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The story behind the New York Times’ 1903 claim that human flight was between one and ten million years away is even worse than it looks. Once you understand the backstory, you realize that the New York Times story is not really about flight at all but about how elites and credentialed “experts” mistake their own failures for the boundaries of possibility. The New York Times did not dismiss the possibility of powered flight at random. There was a very specific reason behind it. At the time, America’s most prominent scientific authority, Smithsonian Secretary Samuel Langley, had been showered with...

The new century will see a renaissance of space exploration as exciting and as challenging as the space race of the 1960’s. And this rebirth will happen under the banner of freedom and private property, the very principles for which the United States fought the Cold War. [predicted in my 1998 book - Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, p. 263]. More than any other moment since the launch of Sputnik in 1957, the future of the human race’s effort to explore and settle the solar system is right now shining bright and hopeful, with everything converging enthusiastically in a...

RUBAYA, Democratic Republic of Congo - Under the watchful eye of M23 rebels in the hills around the Congolese town of Rubaya, a line of men in rubber boots ferry sacks full of crushed rocks up winding paths cut into the slopes.The laborers are hauling coltan ore, a mineral that powers the modern world. The ore will be loaded onto motorbikes and eventually shipped thousands of kilometers away to Asia. There it’s processed into tantalum, a heat-resistant metal that fetches more than $300 a kilogram and is in high demand by makers of mobile phones, computers, aerospace components and gas...

Financed by JPMorgan, Jointly Owned by US DoD Under the plan, the U.S. Department of Defense will hold a 40% stake in the JPM Financed smelter joint-venture. GFN – WASHINGTON: Korea Zinc plans a $7.4 billion investment to construct a large-scale non-ferrous metals smelter in Clarksville, Tennessee, a project U.S. officials say will materially expand domestic critical minerals processing capacity and strengthen supply chain security.1 The project, known as the “U.S. Smelter,” is expected to require approximately $6.6 billion in capital expenditures, with total investment reaching $7.4 billion including financing costs. It is being developed in coordination with the U.S....

The United States has publicly confirmed for the first time that it has weapons deployed in orbit. The revelation could accelerate spending on missile defense, military satellites and space security, creating opportunities for defense stocks and space ETFs while raising the risk of a costly new arms race. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink delivered the news almost casually during the Air, Space & Cyber Conference in Maryland. “We are increasing readiness against existing threats, and the United States has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action,” Meink said. Then the details stopped. Meink...

When people think about rocket fuels, they don't think of water at the top of their list, but water has been a key material in many serious studies on exploring the solar system and refueling in space. And it turns out that water electrolysis propulsion makes engineering sense for many applications. Using Water As Rocket Fuel - Is This The Future of Space Exploration? | 20:13 Scott Manley | 1.87M subscribers | 24,669 views | August 13, 2026

A Sukhoi Superjet 100 performing a demonstration flight for media, airline and aviation personnel with 46 people onboard crashed near a mountain in Indonesia on Wednesday. Their fate was not immediately known, as a search and rescue operation had to be called off due to bad weather. Contact with the 100-seat jet (registration RA-97004) was lost about 20 minutes after takeoff from Halim Perdanakusuma Airport in Jakarta, according to early reports. An official told Reuters that that radio contact was lost with the plane after it descended from 10,000 feet to 6,000 feet. It disappeared from radar near the 7,200-ft...

A flying taxi took a spin over San Francisco Thursday — and the Bay Area’s tech crowd was there to watch. The small electric aircraft from Joby Aviation flew across San Francisco Bay near the Golden Gate Bridge during a demonstration flight that drew reporters and industry guests to the St. Francis Yacht Club. The flight is part of the company’s push to launch electric air taxis — small vertical takeoff planes designed to carry passengers on short trips of roughly 10 to 50 miles. Joby’s aircraft seats four passengers and uses six propellers. The company says rides could cost...

An analysis released by Google this month showed that the U.S. defense industrial base—a network of public and private entities used to develop or maintain military weapons systems—has sustained cyberattacks from groups and criminal organizations from China, Russia, and North Korea in recent months.The report, released on Feb. 10 by Google Threat Intelligence, found that the Chinese regime and associated groups continue “to represent by volume the most active threat to entities in the defense industrial base,” which it said can pose “significant risk to the defense and aerospace sector.”Google’s report added that it “has observed more China-nexus cyber espionage...

WASHINGTON — On most days now, Mahdi Obeidi rides his new mountain bike, plays with his grandkids and works on getting a U.S. patent for technology he originally developed to build a nuclear bomb for Saddam Hussein. Obeidi, who headed Hussein's uranium enrichment program until it was shut down in 1991, is the only Iraqi weapons scientist that the CIA is known to have brought to the United States after the invasion last year. The CIA also flew eight of his family members here in August 2003 and secretly set them up in three adjoining apartments in a leafy Virginia...

From a distance, it looks like a war plane imagined by Hayao Miyazaki, or the type of machine that could only exist in a science fiction novel. But according to aviation enthusiasts who captured footage of it soaring in the California skies last week, it’s an experimental aircraft designed by Stratolaunch, an aerospace company located in the Mojave Desert. Chances are, residents in surrounding towns will see more of it, too. Described as the world’s largest flying aircraft, Roc — which looks like two 747s fused together and has a wingspan larger than a football field — recently completed a...

Israel-Iran Shadow War on Verge of Exploding Into the Open By Sri Lanka Guardian •June 10, 2022 •Espionage feature World View •Comments : 0 Iran removing UN monitoring cameras, poised to move troops into Syria by Jonathan Broder On the evening of May 31 in the central Iranian city of Yazd, an Iranian aerospace engineer was returning home from dinner with a colleague when he suddenly felt ill and collapsed into unconsciousness. Ayub Entezari was rushed to hospital, where he died after several unsuccessful attempts to resuscitate him, according to an Iranian opposition media outlet. The cause of Entezari’s death:...

Here's What You Need To Remember: Though the Pentagon admitted to the existence of a stealth jet in 1983, the secrecy surrounding the F-117 was so effective that the public never had any inkling of the Nighthawk’s true appearance, nor even its designation (widely believed to be the “F-19”) until was finally unveiled in 1988.

Haim Eshed, 87, former director of space programs for the Israel Ministry of Defense for nearly 30 years said the U.S. and Israel have been in contact with alien life forms representing a “galactic federation,” and President Donald Trump knows about it. Eshed told Israel's Yediot Aharonot newspaper that “humanity is not ready,” for the public disclosure of extraterrestrials who he claims currently are in talks with government agencies on our planet. "There is an agreement between the U.S. government and the aliens. They signed a contract with us to do experiments here," he said. Parts of the interview were...

6/22/04 - NEWARK, NJ) — A man was arrested Tuesday and charged with trying to sell parts for sophisticated military fighter jets to Iran without a license. Hamid M. Butt, 71, formerly of Humble, Texas, was arrested Tuesday afternoon after getting off a flight from Malaysia that had landed at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Christie said. A Pakistani native, Butt had been living in Malaysia for several years, and was arrested upon his return to the United States. He also is a naturalized U.S. citizen, authorities said. The criminal complaint against Butt was signed...

Russian scientists say they’ve built a new kind of engine that could cut the trip to Mars down to just one month. A working prototype already exists, and it’s unlike anything currently used in space. ============================================================= Russia’s New Plasma Engine. Credit: IZVESTIA/Sergey Lantyukhov | The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel ============================================================= A new propulsion system developed by Russian scientists is generating buzz in the spaceflight community. According to researchers from Rosatom’s Troitsk Institute, a laboratory-tested magnetoplasma engine could make it possible to travel from Earth to Mars in as little as one to two months—a significant leap from today’s six-...

Beale Air Force Base, Calif. – On the evening of July 31st, a TU-2S Dragon Lady from the 9th Reconnaissance Wing took off from Beale Air Force Base (AFB) to begin a flight unlike any the U-2 airframe had done before. Seventy years after the very first Lockheed U-2 Dragon Lady’s accidental maiden flight in 1955 by Tony LeVier over Groom Lake, Nevada, the U-2 would finish the longest single flight this platform had ever attempted, flying across all 48 contiguous states of the United States. An icon of the Cold War, the U-2 continues to provide high altitude intelligence,...

The U.S. made a massive strategic mistake by choosing the sleek F-35 over the “ugly” but brilliant Boeing X-32 in the Joint Strike Fighter competition. While unconventional in appearance, the X-32 was designed for simplicity, affordability, and manufacturing efficiency—qualities better suited for a long-term great power conflict.

A major funding battle has erupted between the U.S. Navy and the White House over the future of naval aviation. The Trump administration has officially prioritized the Air Force’s F-47 sixth-generation fighter, arguing the U.S. industrial base cannot support the simultaneous development of the Navy’s F/A-XX program.

A pair of switches that control the fuel supply to the engines were set to "cutoff" moments before the crash of Air India Flight 171, according to a preliminary report from India's Air Accident Investigation Bureau released early Saturday in India. A total of 260 people were killed when the Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed shortly after it took off from Ahmedabad last month. Indian investigators determined the jet was properly configured and lifted off normally. But three seconds after takeoff, the engines' fuel switches were cut off. It's not clear why. According to the report, data from the flight recorders...