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Half a century ago today, President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s signature made it official: The 43-year-old, highfalutin National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was ready for rebirth. With $100 million and a couple of high-powered labs, NASA would be here to stay. As decreed by the National Aeronautics and Space Act, the agency was to “seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space.“And has it ever....

Two days after Iran launched its Safir-2 rocket, on the 30th anniversary of the country’s Islamic Revolution, many are speculating as to what sort of weapons-ready technology president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad now possesses. Iran claims to be merely celebrating the technological achievement of Omid-1, which means “hope” in Farsi, putting them on par with the United States, Europe, Russia, China, Japan, India and Israel—the only countries to independently launch spacecraft into Earth orbit....

Update, Thursday, 6 PM ET: Foxtrot Alpha reports that the Falcon in the crash was an Iraqi Air Force F-16D, the first one delivered to the Arizona Air National Guard with Iraqi colors.Update, Thursday, 11 AM ET: The AP is reporting that the F-16’s pilot was an Iraqi who’d been training in the U.S. for four years. That’s according to Brig. Gen. Tahseen Ibrahim, a spokesperson for the Iraqi Defense Ministry....

Media Platforms Design TeamA team of astrophysicists at the SETI Institute and NASA’s Ames Research Center has just reached a major milestone in the search for life-supporting planets outside our solar system. For the first time, they have nestled in the temperate, liquid-water supporting distance from its star—the so-called habitable zone.discovered an Earth-sized planet"This is a historic discovery," says Geoff Marcy, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley who was not involved in the research, “it’s the best case for a habitable planet yet found....

Media Platforms Design TeamHidden in the framework of a classic New England covered bridge in ­Pittsford, Vt., there is a Tupperware container with a surprise inside. I know this because I put it there. That Tupperware container is a geocache, and, along with the surprise, it has a few standard contents—a logbook, a Travel Bug and a Chirp radio beacon. If you know what those things are, then you have already been initiated into the geocaching community....

The whine of the power plant sounds like a jet engine as refrigerant blasts through the turbine at 1000 mph. Though the equipment is compact, the din fills the vast hangar, and mechanical engineer Gwen Holdmann has to shout to be heard: “What you see here is very Alaskan. It’s not painted. It’s not pretty. But it’s real.” I place my hand on the steel door capping the plant’s evaporator; it’s warm to the touch, filled with Alaska’s most promising new energy source–plain water....

The Strong Museum in Rochester, NY has a new project in the works: the National Video Game Hall of Fame, set as a sort of companion to the National Toy Hall of Fame. Video games have been a household fixture for 40 years now, and the museum will honor that legacy by taking nominations from across video game systems—console, mobile, computer, arcade game, or even a stand-alone device like “Pong.” Seriously, only a monster wouldn’t vote for “Pong....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhen James Bond wanted to track Goldfinger, he pushed a button on his Aston Martin’s dash and watched his prey’s every move on a primitive portrayal of a GPS map. Now, 42 years later, Q’s technology is making a comeback: So-called ‘friend finder’ services are finally becoming widespread—at least enough for the NYTimes Circuits sectionto pick up on the trend. We covered this last year in our roundup of new technologies made possible by smaller and more powerful GPS chips, including friend-finder services marketed to parents who want to keep track of their children....

Media Platforms Design TeamQ: I recently had a party, and one of my friends turned up the volume of my AV receiver really loud. Suddenly, it shut down. Is it destroyed? A: It’s possible that your receiver is toast, but don’t give up hope yet. There are two things to check. Many modern receivers have “protection circuits,” bits of specialized hardware that recognize dangerous levels of volume and shut your hardware down, like a digital fuse....

Media Platforms Design Team(Photo by Lew Robertson/Getty Images)The kid knocked a bucket of fried chicken onto the carpet. Nothing we’ve tried can take the stain out. Suggestions? Grease is tough stuff. Getting it out requires an alkaline cleaner, a solvent, or both. Start with an alka line cleaner. I’ve removed grease stains by first adding a generous amount of Murphy Oil Soap and then gently rubbing in some Borax until it forms a paste....

Media Platforms Design TeamTerrain AwarenessSolution:Terrain awareness and warning systems measure the distance to the ground and emit loud warnings if the pilot flies too low. Older models, designed for airliners, gave helicopter pilots too many false warnings. New versions are specialized for low-flying craft; they should be mandatory. “We know these systems save lives,” Robert Sumwalt of the NTSB says. “This is not rocket science.“Night VisionSolution:Medical helicopters often fly at night at low altitudes and in poor weather, with little help from air traffic control....

Media Platforms Design TeamLockwashers don’t work in cars. Period. The only way you can keep a bolt from coming loose is by using either a threadlocking compound or a positive locking device (such as a cotter pin). (Photo by Burcu Avsar)I have this really nice bike rack that attaches to my trailer hitch receiver. I have to dismantle the rack to get it into my apartment and put it away, which is easy....

Media Platforms Design TeamFollowing a series of image and spec leaks, LG’s G3 announcement in London was more a formality than a traditional unveiling. LG’s head of mobile planning, Ramchan Woo, revealed the smartphone and its “simple” mantra, a word that permeates seemingly every software and design update to the LG’s flagship device. “To be simple is to be great,” Woo said, calling on Ralph Waldo Emerson to describe his company’s new philosophy....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe BMW-owned Mini Cooper revival centered on the brand’s inherently pocket-size proportions, but the latest Mini spinoff happens to be the biggest Mini yet. The new Countryman is Mini’s first crossover, and the lengthened and heightened iteration also happens to be the first in Mini’s lineup to feature four doors.The inflated Mini grows 5.1 inches in wheelbase and an even more considerable 15.7 inches in length, elevating the four individual seats to a more SUV-like height....

Media Platforms Design TeamA four-page scientific paper about a theoretical physics question has been making the media rounds this week. That should be no surprise, though, given the author—Stephen Hawking—and the claim he appears to make: There are no black holes. But that’s far from the end of the story.The study, published on the open-access research site arXiv, does, in fact, include the words “there are no black holes.” But the sentence continues on: “—in the sense of regimes from which light can’t escape to infinity....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe ranch house sitting 50 feet off a two-lane, pothole-riddled road southeast of Great Falls, Mont., is not much to look at. It’s a simple one-story structure, surrounded by a chain-link fence, with a detached garage and a basketball hoop in the driveway.But a closer examination reveals curious details: a red-and-white microwave tower looming over the buildings, a helicopter landing pad in the front yard and a conical ultrahigh-frequency antenna growing from the lawn like a white mushroom....

A small aircraft making an emergency landing on the highway probably wasn’t what the driver of this Ford Fusion expected to see in her rear-view mirror on Tuesday. Fortunately, the gills that the plane’s propeller sliced into the side of her car were about the worst of the damage, and everybody walked away from this crazy incident intact.According to the Minnesota State Patrol, 57-year-old pilot David Gowan was flying his 1979 Mooney Aircraft CorpM20K from Hawley, MN, to Minot, ND, when his plane suffered a power failure at 1,000 feet up....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe drugs made me do it! In Side Effects, Emily (Rooney Mara) begins taking an experimental new drug to relieve her depression—one that leads her, her psychiatrist (Jude Law), her former psychiatrist (Catherine Zeta-Jones), and her husband (Channing Tatum) into a spiral of suspense, crime, and intrigue. In the clip below, Law discusses dealing with his difficult patient:Side Effects comes out on Blu-Ray on May 21. PopMech is going to give away 10 combo packs featuring a DVD, Blu-Ray, and digital download of the film....

Media Platforms Design TeamPopular Mechanics senior automotive editor Mike Allen joins me for a fascinating , from ethanol to methanol to biodiesel and hydrogen — a must listen for anyone tired of watching the meter whir at the gas pumps. Plus, the winner of the talks about his winning run, and we solve the case of the . journey through world of alternative fuel sources2006 National Guard Great Raceamazing exploding laptop computerBy the way, the organizers of the Great Race are now accepting entries for the Great Race World 35,000km....

The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is the newest blockbuster addition to the Sony Electronics lineup. A handheld multimedia system retailing for $300, the PSP has become a must-have gadget for many gamers. But the PSP does more than play games. Many of its fans use the device, which has a 4.3-in. widescreen LCD, just as frequently to play movies and music. For anyone who cares more about portability than features, it can take the place of a bulky laptop, portable DVD player and MP3 player on the road–just throw the PSP in your pocket and you’re ready to roll....