An Air Force academy physicist is developing a new telescope lens that news reports say would revolutionize the spy satellite business. Instead of the current Hubble-size space telescope—with a four-foot glass lens weighing as much as a truck—the lens Geoff Andersen wants to construct would employ lightweight material like aluminum foil and, at 60-feet-wide, would weight just half a pound. He has built a four-inch experimental model at a cost of $1,000 that works better than lenses at 10 times that cost. He says that his 60-foot version would enable one to read a newspaper from a satellite placed in low Earth orbit.
Concerned about how artificial intelligence might be used to generate target lists or operational plans, lawmakers want to expand limits on autonomous weapons to address mission planning and target selection. The House Armed Services Committee's version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization bill would direct the Pentagon to revise Defense…