The folks at the Shreveport (La.) Times paid tribute to the Jan. 16-17, 1991, B-52 mission officially named “Senior Surprise” in its Jan. 16 edition. (The Times, very kindly, listed the 1994 Air Force Magazine article on same at the top of its “read more” listing.) Senior Surprise—known by those who flew it as Secret Squirrel—featured seven B-52 bombers, launching from their home base at Barksdale AFB, La., to fly the then-longest combat mission to strike opening targets for Operation Desert Storm in Iraq. The bombers were carrying the newly developed AGM-86C Conventional Launched Cruise Missile for its first combat deployment.
NASA Boss: Race to Moon Has National Security Stakes
Sept. 15, 2026
NASA is pushing hard to get astronauts back to the moon by 2028—and the urgency is driven in no small part by the national security implications of doing so before China does, Administrator Jared Isaacman said Sept. 15.
