There is a great article on it here The late 1980s really did witness a series of deaths involving scientists who worked on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also famously known as “Star Wars.” This ambitious space-based missile defense program, proposed by President Ronald Reagan in 1983, would intercept missiles while they were still in the air. But during SDI’s heyday more than 20 SDI scientists, primarily employed by the British defense company GEC-Marconi, met untimely deaths. A fe...