Cold War

West Germany did its best to introduce a jet transport that could take off and land within its own footprint. They called it the Dornier Do 31. It never ultimately made it, but damn was it a good shot.During the Cold War, the obsession with severing jet aircraft from the…

LES-5, designed by MIT, was designed to pioneer satellite communications.The satellite operated from 1967 to 1971, when it was decommissioned. In March 2020, the satellite was rediscovered in geosynchronous orbit, still broadcasting nearly fifty years after it was retired. An amateur radio hobbyist has zeroed in on the signal of…

It is tempting to think of analogue and digital domains as entirely distinct, never to touch each other except like a cold war Checkpoint Charlie, through the medium of an ADC or DAC. In reality there are plenty of analogue effects upon digital circuitry which designers must be aware of,…

A new book captures the pioneering, propaganda-infused visions of mid-20th-century Soviet space explorationYuri Gagarin: Let’s Go! Illustration by S. Alimov in Outlook, No. 4; 1976. The magazine’s accompanying “flexi disc” record began with a track by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin entitled “Planet Earth Is Beautiful.” Credit: Phaidon and the Moscow Design…

When the Air Force asked hackers to break into a F-15 fighter jet at last year’s DEF CON security conference, the results were both eye-opening and eye-watering. It was the first time hackers were allowed to work on the system to look for bugs. In just two days, a team…

Sylvain Gaboury/Getty Images Jim Simons' Renaissance Technologies posted a 39% gain before fees at its flagship Medallion fund this year through April 14, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Cold War codebreaker's hedge fund scored almost a 10% gain in March, outperforming most of its rivals. However, Renaissance's equity fund…

Iain Ballantyne’s book Hunter Killers is a true story of men, submarines, great nations and unforgiving seas. The impeccably-researched, swiftly-paced yarn follows a small band of Royal Navy submarine officers serving aboard a succession of increasingly sophisticated undersea vessels on the chilly front lines of the Cold War. At its…

When President Donald Trump declared a national emergency last month, as the coronavirus outbreak worsened, he deployed language familiar and perhaps oddly comforting to many Americans. Designating himself “a wartime president,” Trump likened the country’s COVID-19 response to the U.S.’s mobilization during World War II. “Every generation of Americans has…

An Antonov An-225 Mriya. GLEB GARANICH/Reuters The Antonov An-225 is the world's largest cargo plane, armed with six engines and a massive cargo hold.After a two-year stay in maintenance, the Ukrainian-built aircraft is now sky-bound once again and its first flight was a COVID-19 mission between China and Europe. The Soviet…

Whale sharks can potentially live for over 100 years. Image Credit: CC BY-SA 4.0 Abe Khao Lak Scientists have found a way to determine how old whale sharks are using the fallout from atomic bomb testing. Measuring up to 62ft in length, these giants of the deep are regarded to…