I never imagined the day would come when the James Bond solar death beam or US Navy SEAL Casey Ryback’s orbital gun found a real-world sibling.
Back in Die Another Day, we cheered as Icarus carved sunlight into a weapon. In Under Siege 2 we held our breath while Grazer One locked onto its target from orbit. Both felt like pure movie magic.
This recent piece in the Economic Times says Chinese researchers beamed a 2-watt laser from 36 000 km away and rode out atmospheric turbulence with adaptive optics and mode diversity. They pushed through enough power to carry data at a gigabit per second—five times what Starlink can manage.
Right now it’s about faster links, not destruction. Still, a system that zeroes in on a point on Earth with that kind of focus could one day be pressed into surveillance, jamming, or worse.
That thin line between boosting your internet and wielding strategic might feels sharper than ever.
Next time you see a villain whirling a satellite controller on screen, you might pause and wonder if fiction was just drawing the blueprint for tomorrow’s anxieties.
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The Cons's Nook: www.ivanmconsiglio.com 