Boeings X-37B 1 sits on the runway after landing at the Shuttle Landing Facility at KSC.. U.S. Space Force/Staff Sgt. Adam Shanks

President Donald Trump’s plans to build a space-based Golden Dome missile defense shield have drawn immediate criticism from China, which has framed it as a renewed American push to “weaponize space.” This program, announced in an executive order signed in January 2025, echoes former President Ronald Reagan’s 1980s Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars,” which was never completed but is believed to have pressured the Soviet Union into a costly arms race. Whether the Golden Dome will meet the same fate or move beyond rhetoric remains to be seen.

Regardless of its future feasibility, the president’s announcement marks another departure from the vision of space as a peaceful domain. Aside from the U.S. Air Force’s anti-satellite (ASAT) missile test in 1985 and the abandoned Star Wars program, treaties like the Limited Test Ban Treaty(1963), the Outer Space Treaty (1967), and the Moon Agreement (1979)helped restrain space militarization during the Cold War. In the 1990s, multinational projects like the International Space Station further reinforced a vision of international cooperation under U.S. leadership.

As a result, public discussion of space weapons remained largely restricted, even as governments quietly advanced their capabilities. That began to change in 2007, when China shocked observers by using a missile to destroy its own satellites, followed by a similar U.S. Navy test

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