As long ago as the end of World War II, the Air Force realized it needed to provide neophyte pilots with more than just a moving flight simulator platform and a crisp video display.

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President Obama declined to keep the shuttles going, canceled the planned replacement platform for manned space flight and thereby condemned this country for the foreseeable future to reliance on Russian and perhaps, in due course, Chinese rockets to deliver our astronauts to the space station.

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Thorp loves Flightfox, a platform for crowdsourced (or human-powered) flight search, where contests last for 3 days.

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Research opportunities include research in the areas of compact energy storage and pulsed power, aerothermal protection systems for flight vehicles, high-strength and dielectric structural materials, and system interfaces between high-power loads and platform power distribution networks.

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Tied to the platform with long ropes, they hang from it as it spins, twirling to mimic the motions of flight and gradually lowering themselves to the ground.

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