For "Star Wars" to work, a decade of laser weapon research would have been needed, said the co-chair of a 1986 committee studying the program.

Harvard University Professor Nicolaas Bloembergen, a 1981 Nobel co-laureate in physics, said the committee's conclusions concerning Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative were "right on the mark."

Bloembergen related his experiences studying the Star Wars project to a group of 20 UA faculty and students yesterday as part of a graduate seminar studying the effect of government policy on science and technology.

The committee was mandated to study the effectiveness of Star Wars and dispel any doubt as to whether it would work. When Bloembergen's committee released its findings, it confirmed the scientific community's "gut feelings" that Star Wars would not work.

"We were asked to look about 10 years into the future and that is what we did," Bloembergen said.

Reagan announced in March 1983 that he would launch a massive research and development effort to build a high-technology defense system to guard against a Soviet missile attack.

Star Wars involved putting lasers on satellite and orbital platforms to destroy the missiles as they approached the United States.

William Wing, physics professor whose graduate seminar hosted the guest lecture, said Bloembergen's study was the first of its kind and that it concluded Star Wars' capability was overstated.

The fallout from the report affected the scientific and political communities and shifted funding to other projects, such as the Patriot Missile System.

"When this report came out, proponents of (the Strategic Defense Initiative) quickly changed their stance, saying, 'Well, we didn't really want this kind of weapon anyway,'" Wing said.

Wing said funding for the program began to dry up, but the government spent a total of $32 billion before shutting it down in 1993.

Bloembergen said the committee, sponsored by the American Physical Society, was made up of people from inside government agencies, industry and academia. He said the study was completely independent of the U.S. government and yet each member of the panel held top-secret security clearances for access to classified documents.

He said he received the request to head up the committee in spring 1984 because of his involvement in lasers.

He said he refused the request three times, but finally accepted on the condition that he could select a co-chair.

Wing said he felt "quite lucky" to get Bloembergen to lecture in the class. The Harvard physicist is a guest of Optical Sciences and has been touring University of Arizona facilities and talking to students.