News
The Forgotten Final Chapter of the SR-71 Blackbird
47+ min ago (85+ words) In its final years, the SR-71 Blackbird carried a half-scale rocket engine meant for the Space Shuttle's replacement. It never lit in flight. Twenty-six years later, a German startup flew the same engine....
High-Energy Lasers: The U. S. Military Wants New 500-k W Systems for Cruise Missile Defense Against Iran, Russia, and China
2+ hour, 44+ min ago (369+ words) JLWS, run by the Pentagon's research and engineering directorate under its Scaled Directed Energy initiative, buys containerized high-energy lasers designed to bolt onto ground vehicles and warships alike and deploy quickly to any theater. The first prototypes will generate roughly…...
The nearest world that might host life is just 4. 2 light-years away " but at the speed of the fastest spacecraft humanity has ever flown, the trip would take 75, 000 years, and the one serious plan to go faster has quietly collapsed
18+ hour, 3+ min ago (51+ words) The Alpha Centauri system holds a confirmed Earth-mass planet in the habitable zone just 4. 2 light-years away " but at 17 kilometers per second, the fastest we have ever flown, the trip takes 75, 000 years, and the one plan to cut it to 20 years…...
France Just Started Building a $12 Billion Nuclear Supercarrier Designed Around a Sixth-Generation Fighter. Three Months Later, That Fighter Died
19+ hour, 24+ min ago (64+ words) France is building the France Libre, an 80, 000-ton nuclear supercarrier, around a sixth-generation stealth fighter whose development program collapsed in June 2026 without a prototype ever flying....
On November 18, 2026, Voyager 1 becomes the first thing humanity has ever built to sit a full light-day away " a full day for any signal to reach it.
19+ hour, 52+ min ago (327+ words) On November 18, 2026, Voyager 1 becomes the first human-made object a full light-day from Earth " a distance so vast that a radio command takes 24 hours to reach it and any reply takes another day. Nearly 50 years out, it is still the only…...
A NASA space telescope is falling out of the sky, and to save it the agency skipped its own contractors and handed the job to a four-year-old startup that had never flown a spacecraft " nine months and $30 million after its own $2 billion rescue program collapsed.
22+ hour, 52+ min ago (1032+ words) Harry J. Kazianis (@Grecianformula) is Editor-In-Chief of 19 Forty Five and National Security Journal. Kazianis recently served as Senior Director of National Security Affairs at the Center for the National Interest. He also served as Executive Editor of its publishing arm, The…...
Germany's Type 212 CD: The Submarine That Looks Like a Stealth Fighter That Can Shoot Down the Helicopters Hunting It
1+ day, 10+ min ago (22+ words) Canada just bought a submarine that does the impossible " firing from the deep to kill the helicopter hunting it, without ever surfacing....
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, launching in 2026, is expected to find around 100, 000 planets beyond our solar system in a single mission " after nearly 30 years of searching, astronomers have confirmed roughly 6, 000.
2+ day, 19+ hour ago (386+ words) NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, launching in 2026, could discover around 100, 000 planets beyond our solar system in a single mission " a staggering number, given that nearly 30 years of searching has confirmed only about 6, 000. It will also map dark energy and…...
China Just Flew a Jet-Powered Drone 'Aircraft Carrier' Mothership That Can Launch 100 Smaller Drones at Once
2+ day, 23+ hour ago (551+ words) The jet-powered Jiutian carries 100 drones, eight weapon hardpoints, and a 4, 000-mile range. It just completed its first flight in Shaanxi....
Mars once had rivers, lakes, and possibly oceans, and it lost all of them for one reason " its molten core cooled, its magnetic field died, and the solar wind stripped the planet's air into space.
3+ day, 14+ hour ago (432+ words) Mars once had rivers, lakes, and possibly oceans. It lost them because its small core cooled early, shutting down the magnetic field that shielded the planet " and once that shield was gone, the solar wind stripped away most of Mars's…...