The United States Air Force is testing 'weapons of tomorrow' including space weapons and an experimental microsatellite with the capability to disrupt other nations' military satellites.
There is also a proposal to build a global strike space plane that can carry munitions halfway around the world in 45 minutes, and a 'Rods From God' programme that can hurl dense metal rods at targets on the ground with the force of a small nuclear weapon.
Other programmes will use laser beams or radio waves to disable targets, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.
While the Air Force is focused on the future, with no credible opposition or potential in the air, the Pentagon is already using devices which would disrupt Iraqi insurgent attempts to set off deadly roadside bombs by remote control.
The devices shipped from the US can interfere with the enemy's radio waves so that the bombs would not go off.
Weapons in space worries The New York Times which, in an editorial on Tuesday, called on Congress and the Bush administration to assess whether a multilateral treaty to ban space weapons might not leave the nation far safer than a unilateral drive to put the first weapons in space.
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