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It's been a while since I contributed here, so let's get the ball rolling again! ... Never-Seen Photos Of Boeing's 1960s Stealth Jet Concept That Predicted The Future For years, all the aviation world knew about Boeing’s secret stealth project from the 1960s was limited to a name and a...

"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated" - The US Space program The US has a long and storied history in space, I'm starting a thread to document its past and chronicle its future. This thread will be a mixture of pictures, historical events, ongoing and future projects and...

US forces use some unique techniques to train soldiers to use shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles against enemy aircraft. So how do the crews in the sky learn to defeat similar threats? Enter the Man Portable Survivability Trainer (MAST), the shoulder fired missile simulator of the future...

Everyone saw the USS Annapolis come home last year. It returned, poignantly, on Sept. 11, and there was a seriousness amid the usual dockside fanfare—sailors meeting newborn children for the first time, a school band playing "Anchors Aweigh." But there was no mention of the boat's secret...

Counter-electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project The U.S. Air Force has been turning old cruise missiles into computer-destroying weapons of mass disruption. It’s known as CHAMP, or the Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project. Designed to conduct...

Lockheed has a new modular sensor system for combat aircraft dubbed the "Legion Pod" that aims at plugging a major hole in US air warfare capability. It provides a bolt-on Infrared Search and Track (IRST) system for optically hunting down enemy aircraft, especially stealthy ones, that our radars...

BLU-114/B The BLU-114/B is a special-purpose munition for attacking electrical power infrastructure. Although very little is known about this highly classified weapon, reportedly it functions by dispensing a number of submunitions which in turn disperse large numbers of chemically treated...

*not all of the pictures are of LPD-26 The Navy will christen the amphibious transport dock John P. Murtha (LPD-26) tomorrow at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss. The tenth ship in the class is named after Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), who served 37 years in the Marine Corps and 36...

Late last year, a new volcanic island formed in the South Pacific. Located about 40 miles (65 km) from the region's main island of Tongatapu, the island could become Tonga's latest tourist attraction. But scientists warn it could still be unstable and dangerous. This past weekend, hotel owner...

In the late 1990s the US Coast Guard was constantly being outrun by cartels 'go-fast' drug smuggling boats. Enter a secret program dubbed "New Frontier" that saw the use of a new breed of helicopters and interceptor boats, launched from cutters far out at sea, that aimed to fight the enemy's...

Scientists Have Just Invented Synthetic Chameleon Skin It's been a big week for chameleons. On Tuesday, scientists announced they'd worked out the secret to the cross-eyed lizard's color changing skin. A day later came the announcement that we'd replicated the skin artificially. Chameleons...

A quartet of satellites launched tonight, the Magnetospheric Multiscale observatories. The four identical satellites will observe and measure magnetic reconnection, the explosive moment when mismatched magnetic fields connect, realign, and reconnect in a new configuration. The four identical...

Even some military aficionados would be surprised to know that the Navy has dedicated special operations helicopters squadrons. The Air Force's Pave Hawk and Osprey communities and the Army's notorious Night Stalkers take up much of the limelight. But now, the Navy's two reclusive squadrons are...

SEALion II For about a decade there have been sightings of some very peculiar high-speed watercraft patrolling up and down the Columbia River between Portland and Vancouver. It just so happens that these phantom vessels are some of the US Navy SEALs newest toys. The origin of these boats...

Humans have asked where we come from for thousands of years, across all cultures. But only recently have we started to address the mystery of the evolution of the human brain — the organ that's the source of those existential questions, not to mention our evolutionary success itself. Our brains...

Hey guys!!! I often find myself confronted with something interesting, but don't feel it deserves its own thread. So I'm starting a thread, that I will be updating daily, dedicated to things that are interesting but don't need their own threads due to their lack of length or depth. Micro stories...

To understand America's first jet bomber, the XB-43 Jetmaster, you have to understand the XB-42 Mixmaster, an aircraft that was equally as impressive and even more exotic. Even though neither of these amazing aircraft made it to the front lines, many of their unique innovations and lessons...

Knowledge is the key to survival when nature turns hostile, whether because we're living on trembling ground, building homes along vulnerable coasts, or navigating through dangerous water. That's why scientists study nature's greatest acts of destruction — by recreating them. Here are ten labs...

Introduction Antisubmarine warfare, with the exception of fixed systems such as arrays of underwater hydrophones, is waged by various mobile antisubmarine craft: surface, airborne, and undersea. It is imperative that the officers and men of each type of antisubmarine force understand the...

Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey told me not to buy an Oculus Rift. That was two years ago, and he's repeated the plea every time I've seen him since. Don't buy it. It's not ready. It's just a developer kit. He's right, but I'm tired of waiting. I want a VR headset and I want it now. So I built...