According to one Senate staff member who requested anonymity, "the SDI Institute is in better shape this year by virtue of the fact that there is more information available." The subject could come up as part of congressional hearings on the SDI program scheduled for later this month. With the current strenuous debate over early SDI deployment, however, no one in Congress or the administration lists the Institute as an immediate priority.
Meredith Neizer, acting project manager for the SDI Institute in the defense secretary's office, said the proposed think tank would be staffed with technical experts to advise SDI managers on overall system architecture and technical problems in establishing a space-based missile defense system. It would be modeled after other R&D centers financed by the Defense Department, such as the Rand Corporation and the Institute for Defense Analyses. Neizer said the institute would have an annual budget of between ...
