Darryl Davis, president of Boeing Phantom Works, said it is a widely held misconception that his organization is engaged primarily in classified projects. “I don’t know why people think everything we do is under cloak of darkness,” Davis said. “We do things we can’t talk about, but we do an awful lot of really fun stuff we can and do talk about.”

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Debra Werner is a correspondent for SpaceNews based in San Francisco. Debra earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s degree in Journalism from Northwestern University. She is a recipient...