usaf
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This Is How The US Air Force Showers Its Giant Cargo Planes
Ever wondered how the US Air Force cleans its planes? Here’s one way: They use a giant shower on a runway — or a planewash if you must. Here you can see it cleaning the salt accumulated on a Lockheed Martin WC-130 Hercules after flying through storms over the Gulf of Mexico.
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How The US Air Force Keeps Tabs On Space Junk Heading For Aussie Airspace
In the 1980s, the US Air Force only knew about roughly 5000 pieces of space debris orbiting our planet. By 2010, that number had tripled to 15,639 objects. And our current space trash tracking system can’t even detect some of the smaller bits zipping around up there. That’s why the USAF is developing a new…
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Giz Explains: How NASA’s Nuclear Rockets Will Take Us Way Beyond Mars
The first people to step on to the surface of Mars won’t arrive aboard the chemical-fueled rockets that delivered Apollo 11 to the moon — they simply don’t provide enough thrust to get to the Red Planet before exposing their crews to months of dangerous space radiation. Instead, NASA is turning to long-ignored nuclear-thermal rocket…
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Monster Machines: Why Are The Most Vital Aircraft In The USAF Arsenal Owned By NASA?
While chatter between the US Air Force is spoken exclusively in English, communications between their aircrafts’ electronic systems is more akin to the United Nations cafeteria — a “dog’s breakfast of different datalinks,” according to Lt. Gen. William Lord. Since the numerous competing defence contractors tasked with building military aircraft often install contradicting and incompatible…