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Army Looks at Robotic Dogs
mr. squishie writes "Someone important must have gotten an Aibo...According to Wired news, the Army's Tank-automotive and Armaments Command has just awarded a $2.5 million contract to build a prototype of a large robot dog that would follow soldiers into battle and carry food, ammunition, and medical supplies. This is apparently part of a larger movement by various branches of the military investigating the uses of robots based on various types of wildlife, ranging from engine-repairing robot elephant trunks and mine-destroying robot lobsters to the cliched robot-fly-spy-on-the-wall trick. I wonder if they're looking into giant robot anteaters as an alternative to costly bunker-buster bombs?"
In the book version of Starship Troopers by Heinlein, there is a whole military division of soldiers paired with cybernetic dogs called the K-9 Corps.
My copy is on loan to a friend, but I did find a PDF of it on the internet through google. Don't know if it is legit though: Starship Troopers
-- DrZaius - Minister of Sciences and Protector of the Faith
Actually, the story about the astronaut pen (as you know it) isn't entirely accurate.
The pen wasn't developed by request of the US military (or any other government faction, for that matter), but by an individual organization just for the hell of it, IIRC.
It is true that the soviets just used pencils.. google for "astronaut pen myth"
Actually...that's an urban legend.
a sp
It's the Fisher Space Pen that you refer too and the pen vs. pencil thing has been tossed around by the internet and by the West Wing TV show.
http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.
"NASA never asked Paul C. Fisher to produce a pen. When the astronauts began to fly, like the Russians, they used pencils, but the leads sometimes broke and became a hazard by floating in the [capsule's] atmosphere where there was no gravity. They could float into an eye or nose or cause a short in an electrical device. In addition, both the lead and the wood of the pencil could burn rapidly in the pure oxygen atmosphere. Paul Fisher realized the astronauts needed a safer and more dependable writing instrument, so in July 1965 he developed the pressurized ball pen, with its ink enclosed in a sealed, pressurized ink cartridge. Fisher sent the first samples to Dr. Robert Gilruth, Director of the Houston Space Center. The pens were all metal except for the ink, which had a flash point above 200C. The sample Space Pens were thoroughly tested by NASA. They passed all the tests and have been used ever since on all manned space flights, American and Russian. All research and developement costs were paid by Paul Fisher. No development costs have ever been charged to the government.
Because of the fire in Apollo 1, in which three Astronauts died, NASA required a writing instrument that would not burn in a 100% oxygen atmosphere. It also had to work in the extreme conditions of outer space:
In a vacuum. - With no gravity. - In hot temperatures of +150C in sunlight and also in the cold shadows of space where the temperatures drop to -120C."
A couple of additional thoughts.
Lackland AFB is where the Air Force trains its K9's. All branches of the service train handlers there at a school run by the DoD.
A K9 trained (and accepted) for such a roll doesn't "fear" quite as much as you would expect. People fear for themselves, dogs fear for their handlers (which 99 times out of 100 means they wouldn't run.) You'd probably have more robots down for mechanical failures than you would have a real dog that abandons its handler.
Dogs do die, and it is hard on the handlers (Been there, done that). An upside is, a wounded soldier would now have a protector with him (for whatever that might be worth.)
However, climbing mountains with packs of gear on isn't going to be a dogs forte. On top of that, instead of a robot lugging batteries, you now have a handler and dog loaded down with water. That's why current MWD teams never have their animals packing any gear. It increases weight, which increases the amount of water they need.
There is an almost immediate drop on the point of limited return in that regard.
(Now time to show a little love to Ringo 274D. 12 years of faithful service to his country, including the invasion of Panama. What a great dog.)