Donald Trump unveiled his new line of defence for the US – a $175 billion ‘Golden Dome’. Despite looking like something out of a Simpsons episode, Trump said the Golden Dome will have ground and space-based capabilities that are able to detect and stop missiles at all four major stages of a potential attack.

An idea for a space-based boost-phase defence system called Brilliant Pebbles was proposed towards the end of the 1980s. Rather than having large satellites with multiple missiles, it entailed having around 1,000 small individual missiles in orbit. It would have also used about 60 orbiting sensors called Brilliant Eyes to detect launches.