
