Carleton J. Phillips is a William C. Foster Fellow in the Office of Proliferation Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of State and professor of biological sciences and assistant vice president for research at Texas Tech.
The spartan interior of a U.S. Air Force C-130 has uncomfortable web seating. Our gear is strapped to a pallet in the aft section, where clamshell doors yawn open until we accelerate down the runway. This airplane is all business—bare...