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Domain: nationaldefensemagazine.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to nationaldefensemagazine.org.
Stories · 4
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DARPA's Robot Ship Slated For April Unveiling (nationaldefensemagazine.org)
93 Escort Wagon writes: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) plans to launch a 130-foot autonomous ship this year. The Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel will be the largest unmanned surface vehicle ever built at 130-feet long. It will be christened in April in Portland, Oregon, and then begin to demonstrate its long-range capabilities over 18 months in cooperation with the Office of Naval Research and the Space and Naval Systems Warfare Command.
My regards to Captain Dunsel. -
Sixty Years On, B-52s Are Still Going Strong
Hugh Pickens writes "Those who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s knew the B-52 Stratofortress as a central figure in the anxiety that flowed from the protracted staring match between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Now CNET reports that it was 60 years ago, on April 15, 1952, that a B-52 prototype built by Boeing took off on its maiden flight and although the 1950s-vintage B-52s are no longer in the US Air Force inventory, the 90 or so H models delivered between May 1961 and October 1962 still remain on active duty. 'The B-52 has been a wonderful flying box,' says retired Brig. Gen. Peyton Cole. 'It's persevered all these years because it's been able to adapt and still continues to fly. It started out as a high-level flying platform during the Cold War. Then as air defenses got better it became a low-level penetrator, and more than that was the first aircraft to fly low-level at night through FLIR (forward looking infrared) and night-vision TV.' The B-52's feat of longevity reflects both regular maintenance and timely upgrades — in the late 1980s, for instance, GPS capabilities were incorporated into the navigation system but it also speaks to the astronomical costs of the next-generation bombers that have followed the B-52 into service (a total of 744 were built, counting all models) with the Air Force. B-52s cost about $70 million apiece (in today's dollars), while the later, stealth-shaped B-2 Spirit bombers carried an 'eye-watering $3-billion-a-pop unit price.' The Air Force's 30-year forecast, published in March, envisions an enduring role for the B-52 and engineering studies, the Air Force says, suggest that the life span of the B-52 could extend beyond the year 2040. 'At that point, why not aim for the centennial mark?'" -
Claims About China's April Internet Hijack Are Overblown
sturgeon writes "Yesterday, we discussed what most of the world's major media outlets were reporting on China's April 2010 hijack of '15% of Internet traffic,' including sensitive US government and defense sites. The alarm came following a US Government report (see page 244) on China / US economic and security relations released on Tuesday. Unfortunately, few bothered with fact checking or actually reading the report. The actual study never makes any estimate of Internet traffic diverted during the hijack — it only cites a blog post to suggest large volumes of traffic were involved. And curiously, the cited blog at the heart of the report never mentions traffic at all — only routes. You have to go to an interview with a third-party security researcher in a minor trade magazine to first come up with the 15% number (and this article never explains where the number came from). In a review of real data and actual facts, Arbor Nework's Craig Labovitz has a blog post looking at the traffic volumes involved in the incident (only a couple of Gigabits per second, or a 'statistically insignificant' percentage of Internet traffic)." -
Land Warrior Army Suits Simplified, Linux-ized
Dosco Jones writes 'The Army is drastically simplifying the makeup of its high-tech soldier ensemble, the Land Warrior, in an effort to make the system less prone to failures and easier to use,' National Defense reports. Defense Tech continues: 'After the last version of Land Warrior failed reliability tests earlier this year, the Army switched gears and decided to make the system less complex and modify the hardware to make it compatible with the new [and controversial] Stryker infantry vehicle. Changes include a more simplified data bus and a Linux-based operating system, as opposed to Windows. 'Evidence shows that Linux is more stable. We are moving in general to where the Army is going, to Linux-based OS', says the program's manager, Lt. Col. Dave Gallop."