A TEAM REVIVES LONG-ABANDONED TECHNOLOGY IN AN ATTEMPT TO BREAK A RECORD - AND PROVE A POINT

摘要

THE SUN HAS JUST RISEN, AND already the heat is shimmering over the dry lakebed. Craggy brown mountains loom over the towers and hangars of Edwards Air Force Base, the country's main military flight-testing center. A plywood trailer sits on the heat-cracked mud, thick black wires running from it in a giant V toward a quartet of sensors in the distance. Every few minutes, the desert's early-morning stillness is torn by a gut-thumping rumble as fighter jets take off on afterburners.