March 2013

Cover, Contents & Departments

Viewport, Letters, What’s Up, Soundings, In the Museum, Above & Beyond

Sightings, Reviews & Previews, Credits, Forecast, Moments & Milestones

Features

Disaster in Xichang

A U.S. engineer describes the dreadful day a Chinese rocket launcher went wrong.

By Anatoly Zak

Even Lindbergh Got Lost

In 1928, Charles Lindbergh sought help from an unknown Navy officer who was a whiz with a watch and a sextant.

By Roger Connor

How Things Work: Adaptive Optics Laser Guide Stars

The key to better vision for sophisticated Earth-bound telescopes? Sodium.

By Heather Goss

Perfect Specimens

One collector's fleet shows how World War I redesigned the airplace.

By Peter Garrison

Kings of the Air

Meet the stuntmen who in 1904 gave the United States the edge in aeronautics.

By Paul Glenshaw

The Misty Mystique  

They volunteered to fly powerful jets on dangerous missions, and that was just the beginning.

By Mark Bernstein

Into the Great Unknown

What the Voyagers' journeys beyond the solar system mean to the people of Earth.

By Christopher Riley and Richard Corfield

10 Billion Miles From

A collection of facts, figures, and phenomena defining the world's farthest flying aircraft.

By Paul Hoversten