On the cover of our new issue: Shaun Manners (@badmanners_), achieving low orbit somewhere in the Australian desert. “I love getting down to the dez,” says photographer Josh Tabone (@joshuatabone). “It’s cold. It’s raw. It’s a little bit eerie, and it kind of sorts the men from the boys.” On the back: Mike Tabeling, initiating his own launch cycle on the Space Coast, late 1960s. Photo by Larry Pope.

Other glide paths inside include one woman’s (@moana.17) inexplicable draw to the world’s deadliest wave, trafficking contraband via foam and fiberglass, the collision of aerospace and surf culture in a champion-breeding town, a freewheeling French Caribbean export (@william_aliotti), high-horsepower fabrications (@maxwellhazan), and a low-brow artist’s big-wave motif (@raymond_pettibon_)