Parallels in The Real World
The SDI systems discussed in the book are based on real-world systems. In the book, satellite photos are shown of the Dushanbe Complex called "Bright Star" in the novel. These images are of an actual then-Soviet mountaintop site of disputed function. The Soviet government claimed that the site was an imaging station for optically tracking space objects, while Western experts believed it was a site built to employ directed-energy weapons against space based targets. The site is referenced in the Federation of American Scientist's Space Policy Project Special Weapons Monitor section.
Read more about this topic: The Cardinal Of The Kremlin
Famous quotes containing the words real world, parallels, real and/or world:
“When truth is nothing but the truth, it’s unnatural, it’s an abstraction that resembles nothing in the real world. In nature there are always so many other irrelevant things mixed up with the essential truth. That’s why art moves you—precisely because it’s unadulterated with all the irrelevancies of real life.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“If, while watching the sun set on a used-car lot in Los Angeles, you are struck by the parallels between this image and the inevitable fate of humanity, do not, under any circumstances, write it down.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)
“Sorrow has the fortunate peculiarity that it preys upon itself. It dies of starvation. Since it is essentially an interruption of habits, it can be replaced by new habits. Constituting, as it does, a void, it is soon filled up by a real “horror vacui.””
—J. August Strindberg (1849–1912)
“You are a thousand times a properer man
Than she a woman. ‘Tis such fools as you
That makes the world full of ill-favored children.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)