More than 130 veterans of the Iraq war now face the daunting challenge of learning to live with a missing arm. To make that transition easier, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, has launched a $55-million project that pools the efforts of prosthetics experts nationwide to create a thought-controlled bionic arm that duplicates the functions of a natural limb. If all goes well, by 2009 the agency will petition the Food and Drug Administration to put the arm through clinical trials.

If he´s lucky, when he turns the throttle, his 90 percent hydrogen peroxide will expand to 5,000 times its size and convert to steam that will reach 1,300�F. If he´s lucky, he will then be thrust 30 feet into the air, where he will fly for as long as 30 seconds, all while tethered to a 20-foot safety pole. If he´s lucky, self-taught Mexican rocket scientist Juan Manuel Lozano will someday become one of just a handful of people in history to make an untethered flight with a rocket belt.