Benny Kirk
1,728 ARTICLES
Sierra Space Completes Construction of Dream Chaser Tenacity, First Launch Due Next April
6 Nov 2023, 16:30 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / After more than a decade of research, development, and engineering challenges galore, Sierra Space has proudly announced the completion of its first Dream Chaser reusable space plane. With the promise of swift, reliable crew and cargo transportatio...
James Webb Space Telescope Snaps Newborn Star Throwing Cosmic Temper Tantrum
6 Nov 2023, 15:35 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The birth of a newborn star is just as loud and dramatic as a newlywed couple waiting in the delivery room. The only difference at the end of the day is a matter of degree. Don't believe us? Well, the latest findings from the James Webb Space ...
This Culver PQ-14 Radio Target Plane Was Too Nice to Shoot Down, Now It Can be Yours
5 Nov 2023, 18:37 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / A short while ago, we told the story of the Culver PQ-14 Cadet, a long-forgotten Second World War target practice plane designed to be easy for a trainee pilot to empty their ammo mag into without feeling too badly about blowing up tax-payer dollar...
EcoBeast-Swapped Merkur XR4Ti Makes Restomod Lovers Across the Atlantic Joyous
5 Nov 2023, 04:45 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Ultimately, Ford's experimental Euro-import brand for the U.S. market was only saved from being its statistically worst brand by a single model year. Merkur's existence had a lot in common with the story of Edsel in hindsight, but that do...
These Classic Jeep CJ3As Used To Jump Start U.S. Navy Helicopters, Now They’re for Sale
5 Nov 2023, 02:36 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Let's paint the scene for you. It's December 1965, and you're aboard the Iwo Jima-class amphibious assault ship USS Guadalcanal somewhere in the Caribbean Sea. You're about to take the stick of a Sikorsky CH-37 Mojave trans...
SpaceX Wants To Launch Starship's Second Test Flight This Month, FAA Has Final Say
4 Nov 2023, 17:15 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The last time SpaceX's flagship vehicle, Starship, tried its hand at liftoff, the results brought a whole new meaning to blazing it on 4/20. The amount of FAA paperwork resulting from the whole debacle likely still keeps at least one employee ...
Some People Think the International Space Station Is a “Waste of Space,” They’re Wrong
4 Nov 2023, 00:19 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / A few days ago from the time of writing this, the science editor at the Guardian, Robin McKie, penned an editorial titled, ‘It only makes the news when the toilets stop working’: has the 25-year-old International Space Station been a wa...
Long Dead NASA Probe Discovers Exoplanet System Scorched by Savage Mother Star
3 Nov 2023, 18:39 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / When we think of exoplanet systems outside of our neck of the cosmic woods, we tend to imagine them appearing much like our own Solar System. One with a handful of dense, rocky spheroids occupying the inner space with a load of frozen gas giants or...
New NASA App Lets Amateur Observers Track and Spot the ISS With Ease
3 Nov 2023, 13:29 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / At any given time, the International Space Station is whizzing around the Earth roughly 400 km (248 mi) above the surface at a brisk eight km per second (17,900 mph). On clear nights across, passionate stargazers can just barely make out the world&...
European Space Agency Wants to Cultivate Meat in Space, Won't Replace the Bagged Stuff Yet
3 Nov 2023, 03:25 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Until now, the prospect of bringing fresh meat into space for astronauts to consume would been nothing short of laughable. Unless an extraordinary, ground-breaking innovation was made, any meat eaten by astronauts in space is either coming out of a...
Twin NASA X-Ray Telescopes Snap Tendrils of a Cosmic Space Monster, It's Just a Pulsar
2 Nov 2023, 22:23 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / NASA only planned to squeeze around five years of service out of its Chandra X-ray Observatory. But almost 25 years after departing the payload bay of Space Shuttle Columbia, valuable information about the cosmos is still collected by the pro...
NASA’s Juno Probe Detects Potential Organic Compounds on Ganymede, Is It Ancient Life?
2 Nov 2023, 18:44 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / As the Solar System-wide quest to find the building blocks of life carries on, humanity's isolated a few places most likely to show us the clues we're looking for. More often than not, the public's attention is hyper-fixated on Mars....
Lotus' New Type 136 e-Bike Takes Inspiration From Olympic Gold Medalists and Mars Landers
1 Nov 2023, 20:13 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Simplify and add lightness. This is the motto that Lotus' founder Colin Chapman personified in all-too-short life. It's the mantra that's kept Lotus a true-to-form lightweight sports car maker long after all its rivals became huge an...
This Might Be the Last Clean '79 Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon Brougham on Earth
31 Oct 2023, 20:08 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / In terms of telling the story of the American auto industry, the late 1970s might as well have been a black hole. Almost nothing of style, substance, or even remotely agreeable performance figures came out of Detroit factories in the wake of the Oi...
This RS3-Swapped Mk7 Golf R Deserved a Spot at SEMA, Busy Being a Daily Driver
31 Oct 2023, 19:32 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / It's easy to get caught up in all the amazing custom cars and trucks on display at the 2023 SEMA show. It's almost to the point it's easy to tune out all the stuff not on display this year. You know, custom vehicles that real people ...
Urban Automotive Tricks Out Range Rovers and Rolls-Royces With Carbon Fiber Kits at SEMA
31 Oct 2023, 17:39 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / At SEMA, the specific models of vehicles chosen to be modified and shown off to millions are almost immaterial. Why? Because ultimately, everything on display stops being just a car or a truck and becomes an artist's easel on four wheels. Stil...
Meet FJ Bruiser, The NASCAR-Swapped Toyota FJ45 Making a Roar at SEMA
31 Oct 2023, 16:55 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Many huzzahs! The Toyota Land Cruiser is coming back to the US domestic market. That's right. All that classic Japanese dependability and off-road capability is making its way back to North America, seemingly to prove it can still make mince m...
Nextbase Unveils iQ AI-Powered Dashcam, the Next Generation of Vehicle Security
31 Oct 2023, 15:09 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Across Europe and North America, rates of road rage, smash and grabs, and general automotive theft are skyrocketing in a post-global health crisis world where everyone appears to be letting off steam all at once. In a world full of sub-par dash cam...
Avro Canada Jetliner: How the World's First Jet Airliner Almost Came From Ontario
31 Oct 2023, 03:11 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / This history of the Canadian aerospace sector can best be described as a series of proverbial kicks to the nads by countries more powerful than itself. Never mind that the AEA Silver Dart, the first heavier-than-air flying machine to be built large...
Abarth Touts Brazil-Exclusive 2024 Fastback Coupe SUV, an X4 on a Budget?
30 Oct 2023, 18:18 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / It's only been a year since Stellantis re-introduced the Abarth brand to the Brazilian Domestic Market. But in that time, the drive towards offering a cool, fashionable performance vehicle brand to young Brazilians hasn't wavered even sli...