One thing science fiction has taught us: We’ll need lasers in space. But if the movies teach us that their most common application is blasting away at rival star cruisers, in real life we’ll (hopefully) use them mainly to stay in touch.
Militaries, of course, are interested in lasers as a way to blind satellite sensors or even damage them permanently—the US has tested such systems, and intelligence analysts say China is developing them at a secret facility. But a laser that can damage something requires a good deal of power, much more than can be efficiently generated in space. Lasers used to transmit data don’t need that much juice—and they can carry information as many as 100 times faster than radio signals used most often today.
Right now, there’s a lot of attention on this technology, which is also known as…
