Planemakers are trying to hatch an aircraft that no mogul could do without. Get ready for the supersonic business jet.
A mostly wooden Northrop flying wing built during World War II returns to the skies.
The engineering and physics of the huge double-decker Airbus A380 jetliner.
Bird of Prey, a radical aircraft secretly developed by Boeing, provides a rare glimpse into the veiled business of stealth technology.
Amazing machines are helping build carbon-composite parts for jetliners and rocketships.
An ingenious NASA engineer fixes a tape recorder orbiting Jupiter aboard the Galileo space probe.
Ben Rich, the former president of Lockheed’s fabled Skunk Works, recounts his career building secret military aircraft.
The Air Force must choose between two advanced fighter-plane prototypes to replace the F-15. Each can fly at supersonic speed without afterburners.
Scramjet engines will propel the X-30 National Aerospace Plane, designed to fly into orbit at 17,500 miles per hour.
Launched from an airliner’s underbelly, the Pegasus rocket uses a delta-shaped wing to aim itself out of the atmosphere.
Earthquake instruments in Southern California registered a big sonic boom. Whatever triggered the airquake wasn’t the Space Shuttle.
A trip to the fencelines of Area 51, the secret Nevada airbase where the military goes when it wants to be left alone.
Inside the ill-fated plan to fly a novel balloon around the world.
A solar-electric drone aircraft makes history by flying through the night without landing.
It could be pointy like the Concorde, or an oblique flying wing that looks like a surfboard.
There are plenty of ideas for a cheaper alternative to the Space Shuttle.
AeroVironment’s Pathfinder is a solar-powered flying wing with eight propellers. Its goal is to fly for months at a time.
These brave pilots fly into the range of hostile anti-aircraft missiles, taunting them to kill them.
Biopharma companies know how to make cool stuff.�Now they are learning how to make a lot of it.
Building DNA chips using tricks from nanotech and bioinformatics, a startup aims to cash in on the genomics revolution.
Bugs that eat sugar and poop polymers are replacing oil-based plastics.
Canada’s Iogen is learning how to make ethanol from straw instead of corn.
When it tried to roll out a hemophilia drug, Bayer learned the hard way that its factory wasn’t as good as its labs.
Scientists are conducting sophisticated chemistry in the tiny world of microfluidics.
How a state agency ruling on climate change could force Detroit to spend billions.
A pair of human-powered watercraft vie for the title of fastest.
Taking a spin in Honda’s beetle-like solar electric race car.
Hybrid gasoline-electric cars are trendy, but are they a business?
Canada’s Iogen is learning how to make ethanol from straw instead of corn.
A solar-electric drone aircraft makes history by flying through the night without landing.
They’re shoveling money into a revolutionary power system that’s surrounded with uncertainties.
An electric car is only as good as its battery—and that’s the problem.
Nuclear electricity generation begins to look—of all things—green.
Connecting nuke plants with superconducting cables could make a whole new grid. Plus some hydrogen.
Instead of riveting parts together, companies are using ultrafast metal-cutting machines to sculpt them.
Burning, wind-lashing, and drenching are all in a day’s work in the cavernous test chambers of insurer FM Global. The objective: Unmask�the secrets of disasters.
These new plants do more than assemble vehicles. They also jazz up public image.
Super-accurate linear electric motors move delicate electronics bits around in assembly plants and increase the agility of metalcutting machines tenfold.
The engineering and physics of the huge double-decker Airbus A380 jetliner.
Bugs that eat sugar and poop polymers are replacing oil-based plastics.
Amazing machines are helping build carbon-composite parts for jetliners and rocketships.
Gigantic simulation programs running on fast computers are moving crash safety fast forward.
When it tried to roll out a hemophilia drug, Bayer learned the hard way that its factory wasn’t as good as its labs.
An electric car is only as good as its battery—and that’s the problem.
Scientists are conducting sophisticated chemistry in the tiny world of microfluidics.
Manufacturing advances are bringing the cost of flat TVs way down.
Amazingly tiny silicon machines are triggering automobile airbags, projecting brighter pictures, and switching optical phone signals.
A housing tycoon has brought Triumph, one of England’s many defunct motorcycle makers, back to life.
Stereolithography, an ingenious rapid-prototyping method, is turbocharging product development.
Some people really want to see their cars being built. So they go to the factory.
Computer chips double in speed every two years. Credit goes to the miniaturization wizards at the fabs.
The Japanese automaker is putting the finishing touches on a new strategy: being able to build almost anything, anywhere.
Launched from an airliner’s underbelly, the Pegasus rocket uses a delta-shaped wing to aim itself out of the atmosphere.
A mostly wooden Northrop flying wing built during World War II returns to the skies.
A mostly wooden Northrop flying wing built during World War II returns to the skies.
A trip to the fencelines of Area 51, the secret Nevada airbase where the military goes when it wants to be left alone.
Bird of Prey, a radical aircraft secretly developed by Boeing, provides a rare glimpse into the veiled business of stealth technology.
Designers roll out an armored successor for the Humvee.
Amazing machines are helping build carbon-composite parts for jetliners and rocketships.
The military aims to double the thrust of jet engines.
A trek through the cactus gardens of Baja California in the rugged Hummer.
Ben Rich, the former president of Lockheed’s fabled Skunk Works, recounts his career building secret military aircraft.
An experiment in seagoing stealth glides out of the black
The Air Force must choose between two advanced fighter-plane prototypes to replace the F-15. Each can fly at supersonic speed without afterburners.
On the frontier of artificial intelligence, mobs of cheap robots collaborate like ants in a colony or bees in a hive.
Cold War spy technology could become the world�s largest ocean thermometer to measure global warming. But will the residents object?
These brave pilots fly into the range of hostile anti-aircraft missiles, taunting them to kill them.
Scramjet engines will propel the X-30 National Aerospace Plane, designed to fly into orbit at 17,500 miles per hour.
These new plants do more than assemble vehicles. They also jazz up public image.
This fuel-saving transmission is going into a new Saturn SUV, among other vehicles. At its heart is a very special belt that pushes instead of pulling.
This time they built one that goes, stops and handles – appeals to riders across the Atlantic.
Whole body-scanners at airports may thwart terrorist attacks. They give some travelers the creeps.
High-speed trains are coming to the U.S. They may not all run on rails.
A mostly wooden Northrop flying wing built during World War II returns to the skies.
Designers roll out an armored successor for the Humvee.
How a state agency ruling on climate change could force Detroit to spend billions.
Amazing machines are helping build carbon-composite parts for jetliners and rocketships.
Gigantic simulation programs running on fast computers are moving crash safety fast forward.
A pair of human-powered watercraft vie for the title of fastest.
Taking a spin in Honda’s beetle-like solar electric race car.
Hybrid gasoline-electric cars are trendy, but are they a business?
Inside the ill-fated plan to fly a novel balloon around the world.
They’re shoveling money into a revolutionary power system that�s surrounded by uncertainties.
A trek through the cactus gardens of Baja California in the rugged Hummer.
An electric car is only as good as its battery—and that’s the problem.
An experiment in seagoing stealth glides out of the black.
A venerable Italian motorcycle maker rebounds with updated bikes.
A housing tycoon has brought Triumph, one of England’s many defunct motorcycle makers, back to life.
A mostly wooden Northrop flying wing built during World War II returns to the skies.
Some people really want to see their cars being built. So they go to the factory.
General Motors’ solar-electric car crosses Oz on no fuel.
Connecting nuke plants with superconducting cables could make a whole new grid. Plus some hydrogen.
The Japanese automaker is putting the finishing touches on a new strategy: being able to build almost anything, anywhere.
Two masts and three self-adjusting underwater wings make for one rapid hydrofoil.
Burning, wind-lashing, and drenching are all in a day’s work in the cavernous test chambers of insurer FM Global. The objective: Unmask�the secrets of disasters.
A new generation of industrial robots can strip paint off ship hulls, inspect buried gas mains, cross trackless deserts, and even mow the grass.
Earthquake instruments in Southern California registered a big sonic boom. Whatever triggered the airquake wasn’t the Space Shuttle.
A trip to the fencelines of Area 51, the secret Nevada airbase where the military goes when it wants to be left alone.
A pair of human-powered watercraft vie for the title of fastest.
Multi-touch computer screens let users collaborate with no mouse.
Sifting gigantic databases against each other reveals useful patterns that wouldn’t have been apparent.
Dentists still use this oldtimey material, which has also been essential to the development of golf balls and transoceanic telephone cables.
An ingenious NASA engineer fixes a tape recorder orbiting Jupiter aboard the Galileo space probe.
Anticipated for decades, machines are finally displaying real objects in three true dimensions.
Imagine a machine that will take any object you put in it�anything at all�and reduce it to a cloud of atoms.
Cold War spy technology could become the world�s largest ocean thermometer to measure global warming. But will the residents object?
Two masts and three self-adjusting underwater wings make for one rapid hydrofoil.