Jeff has been involved in aerospace journalism since the mid 1990s. Prior to joining Aviation Week, Jeff served as managing editor of Launchspace magazine and the International Space Industry Report. He has been the editor and chief of Aviation Week's Aerospace Daily & Defense Report since 2007 and has been a regular contributor to Aviation Week magazine. He received his B.A. from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va.
Although Operation Desert Storm has been called the first "space war," Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) made the military's dependence on space assets even clearer, according to Maj. Gen. Robert Dickman (ret.), deputy for military space at the Office of the Undersecretary of the Air Force. "The former chief of staff of the Air Force at that time said Desert Storm was the first space war," Dickman said at the 2003 Inmarsat Aero conference in Tysons Corner, Va., June 3. "Iraqi Freedom probably was much more so."
Nuclear power and propulsion technologies such as those being developed under NASA's Project Prometheus will be essential to any future human mission to Mars, according to NASA's associate administrator for space science.
Although final preparations have taken slightly longer than expected, the GoldenEye unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is expected to have its first flight within the next two weeks, according to manufacturer Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation. First flight at company facilities in Manassas, Va., will be a low-altitude hover lasting three to five minutes, most likely followed by some slow-speed sideward and rearward flight, according to Carl Schaefer, Jr., Aurora's program manager for vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) UAVs.
