The Star Wars Sweepstakes

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The companies in the program are pursuing several avenues of research. Boeing, TRW, Lockheed, Hughes Aircraft and Grumman are among the many firms working on satellite surveillance and tracking systems to detect enemy missiles on launch, discriminate decoys from actual warheads and verify that the targets are destroyed by the Star Wars defense. Another crucial task is developing the weapons that would be used to blast attacking missiles and warheads out of the sky. TRW, Lockheed and Rockwell are studying the feasibility of so-called directed energy weapons, including lasers and particle beams. Lockheed, McDonnell Douglas and Teledyne are considering how conventional rockets and other projectiles, informally known as "smart rocks," might be used to knock down ICBMs. Finally, Star Wars will require an ultrapowerful new computer system to manage the missile defense. Among the leaders in this area of research are IBM, Rockwell and GTE.

The most difficult task will be to come up with an overall plan for how the various parts of a Star Wars defense will work together. Last year SDIO challenged companies to enter what it called a horse race to devise the best Star Wars blueprint. A herd of 300 firms submitted initial applications, but SDIO narrowed the field to five, each of which will receive a $5 million grant to work on its designs. They include three major defense contractors --Rockwell, TRW and Martin Marietta--and two small electronics companies, Sparta of Huntsville, Ala., and Science Applications of La Jolla, Calif. Though their current grants are small, these firms expect to be out front if the big money starts to flow. Says Rockwell President Donald Beall: "Getting in early can give you a big leg up. Latecomers will have to play catch-up, and they might find they can't even get in at all."

Perhaps the most conspicuous loser so far in the Star Wars sweepstakes is AT&T, which has been eager to help develop a battle-management computer system. Says an official at a competitor company: "AT&T can't buy a contract. They've done everything short of camping out at the door of the SDI office." Admits an AT&T executive: "It's important to us. There's a lot of pressure on us from the chairman to get involved in this, but so far it's been disappointing." Industry analysts speculate that AT&T has done poorly in the bidding because of its efforts to reorganize itself in the wake of the court- ordered divestiture of its telephone-operating companies.

Besides lining up for Government money, companies are digging into their own coffers. "The price of admission to this game is much higher than usual," says Stanley Moran, who heads GTE's Star Wars effort. "If you want to be competitive, you have to be prepared to spend accordingly." GTE normally lays out between $100,000 and $1 million to develop a bid for a research grant, but it has spent about $3 million on Star Wars proposals.