The U.S. Air Force began developing jet fighters as World War II came to a close. The Cold War that soon developed saw a significant increase in fighter production programs as America tried to counter the perceived Soviet threat. World War II's best piston-powered fighters could barely top speeds in excess of 450 mph. But the post-war jets developed by the U.S. Air Force were soon breaking the sound barrier, flying to Mach 3, and Mach-4 capable aircraft were on the drawing board. U.S. Air Force Prototype Jet Fighters details the evolution of these aircraft, using dozens of never-before-published photographs from government archives....

The United States Air Force was late in developing a jet fighter, definitely behind Germany and the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, a small number of Lockheed P-80 Shooting Stars did make it to the European and Mediterranean
theaters of operations before VE Day, although they did not see combat. After the war, the sheer size of the U.S. aviation industry guaranteed that American fighters would soon dominate the skies.
However, the state of the art was advancing so fast that many development efforts never resulted in production aircraft; concepts that had seemed reasonable, even ideal, at the time were quickly overcome by newer and better technology. In the United States alone, several dozen different fighter designs made it to the prototype stage during the 1950s and 1960s.
In this book, Dennis R. Jenkins and Tony R. Landis look at the variety of different jet-fighter concepts developed by the U.S. Air Force after World War II. These pages cover all experimental and prototype jet fighters that made it to the hardware stage design studies and paper airplanes are not
discussed since other current books are dedicated to those subjects. The rationale for developing each aircraft is covered, along with a discussion of the technology needed to build it, its flight-test program, and the reasons it was cancelled or ordered into production. The text is derived mostly from official Air Force documents, and all of the aircraft are well covered photographically, usually with seldom-seen images showing
them as they appeared during their flight-test program....

Few NASA announcements stirred as much public controversy as when NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe canceled the fifth Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. On January 16, 2004, the outcry from the scientific community and general public was surprising, coming less than a year after Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry. Launched by Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990, Hubble has circled Earth more than 97,000 times and provided more than 4,000 astronomers access to the stars not possible from inside the Earth's atmosphere. Hubble has helped answer some of science's key questions and provided compelling images of our solar system that have awed and inspired the world.
Fortunately, things change. After further evaluation, the agency authorized the last servicing mission to Hubble. The STS-125 mission returned the space shuttle to the Hubble Space Telescope for one last visit before the shuttle fleet retires in 2010. Over 12 days and five spacewalks, the crew of Space Shuttle Atlantis made repairs and upgrades to the telescope, leaving it in better shape than ever and ready for another five years or more of research.
Servicing the Hubble Space Telescope: Space Shuttle Atlantis 2009 follows the final Shuttle servicing mission from the press conference announcement through crew training and vehicle launch preparation. Stunning on-orbit photography taken by the astronauts during five spacewalks is featured along with Altantis' triumphant return to the Kennedy Space Center....