The Internet Is Learning to Travel on Laser Beams How optical communication could connect satellites, the Moon, Mars — and eventually turn space itself into part of the internet backbone A future optical network could connect ground stations, satellites and deep-space missions through tightly focused beams of light, turning space itself into part of the communications backbone. Imagine a spacecraft somewhere beyond Mars. Its cameras can capture landscapes in extraordinary detail, its spectrometers can analyse the chemistry of another world, and its computers can store terabytes of science. The instruments are no longer the obvious bottleneck. The connection home can be. For most of the space age, the answer has been radio. Radio carried television from the Moon, still talks to probes at the edge of the Solar System, and remains one of the most reliable technologies humans have ever built. But modern spacecraft are becoming data factories. A high-resolution camera can create infor...