X-37B. YouTube
It’s the first day of a war between the world’s largest military powers.
From a launch pad somewhere in Asia, a rocket rises into the sky. Its payload: A robot designed to sneak up to a U.S. military satellite, grab it and steer it off course, knocking it out of the fight. Elsewhere on earth, high-powered lasers flash into space, trying to blind enemy sensors peering down from orbit. Generals fret over whether to use satellite-killing missiles that could fill orbits with deadly debris.
It sounds like something from a Hollywood thriller. But space and defense experts say it’s something the world’s most advanced spacefaring nations are actually planning for. And the Anniston area’s representative in Congress is calling for a major reorganization of defense assets – and possibly even the creation of a new branch of the military – to get ready for conflict in space.
$25 billion is not chump change.