Popular Mechanics - USA (2019-07-Special)

4 ESSENTIALS FOR MAKING A SMOOTH CUT

4. Press a layer

of masking tape

on the cut line to

reduce splinter-

ing as the blade

exits the wood.

Here’s how to use

any of the circular

saws we tested on

page 52.

1. Don’t push the

saw too aggres-

sively into the

work.

2. Put the so-called

good side of the

wood facedown—

this is the side that

you want to remain

visible when the

project is built.

3. Guide the saw

using a straight-

edge clamped or

screwed in place,

or use an aftermar-

ket accessory like

the Kreg Rip-Cut.

While we worked on our cover story

on the 50th anniversary of the

Apollo 11 mission and the next era

of exploration, space news just kept

hitting. Among the biggest

we covered:

1. Jeff Bezos’s spaceflight company
   Blue Origin unveiled Blue Moon
   (pictured), its lunar lander. Popular
   Mechanics reporter Matt Blitz was
   in Washington, D.C., to cover the
   presentation, in which Bezos proposed
   O’Neill Worlds — giant, cylindrical space
   colonies, named after physicist and
   inventor Gerard O’Neill.

2. The Indian Space Research

Organization (ISRO) that

Chandrayaan-2, the organization’s

second unmanned mission to the

Moon, would land its probe in

September. It’s the organization’s

second mission (the first landed back

in 2008).

3. China’s space program is set to

launch a probe into asteroid 2016 HO3,

which orbits the sun on a path that

lines up conveniently with Earth’s. The

unmanned spacecraft will pull samples

from it, send those specimens back

to Earth, then continue on to comet

133P/Elst-Pizarro, located in

the asteroid belt.

THE SPACE

RACE

IS GETTING

CROWDED

POPULAR

What we’re up to beyond these pages

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6 July/August 2019 _ PopularMechanics.com