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Air & Space Magazine

Emptying into the Arctic Ocean, the 2,800-mile-long Lena River in Siberia forms one of the world’s largest deltas.

Earth’s Mirror

Landsat shows us the home planet, warts and all.

The British Aircraft Corporation TSR-2 was to have been a supersonic bomber that would have dashed in under the Soviet Union’s radar to deliver nuclear weapons. Taking off from Wiltshire, England, the TSR-2 eventually pushed past Mach 1 but had to fly its first nine tests gear down.

Britain’s High-Mach Heartbreak

The TSR-2 bomber was a case of aeronautical genius foiled by political foolishness.

An MQ-9 Reaper in its lair at Balad, Iraq, 2008. A bigger, badder Predator, the MQ-9 has a turboprop engine and Y-shaped tail and can carry almost 4,000 pounds of ordnance.

The Man Who Invented the Predator

Before he designed the world’s most feared drone, Abraham Karem was just trying to get a robot to stay in the air

The author, in his salad days, having graduated from the F-4S to the F/A-18D.

“Back in the Old Marine Corps…”

John Scanlan goes back in time.

Would orbiting a spot in empty space, 15 percent farther from home than the Apollo astronauts ventured, be too much of a stretch for NASA, or too little? One big advantage is that it could be done soon, with equipment already under construction.

NASA Aims to go Beyond the Moon

It’s not a place, exactly. But it could be NASA’s next destination.

Model of a supersonic transport, circa late 1960s.

The Titanium Gambit

During the Cold War, Boeing execs got a strange call from the State Department: Would you guys mind trading secrets with the Russians?

Soldiers place a wounded sergeant aboard a MEDEVAC flight in Iraq’s Diyala province in October 2008.

Transporting the Wounded in Iraq

This time it wasn’t a false alarm.

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In a Throw-Away Culture, What Lasts?

Airplanes

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Massive Star Mystery

A B-2 Spirit lifts off from Whiteman Air Force Base during an exercise in 2012.

How often does the B-2 fly?

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On Those FAA Tower Closures

Bad news for air traffic controllers, but the traveling public and small aircraft pilots should see little impact

Area 51: Origins

America’s once-secret air base had humble beginnings

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Shenzhou’s Pigs In Space

As far as we know, Captain Link Hogthrob remains the first porcine astronaut

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Sharper Universe Baby Pictures

The Planck mission gets new information about the early universe.

Built with the area rule in mind, the narrow-waisted Convair F-106 Delta Dart was the U.S. Air Force’s main interceptor from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Why Don’t Today’s Fighters Have Narrow Waists?

Richard Whitcomb and the Area Rule.

Adam Steltzner (center) and team await the good news from their Mars lander last August.

Special Delivery

The team that landed Curiosity on Mars takes home a trophy.

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Soyuz Express

The next Space Station crew will take the quick route to orbit.

Want a Jupiter missile rocket engine?

Free to Good Homes

The National Air and Space Museum holds its version of a yard sale

Canaveral Junior

Wallops Island gets ready for the big time

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The World’s Smallest SST

Tiny scale models helped engineers solve big problems. 

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