New Area 51: Mojave's Desert Outpost Holds Space Flight's Future

[Gordon Gekko]

By Joe Pappalardo
Photographs by Brent Humphreys
Published in the August 2008 issue



Two technicians in coveralls stoop to push a gleaming white plane through open hangar doors into the bright sunshine of southern California's Mojave Desert. The tailless aircraft is about 18 ft. long with a rounded fuselage and sweptback wings, tips bent upward in pronounced winglets. A pair of canards stretches 13 ft. across the cone-shaped nose. A two-seat cockpit is slung beneath gullwing doors that look like they belong on a '54 Benz coupe. Basically, the aircraft is a rocket with wings

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