necessary e-mail the coordinates to a bomber or weapon platform hovering overhead while the commander, hundreds of miles away, watches as the events unfold on a monitor. This high-speed communication is facilitated by a separate internet created by the military for the military. Communication satellites hold this system together by creating an informational grid over the given theatre of operations. The Department of Defense is currently working to establish a Global Information Grid to connect all military units and branches into a computerised network in order to share information and create a more efficient military. Military spaceplanes It was revealed that Soviet officials were concerned that the US Space Shuttle program had such military objectives such as to make a sudden dive into the atmosphere to drop bombs on Moscow and these concerns were part of the motivation behind pursuing their own Buran programme. The NASA uncrewed spaceplane project X-37 was transferred to the US Department of Defense in 2004. It is unclear what its military mission would be. The X-37 is akin to a space version of Unmanned aerial vehicle. Weapons in space Space weapons are weapons used in space warfare. They include weapons that can attack space systems in orbit (i.e. anti-satellite weapons), attack targets on the earth from space or disable missiles travelling through space. In the course of the militarisation of space, such weapons were developed mainly by the contesting superpowers during the Cold War, and some remain under development today. Space weapons are also a central theme in military science fiction and sci-fi video games. Terrestrial-type weapons in space The Soviet space station Salyut 3 was fitted with a 23mm cannon, which was successfully test fired at target satellites, at ranges from . As of 2008, it was reported that Russian cosmonauts have regularly carried the TP-82 Cosmonaut survival pistol on Soyuz spacecraft, as part of the emergency landing survival kit. The intent of the weapon is to protect cosmonauts from wild animals in the event of an off-course wilderness landing. The specially designed gun is capable of firing bullets, shotgun shells, or flares. High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulses (HEMP) A high-altitude electromagnetic pulse is a result of an atmospheric nuclear explosion, as demonstrated by the United States’ Starfish Prime and the Soviet Union’s Nuclear Test 184. Though such explosions lack the usual damage caused by nuclear explosions such as physical damage and radioactive fallout, ensuing HEMPs