The cosmic rhetoric of a Space Force seeking “American dominance in space,” as President Trump puts it, conjures images of stormtroopers, laser guns and X-wing fighters – technology straight out of science fiction.

But the Pentagon is already working on technology designed to fight a war in space: rockets that could launch daily; missiles that would fly at five miles per second; satellites the size of shoe boxes; and robots that could repair them in orbit. Such efforts already amount to billions of dollars in government spending each year, much of it shrouded under classified military programs.

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