The Wright Flyer took off in 1903 powered by a measly 12 horsepower straight-four. Little did Orville and Wilbur know that just 110 years later, their pokey engines would eventually lead to a power plant with more horsepower than The Titanic and Shepard’s Mercury-Redstone 3—combined.
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President John F. Kennedy had numerous brushes with death before an assassin’s bullet ended his life 50 years ago today. Sickly throughout a childhood he wasn’t expected to survive, JFK had to leverage his family’s considerable political influence just to "pass" his Navy physical. And while serving in the South Pacific during World War II he once again narrowly escaped death aboard the most effective fast attack craft of the era: the Patrol Torpedo boat.
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The answer to designing ships that are both fast and stable has traditionally been to make the vessels as narrow as possible (to reduce drag) and sit them lower in the water (to reduce the buffeting effects of plowing through waves). But US Navy’s M80 Stiletto is not your typical ship.
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Typhoon Haiyan, the most powerful storm on record, bludgeoned the Philippines last week with 235 mph gusting winds and 50 foot tall waves. By current estimates, the storm’s fury has impacted 6.9 million people in 41 provinces, taken countless lives, and razed more that 150,000 homes, entire towns simply washed away by the tides.
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By the end of WWII, the basics of helicopter technology as we know it had generally been worked out—and we’d begun to reach the aircraft’s physical limitations. For the US Air Force, the solution to the issue running up against these performance walls was simple: Combine the best parts of a helicopter and jet together, creating the chimeric delta-wing Convertiplane.
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Quests for scientific knowledge and military superiority often go hand-in-hand. And nowhere is that more exemplified than in the nuclear-powered NR-1 research vessel. When it wasn’t busy exploring the wonders of the deep ocean, its crew engaged the Soviet Union in a dangerous cat-and-mouse game of sub-sea espionage—much of which is veiled in secrecy even today.
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Over the past four decades, the field of astrophysics has enjoyed a pair of massive technological advances. First, we jumped from archaic photographic plates that relied on chemical emulsions to charge couple devices (CCDs). Now, the transition from CCDs to hyperspectral imaging devices that utilize exotic superconducting materials could change how we see the stars forever.
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As the pace of robotic integration into the modern workforce continues to increase, automatons are finding their way into an ever wider variety of industries. Already making an impact in the agricultural sector
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So what if your super-yacht has a laser shield, heliport, and discotheques
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Soviet engineering is often derided as effective but crude and simplistic, but that’s a bum rap. The USSR produced a number of technologies that were as visually arresting as they were effective. Just look at the sleek, humongous, flying hammerhead named Ekranoplan.
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This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
