US Navy to develop fibre lasers

Posted at: Mon Feb 6th, 2006

Within a decade the US Navy wants to develop a high-powered laser small enough to fit on a tactical combat aircraft and powerful enough to destroy fleeing ground targets, a senior service scientist said. According to Michael Deitchman, head of the Air Warfare and Weapons Department a...

NASA Seeks 30-Percent Increase for Exploration Program

Posted at: Mon Feb 6th, 2006

WASHINGTON - Efforts to replace the space shuttle fleet with new Moon-bound spacecraft would receive big spending increases under NASA's 2007 budget request, while nearly every other part of the U.S. space agency's budget would be held flat or decline.

US defence budget scraps second F-35 engine

Posted at: Mon Feb 6th, 2006

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Over Britain's objections, President George W. Bush's 2007 defence budget scraps a $2.4 billion (1.4 billion pounds) contract with General Electric and Rolls-Royce to develop a second engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a top progra...

USAF to spend $2bn on next unmanned bomber

Posted at: Mon Feb 6th, 2006

The US Air Force has set aside $2 billion over the next several years to launch the accelerated development of a next-generation bomber that is almost certain to be unmanned and unlike anything on the ramp today. At the same time, the air force continues to evaluate manned vehicle technologies, such...

Lockheed Martin's Secretly Built Airship Makes First Flight

Posted at: Mon Feb 6th, 2006

Lockheed Martin Advanced Development Projects is making perhaps the first realistic tests of a hybrid airship--a concept that dates back many decades but that is just now being tried at a significant scale. The Skunk Works had secretly built the craft and hoped for a quiet first flig...