Opinion: USAF has the rare opportunity to improve U.S. national security, impose costs on an aggressive foreign power, promote American technological innovation and create jobs at home.

Joe Anselmo and Graham Warwick ask Guy Norris about his story on Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works and their Compact Fusion Reactor.

The device is conceptually safer, cleaner and more powerful than much larger, current nuclear systems that rely on fission, the process of splitting atoms to release energy. Crucially, by being “compact,” Lockheed believes its scalable concept will also be small and practical enough for applications ranging from interplanetary spacecraft and commercial ships to city power stations and, potentially, large aircraft.

Plan has huge implications for future space and aircraft propulsion.

Enhanced land-mine detection product is underway in Europe

While the U.S. Special Operations Command has seen its force size and budget grow despite the current fiscal austerity sweeping Washington, it is looking not for new platforms but for ways of obtaining more data from its existing unmanned air systems, especially small ones such as AeroVironment’s man-portable, hand-launched RQ-11 Raven.

Japan is considering development of an unmanned crisis-monitoring long-endurance aircraft.