Essay

Humanity's got its sights set on Alpha Centauri, and we're not exactly known for subtlety. Forget rockets, think lasers blasting tiny space-chips to our nearest stellar neighbor at a casual 20% the speed of light. Sure, there are pesky issues like cosmic dust bullets, budget nightmares, and four-year Zoom lag, but if all goes well, expect humanity's first interstellar selfie by the late 2050s. Join us for a snarky, wild ride toward the stars, because every audacious journey starts with strapping lasers onto tiny spacecraft.

Asteroids and aliens threaten Earth, yet our “defense” is a few telescopes, one underfunded office, and committee meetings, while rocks cruise and little green men wait in the wings. Bottom line: we’re marginally better than dinosaurs, but only if we stop dithering and actually fund real planetary defense.

Let’s be real: if your sci-fi squad isn’t hurtling through the sky in a duct-taped flying coffin, are you even fighting? Dropships are the mullets of military hardware—business in the front (troops), party in the back (explosions, mayhem, someone inevitably screaming “GO! GO! GO!”).