It is the year 2017, and a loaded United States bomber flying high above Beijing receives the order for a preemptive strike against China. But this is no ordinary bomber – it’s flying at an altitude of 70 miles, right on the rim of space. And this is no video game; this particular war game took place in 2003 and is an annual event held at the Air Force’s Space Warfare Center at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado.

“Every year, for the last several years, a preemptive first strike is made by the U.S., and the weapon used is the military space plane,” says Bruce Gagnon, director of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.

It was Gagnon who first reported extensively on the Space Warfare Center’s war game and his interest in space weapons has not gone unnoticed. Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union discovered that NASA and the Air Force were secretly monitoring him, his family, and other members of the Global Network.

Gagnon continues to keep a close eye on America’s space-weapon lust. Since 2001, billions of defense dollars have been pumped into an already hefty space-weapon research budget. And all one has to do is look to the skies north of Los Angeles to see what Gagnon and other experts say is that weaponry in action.

 Already in 2005, an unmanned, prototype U.S. space plane called the X-37 took flight from the Mojave Airport and Spaceport just north of Lancaster. Other aircraft from the secretive X-series have also flown in the restricted Mojave skies.

“At one time, it was going to replace the Space Shuttle,” says Gagnon of the X-37, which looks like a smaller version of the Space Shuttle. That plan was scrapped. In 2004 NASA handed over the X-37 to DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and Boeing, a major aerospace player that is racing to develop space weapons with millions of taxpayer dollars.

“There are scores of Chinese articles over the last two years that mention a U.S. space bomber,” said Gregory Kulacki, Chinese specialist for the Union of Concerned Scientists, which has an office in Berkeley. “The space bomber stories also appear in more reputable sources.”

In an April flight, the X-37 took off from Mojave secured under the belly of an exotic corporate plane called the White Knight and was released from 37,000 feet. It was the space plane’s initial atmospheric “free flight” – and also its first crash. The X-37 was directed by remote control to land at Edwards Air Force Base, but overshot the landing and busted up its nose.

At first, management at Mojave bristled at any mention that military research is on the upswing within their hangers. There are no military offices at Mojave Airport and Spaceport, nor have they inked any contracts with the military, they say. But they admit that DARPA and other military personnel work onsite.

“Mojave Spaceport is a civilian aerospace test center for non-vertical launch space vehicles,” says Spaceport general manager Stuart Witt. “On occasion, small numbers of military personnel, civil servants, and contractors operate from Mojave Airport. Several tenants perform on government contracts utilizing integrated teams. In the past, DARPA and other government agencies have operated projects from [here].”

The goal is for these vehicles, or their carriers, to take off from a runway and enter space. No space plane at Mojave Spaceport has yet achieved space orbit. Instead, the civilian planes at Mojave are earning headlines, led by Scaled Composites, which built SpaceShipOne and the plane that “captive carried” it to near-orbit – the White Knight. In 2004, SpaceShipOne won the coveted $10 million X Prize, after the plane twice reached suborbital space (roughly 62 miles up) in one week.

John Haire, chief media relations officer for Edwards Air Force Base, says Mojave is not the new Area 51 – but space planes like the X-37 will continue to take off there because the Air Force needs a plane to give it a lift. “We don’t have anyone to do it but the White Knight,” he says. The local Air Force plane with captive-carry modifications, a B-52, has been retired.

When asked how many military-related projects are ongoing at Mojave, Witt said: “I can’t comment on that.”