The Last Thirty Seconds

"In the early eighties, as world superpowers engaged in the aggressive stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction, US president Ronald Reagan's announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative began the development and coordination of missile technologies applicable to strategic defense against civilization's most dangerous inventions. While the initial focus of this effort was the intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying nuclear threats from the Soviet Union or China, by the end of the decade attention turned to potential ICBM threats from rogue states such as North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. And so, a new time for ballistic missile defense had begun. The Last Thirty Seconds: A Brief History of the Evolution of Hit-To-Kill Technology is a masterful record of the evolution of improved ballistic missile defense capabilities in the decades since the height of the nuclear arms race. With an exceptionally researched style, David K. Stumpf recounts the development of midcourse- and terminal-phase defense commonly known as "hit-to-kill," a nonnuclear technique at the center of current ballistic missile defense systems using kinetic energy rather than explosives for the destruction of reentry vehicles carrying chemical, biological, or nuclear warheads. With the aid of recently declassified documents, Stumpf guides the reader through the complex history of the evolution of a technology that many said could never be achieved, bringing its story to life with dozens of rare photographs and technical illustrations. While much of the subject remains classified, what is described in this detailed study will be welcomed by librarians, engineers, and high-technology history professionals for the depth of its access, the substance of its references, and the exposure of archival material on the missiles the have defined military defense from the Cold War to the present"--