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Lockheed Martin Plans Unmanned Aircraft
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Lockheed Martin's secretive Skunk Works unit--which previously developed U-2 spy plane, the SR-71 supersonic spy plane and the radar-evading F-117 stealth fighter--has big plans for its latest project: drones. Among the concepts under development, according to the Wall Street Journal: 'One drone would be launched from, and retrieved by, submarines; another would fly at nine times the speed of sound. A third, which is off the drawing board but not quite airborne, has wings designed to fold in flight so that it could rapidly turn from slow-speed spy plane to quick-strike bomber.' The WSJ's reporter also is allowed a rare visit to the Skunk Works complex: 'A factory hall was filled with the prototype of a massive helium-filled airship that one day might ferry troops and heavy equipment to distant battlefields faster and more efficiently than ships--no port or airbase needed. The blimp would float just above the ground on four hover pads, meaning that "you could literally pick a farmer's field" to set down in, says program manager Robert Boyd.'"
Skunk Works.
This is a group that developed the first operational jet fighters, and that kept the U-2 and SR-71 and stealth planes out of the public eye forever. We think the Wall Street Journal is getting the real story from them? If it's true, you have to wonder why the massive cultural shift at Lockheed is happening just now...
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
The best pilot in the world still blacks out at about 9G. Even if the drone isn't as tactically capable as the human, it can survive far greater physical hardship. What use is your intelligence, your skill, your human flair for battle, against an adversary that can turn at speeds that would leave you a gooey mess in the cockpit?
A serious fighter drone would just slaughter human pilots, just on the superior performance of an aircraft that doesn't have to worry about keeping the pilot alive. It would be like Spitfires going up against a Harrier.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Even assuming that the AI pilots are markedly inferior to humans, there's still a great advantage to using them. They're cheap. Training a pilot is an expensive thing to do and it takes a lot of time. Losing a pilot is bad news. Losing significant numbers of pilots also has the effect of undermining political support at home - every letter sent to the mother of someone who isn't coming home chips away a little at the mindless jingoism that you need to have to conduct a war.
So, let's suppose that the AI drones are so crap that the kill ratio is ten to one - a human pilot will on average bring down ten AIs before being killed himself. This need not be a problem. A computer program costs nothing to copy, and the hardware's relatively cheap, and robots don't have families. Throw a hundred AIs into the air and let them all be slaughtered if necessary. Who cares? Make 'em kamikaze if you like. It still costs less than training humans to do it.
For a Western army, recruiting humans is expensive, because citizens of very rich countries expect to be paid well to risk their lives. Probably the economics work out differently for the likes of China, but for the USA... let's fill the sky with droids.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
You confuse the advance of technology with the use of technology. War will not stop occurring if technological advances don't occur. Often, newer technology can help reduce side casualties (carpet bombing vs smart bombs, etc).
If you feel strongly about war, create political pressure to stop it. Don't troll slashdot and whine about how some new technology can be misused.
First, by frequency hoping and other spread-spectrum radio methods.
Second, with bombs. With lots of bombs. With lots of large bombs. With lots of large and fast bombs.
Get the picture? Jamming in a war-zone gives you a very short life expectancy.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
You seem to misunderstand what the real cause of war is. If you've ever been to a school, you'll note that fights occur for a number of reasons:
(1) People get edgy with all those hormones and fight for no reason at all.
(2) Someone is genuinely trying to hurt someone else or exert their will with physical force. The other party isn't going to take any more of it and decides to fight to protect themselves.
In international politics, (1) is only a problem if you have a single person or very small group of people that decides when to go to war. Democracies, by and large, don't have this kind of structure. Besides, it's always in everybodies' interests if the two people got along and got rich trading with one another.
(2) is far more common. This is the case when you have a corrupt government that seeks to either exploit its people or neighbors with physical force. War doesn't start when they decide to threaten force or use force to exert their will. War starts when somebody stands up to them.
It's often confusing to determine who "started" a war. Did Hitler start WWII, or did England when it decided to fight Germany's expansion policy?
It's nice to imagine some kind of conspiracy where the "military complex" determines when and how to go to war. I'll grant you one thing: Technology creates uncertainty, and uncertainty allows bad people to be more bold in their actions.
Here's a current modern day example. Iran has at its head a group of people whose purpose is to start a world war. They want a new piece of technology --- nuclear weapons --- because they think it will give them power enough to stand up to the US. It's really not certain if nuclear weapons are powerful enough to convince the American democracy to cower in fear. (They may well be!) So Iran is more bold in moving towards aggression and making threats.
When the US and its allies begin the invasion of Iran, likely, the blame for "starting" a war will go on the heads of President Bush and his friends. (Note: Already, Britain, France, Germany, and Russia have pledged to help with the invasion of Iran. There are several other smaller countries, including some Middle Eastern ones, who have pledged to help as well.) However, the true cause of this war should be Iran's aggression and threats to the annihilation of Israel and a nuclear attack on Europe and the US.
The Vietnam war, likewise, wasn't caused by a bunch of military industrialists. It was caused by communist aggression. They tried to turn a sovereign, democratic country into a wing of the Communist empire by force. The war really didn't start until the US decided to stop the aggression with force. Did the US start that war? No, but it was there to try and finish it.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
A quagmire is when the years roll by and you're not accomplishing anything whatsoever in terms of eliminating, demoralizing, or dissuading the opposing forces.
Well then, Iraq is not a quagmire. Communications intercepted to/from Evil Clowns like Zarqawi indicate that the insurgency is actually pretty desperate about the lack of wider Islamic support for their car bombing campaign, and are having a harder time raising cash and willing suiciders. Many of their mid-level managers are getting wacked, too, which takes a lot of the fun out of it.
They're especially upset (the insurgents) because damn if, despite promises to behead anyone that votes, the Iraqi people just keep on going, in the many millions, to the polls and doing things like ratifying a constitution, naming their own parliment, and so on.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.