On a moonless night in January 1991, a dozen U.S. aircraft appeared in the skies over Baghdad. To the Iraqi air defenses, the planes seemed to come from nowhere. Their angular shape, making them look like flying origami, rendered them virtually undetectable. Each aircraft was more than 60 feet in length and with a wingspan of 40 feet, yet its radar footprint was the size of a ball bearing. Here was the first extensive combat application of Stealth technology. And it was devastating. Peter ...

A definitive and highly readable history of surfing and the cultural, political, economic, and environmental consequences of its evolution from a sport of Hawaiian kings and queens to a billion-dollar worldwide industryDespite its rebellious, outlaw reputation, or perhaps because of it, surfing occupies a central place in the American – and global – imagination, embodying the tension between romantic counterculture ideals and middle-class values, between an individ...

"Westwick's analysis explains why the Jet Propulsion Lab behaved as it did, what forces shaped it, and what impact it had on its external environment." —Alex Roland, Duke UniversityIn the decades since the mid-1970s, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has led the quest to explore the farthest reaches of the solar system. JPL spacecraft—Voyager, Magellan, Galileo, the Mars rovers, and others—have brought the planets into close view. JPL satellite...

On a moonless night in January 1991, a dozen US aircraft appeared in the skies over Baghdad. To the Iraqi air defenses, the planes seemed to come from nowhere. Each aircraft was more than sixty feet in length and with a wingspan of forty feet, yet its radar footprint was the size of a ball bearing. Here was the first extensive combat application of Stealth technology. And it was devastating.Radar has been in use since the 1930s and was essential to the Allies in World War II, when ...