It sounds suspiciously like the Reagan-era Star Wars project that we were told, years later, had always been a hoax to lure the USSR into bankrupting themselves with excessive defense spending. Of course, we were never told what happened to the tens of billions of dollars sunk into that supposed hoax.

I worked for years at various defense contractors in the US; they are thieves and grifters just as surely as a pack of Gypsies running a 3 Card Monte scam.