Computers: Star Wars and Software

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Navy Commander James Offutt, a deputy director in the Strategic Defense Initiative office, concedes the difficulty of producing and verifying error-free Star Wars software. "We don't have all the answers," he says. "But that is what SDI is all about. It is a research program." One way to test the system thoroughly, he says, may be through computer simulations of a full-scale nuclear war--a goal he thinks can eventually be achieved. Brockway Mac-Millan, a retired vice president at Bell Laboratories who directed the development of the Safeguard antiballistic-missile software system in the early 1970s, agrees. "Given the proper tools and enough time," he says, "I think the software problems can be solved." --By Philip Elmer-DeWitt