A nuclear weapon in space? We've been here before

There is a resonance to the idea – floated this week by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee in Washington – that Russia is preparing to put a nuclear weapon in space with the potential ability to knock out critical western satellite systems. We’ve been here before. Starting in the early 1980s Edward Teller, father of the American H-bomb, hyped up largely baseless reports of nuclear-powered X-ray lasers capable of taking out the entire Soviet nuclear arsenal in one spectacular strike if Uncle Sam would only fund their development and put them in orbit. Reagan was impressed. Gorbachev was alarmed. The US never came close to building such a weapon but the hype did help end the Cold War when Russia threw in the towel rather than embark on a whole new arms race. Laser technology has, it’s true, come on since then. Also, a thin-skinned revanchist-nationalist autocrat has come to power in Moscow intent on reversing as much of the Soviet collapse as possible. Putin has form boasting of sci-fi weapons he doesn't actually possess. He now seems to be trying to replay the 80s Star Wars drama with the roles reversed. Scepticism is in order.