In January 2025, Donald Trump, the newly inaugurated U.S. president, signed an executive order directing the U.S. armed forces to construct a missile defense system called the “Golden Dome,” aimed at establishing space weapons in orbit for the first time in history. Legitimized in part by the expiry of the...

Weapons Straight Out of a Science Fiction Novel Have Not Been Able to Turn the Tide on the Battlefield In his 1988 book War Stars: The Superweapon in the American Imagination, H. Bruce Franklin traces a deep-rooted cultural belief in the magic of futuristic weapon systems that would enable the...

New cold war provides continued backdrop for misallocation of public resources into weaponry right out of science fiction films As homeless rates skyrocket and public education flounders, the Biden administration has proposed a record $27.6 billion budget for the militarization of outer space in 2023—a 25% increase from the 2022...