Michael Belfiore

The Department of Mad Scientists

Few civilians know just how much a low-profile Department of Defense research agency has influenced their lives for the better, and fewer still realize how much more influential it could become.

My forthcoming book on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, will be the first to show how this collection of mavericks and dreamers maintains its autonomy within the larger military establishment, and how it directly affects our lives.

 

Rocketeers

Early in the morning of June 21, 2004, a new space age dawned. That's when a hand-built craft the size of a minivan rocketed the first commercial astronaut into space.

SpaceShipOne was built by a small company in the Mojave Desert for the price of a low-budget Hollywood movie. Now that it's broken the government monopoly on human spaceflight, the sky's no longer the limit on where a dream can take you.