The program may have ultimately failed, but laser research continues.
Here's What You Need to Know: The Air Force wanted lasers to shoot down ICBMs.
Missile defense is really hard. It has been compared to hitting a bullet with another bullet, and is inherently unreliable. According to Scientific American, the U.S. Ground-based Midcourse Defense ”remains the sole system designed to counter intercontinental ballistic missiles. Its 44 silo-based interceptors in Alaska and California are designed to be guided by space, ground and sea-based sensors to collide with an incoming warhead and destroy it with the force of impact.”
The GMD system has a poor track record. “Only about half of the 18 intercept tests since 1999 successfully destroyed their targets, and the test record has not improved with time: only two of the last five tests were successful—and GMD has still has not been tested under operationally realistic conditions.” Not exactly reassuring.