That is also a really good way to spin failing to achieve something you tried really hard at,

Yes, the spin rabbit hole goes to infinity and beyond. But certainly a plausible situation. We may never know and suspect that very few people ever knew in such secretive projects.

Remember this was still with the whole Moon landing era fresh in mind for so many, that was also a President's speech dream, that seemed equally as wild and fantasy at the time. Yet that happened. SDI was, given the media mindsets of that era, easily to latch onto as - it's going to happen.

Today, we are more cynical/pragmatic/realistic in mindset and with that, do question things and able to do so en-mass more easily with the internet than ever before.

Except much of the technology in SDI is scientifically feasible and much of it is either deployed today or in active development. The Patriot missiles that were used to shoot down Iraqi Scuds in the Gulf War were developed under SDI and are still in use for ballistic missile defense today. Even directed energy weapons are still in active development.

Worth watching the initial announcement by Reagan: https://www.pbs.org/video/american-experience-reagan-announc... Starts with "American does possess NOW, the technologies..." tails into - hey scientists, show us something cool we can use to do this. So initially it was a big pot of money for ideas to achieve it. Then you had the big companies set the direction with space lasers, few CGI's (that cost loads to make) in a time that it was still very new for TV and suddenly you have the media and directional focus going with that - as a majority of people of that era will recall it due to media focus upon that, at the time -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smrZrimAuis "STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE STAR WARS RONALD REAGAN 33112"

But 30 years later, and only starting to see lasers deployed upon very large ships - shows how long it can take from feasible towards practical and dare say, still kinda in the flintlock stage of it's evolutionary cycle. But then, we may well see power generating inventions born out of the need to power these things, trickling down into consumer hands, which would tie in with the title most aptly.