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Army's Cut of 'Future Soldier' May Impact Med-Tech
docinthemachine writes "The U.S. Army has decided to axe its $500 Million 'Land Warrior Soldier of the Future' program. If this goes through, the loss of future medical technology will be enormous. Many do not realize the enormous amount of medical technology that trickles down from the military. The program was working on develops new HUDs, 3D vision systems, and bioarmor. Surgeons today are using this technology (via DARPA) to develop new robotic surgery, bioimplants, intelligent prosthetics and more." That's the downside. The reason for the program's cutting is fairly obvious: "Unfortunately, land Warrior is part of the Army's Future Combat System (FCS) Initiative. This is the roadmap for an unprecedented hi-tech modernization of the Army. What new? How about an air force of completely unmanned remote controlled fighters- it's in the budget! Unfortunately, the entire project is so far over budget it becomes a target for cuts. Originally at $60 billion, then $127B, recent estimates have balooned to $300 billion total cost (yes that's billion with a B) and some are calling it the biggest military boondoggle ever."
Originally at $60 billion, then $127B, recent estimates have balooned to $300 billion total cost (yes that's billion with a B) and some are calling it the biggest military boondoggle ever.
At I believe it's still at least 100 billion short of the iraq invasion, which currently holds the record as the biggest military boondoggle. ever.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
Sounds to me like this is being reported by someone who wants to keep the program running, so they are trying to fud it up with implications that medical science will be harmed.
If the U.S. didn't get into wars all the time, then wouldn't that both save lives and cost less money?
I'm gonna need a spec.
So the questions have to be: if the results of this research are so amazing;
1. why aren't companies like Pfizer investing in it? (probably they are?)
2. why doesn't the US Government have the sense to invest directly in such things?
Do we really have so little influence over the State, and the State is so stupid, that our best hope is to encourage the State to invest indirectly in such research by funding military development and hoping we get the sort of spin-off we're looking for?
And even more significantly, have we ACCEPTED this state of affairs?
This is OUR money that's being spent.
"Come with me if your tax dollars are wasted."
Give me my country back,
we don't want your military industrial complex
ASSHOLE
It would probably be cheaper to invest in peace and avoid war all together.
Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better...stronger...faster. and errrrrrrrr over budget.
liqbase
I'm not a big fan of war, but that thing was pretty badass. Plans for all sorts of sci-fi tech, adaptive camoflauge, bio-monitoring, crazy HUD stuff in the helmet, basically a stillsuit underneath it all, liquid reactive body armor, all the way up to eventual exoskeletons... Shame to see it axed. That said, the guy they have modeling the crap in every picture i've seen looks pretty svelte for the role, i dont think speedskaters are the soldiers of the future.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
So they're over the schedule and over their budget, but at least they got the pc game out in time. Beat that, Duke Nukem Forever!
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
> $300 billion total cost (yes that's billion with a B)
No, that's billion with a 'b'. You mean 'Billion'; that's billion with a 'B'.
Max.
I wonder if it occurred to any of the that the approx. $300 billion could be used to provide food, medical supplies, clean water and decent housing to most of Africa, propelling America to a saint-like status, and eliminating most anti-american bias that has accumulated.
Remember that Monty Python quote: "But what have the Romans given us?" "Roads" "Ok, besides that, what have the Romans given us?" "Sewerage systems." And so on.
How would an extremist go about recruiting people to his cause when the country was the source of their food, water and etc. (not meaning to sound condescending).
Ninjas use italics.
Here's a question. If you had to take a count of the number of lives saved by the military's med tech, versus the number of lives taken by the military's other tech, what's the difference?
That's a lot of math. We're talking Hiroshima, Agent Orange, Iraq, etc.
Monsanto and some of the richest people and corporations in the country need your help !
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061209/ap_on_go_co/c
come on citizens we need to make sacrifices, didn't you know a war is on ?
Originally at $60 billion, then $127B, recent estimates have balooned to $300 billion total cost
How about running these robots on Linux? That should cut the cost down to a mere price to download the robot parts....
Just because the military and space exploration have traditionally funded research efforts that have "trickled down" doesn't mean that that's the best way of funding those efforts. What indirect funding through the military has accomplished in the past is to separate politicians from interfering directly research; that's been valuable, but it has also given us a bloated military and lots of wars, because that bloated military wants to do something.
In the end, the best way of funding medical research is by giving funding to medical research, and the best way of making advances in computers, semiconductors, material science, nutrition, etc. is to fund those areas. We just need to figure out how to make that work politically without wasting money on gimmicks like the military or manned space exploration.
Wouldn't it be a better use of the money to fund medical technology projects directly, without the military middleman?
Black outfit, plastic helmet--looks like the soldier of the future is some kind of SciFi nerd.
With some creative accounting with help from Verizon, perhaps the 300B figure could be "manipulated" to minimize budget blowouts.
"Sure there's porn and piracy on the Web but there's probably a downside too."
this country belongs to few, you are correct and they would have me fight and die for their cause
And how many more lives would have been lost if the US hadn't used the bomb, and tried a land assault against a Japan unwilling to surrender? It could be (and has been) argued that it would be in the neighborhood of a million. So, you could say that nuclear weapons technology has saved a lot of lives.
We wouldn't have failed patheitcally at 'managing communism' in Korea.
We wouldn't have had an enourmous display of incompetance and uneffectiveness in Vietnam.
We wouldn't have attacked Saddam in 93...our ally a few years previous...because he invaded Kuwait who were friends of our NEW ally Saudi Arabia which oppresses women and backed the 9/11 terrorists.
We wouldn't have lost 3k people, wounded 40k and blown $400Billion chains WMDs,,,no wait, stopping Saddam from getting Yellow Cake for nukes, no wait to stop Saddam from supporting Al-Quieda...no wait...to Free the oppressed Iraqi people....who actually had it pretty good compared to many places in Africa which were unfortunately oil-less.
Blar.
Government R&D programs are nothing but a den of corrupt thieves! Investing the same money in corporate R&D programs, which are actually accountable for their cost-effectiveness, would lead to 10x the results!
There are advantages to military spending, sure. The real question is whether private capital markets, from which the tax revenue must be seized in the first place, are more or less efficient at improving social welfare than the simulated command economy of military budgets. I, for one, think that most military spending is so much less efficient at helping the general welfare that it's really a money sink. Cut their budget. We lose a couple of your pet medical advances, but the preferences of the general population in defining their own welfare will more than make up for it.
Yeah, some problems in the military should be cut, but not this one. The infantry soldier hasn't changed that much since WWII, at least compated to the aircraft carrier or the jet plane. It was nice that the gov't was willing to spend some money on the infantry soldier. Also, civilian technology is much more likely to flow from this project than from more remote controlled airplanes. So, yes, the money might provide more medical benefits if directly invested in medicine, but investing it in this project is likely to bring more than in another UAV. Besides, a strong military helps prevent conflict. We no longer are interested in outmanning enemies, so we must have sufficiently advanced technology to make up for the shortage in man power. And, remember, this Internet thingy with all of the tubes came out of a military research project.
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
Just a hunch, but I'm guessing the private sector could get them up and running a lot faster.
..don't panic
Look this is supposed to come online in what... fifteen to twenty years? By that time, ''soldiers'' will be sitting in Pods in Idaho, controlling swarms of robots walking around Iraq (Yes, they US will probably still be there
We've got robots driving themselves ( http://www.grandchallenge.org/ ) and many, many robots that are starting to walk effectively, and simultaneous translation is coming along... There will be things that look like ceylons, walking around, and when something interesting happens, a human will start looking at what it sees... There is little point in developing next generation battlefield kit for humans. Our destiny is to be civilians. The soldier will cease to exist, and the supervision might be outsourced from Idaho to pods in India at 1$/hour.
That can be good, for folks who want to control large populations like in iraq with little risk.
It's just as convenient for small oligarchies to control large populations, such as in Russia, Burma, China, etc... The demand will be so great that initially high costs will come down rapidly.
It's kind of an inevitable result of current developments. The main question is what non-oligarchs should be doing it about it...
Here on Ward Island / TAMUCC we've got over 10 million of related research going on. This is a sad day and I hope doesn't effect us. :(
http://www.sp.tamucc.edu/pulse/info.shtml
The primary reason FCS has seen such enormous escalations in costs is that it rather stupidly ignores normal military R&D cycles. The rather poor assumption is that if you envision what you want your military force to look like, and throw enough money and people at it you'll get it. In doing so, planners essentially hope to skip the next generation of military tech and instead deploy the second generation of technologies at the time one would have the first. Not only is this absurdly expensive, it is likely to prove impossible, or at the very least, will not meet the actual needs of the army at the time of deployment. Ironically, aspects of the land warrior program are the most grounded and realistic aspects of the overall FCS project, and there is little doubt the project is most in tune with the future needs of a military that will mostly be engaged in low intensity stability operations.
No intelligent project manager would even attempt FCS. It is far too ambitious to ever see tangible and wanted results from the army's perspective. A better use of resources would be to more rapidly develop the next generation of technologies, particularly improving the safety and intelligence capabilities of ground troops.
Even if it were possible, I'm not the least bit convinced that FCS will meet the army's future needs. While the goals of rapid air deployable forces makes perfect sense in stability operations, light armor does not. The greatest information systems will probably never be able to always spot and eliminate a potential shoulder fired anti-tank missile, and when that missile is fired, you'll want the extra armor and heft afforded by today's vehicles. Ultra-high tech solutions are great for traditional warfare, but we're much more likely to be fighting in Africa than in China in the next fifty years.
Taking all this in mind, they'd be much better off scrapping FCS in favor of next-gen technologies and increasing funding for land warrior.
"In God we trust, all others we monitor." -- Unofficial NSA motto
It's too bad the project is axed; the soldiers would have looked pretty hot in that spandex...
Doing some advanced math, it looks like they're not willing to spend two tenths of one percent of the total on this foot soldier stuff. And parents are having to send kevlar vests and helmet liners to their kids cause the Army is too cheap and/or slow. Kinda bad for morale if you ask me.
The military is a terrible jobs program and overall R&D system. Of course if we're hiring lots of soldiers and improving medicine for necessary military operations, then we should harness that huge progressive activity for the greater good. But reversing the process, and putting job creation and R&D into the military just because it's got a budget, is a tremendous waste. Not to mention that funding and maintaining a huge military brings us closer to war, despite naive oversimplifications described as "deterrence". As history shows, and Einstein noticed, "you cannot simultaneously prepare for war and make peace". FWIW, that is not to say we don't need a substantial military in our dangerous and unpredictable world, but a giant one is provocative of enemies (including new ones), drives some people to expect "if we have it, we should use it, or we're wasting it", and then it gets in the way of better alternate solutions to problems: "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail".
We want more jobs, basic science and healthcare R&D. We clearly want to fund and operate it through the government, socialism, because we want everyone in the country to benefit equally from access and results, regardless of money and position. So instead we should spend that money directly on job creation and R&D. Simply offering more scholarships to med students, especially researchers, with most of that money would make most of the difference. Scholarships for recertifying mostly qualified foreign doctors would bring more foreign expertise, techniques, even whole theraputic systems into the country. Rather than throwing them away like we do now in order to maintain our artificially low supply vs increasing demand, just to keep privileged doctors rich and worshipped like gods. And much more could be spent increasing the National Guard for coping with increasing natural disasters like hurricanes / floods / wildfires and manmade toxic spills. Or invested in highschool level training and entrepreneur grants for locals to start re/construction companies, possibly trained with rotations through the Army Engineer Corps, or a more civilian one.
But just spending $BILLIONS, $TRILLIONS on a military jobs/R&D program is a huge waste. We want to buy those things for our country's security. Better to do it without bloating our unaccountable military further, and actually get more productive, healthier citizens. Instead of more dead/wounded people and a higher bill.
--
make install -not war
The US Army has been very much at the fore front of modern medicine. Obviously the future list of benefits isn't in yet but here is a short list of a few benefits I can think of right off the top.
Coumadin - Primary anticoagulation and colt prevention drug used in medicine -- Developed as Sodium Warfarin to kill RATS.
Most Skin Grafting and venous grafting technology arose from combat surgery and recovery. This includes the modern advances heading towards organ replacement that began as tissue replacement efforts under US Army funding.
Most Rehabilitation technology (No comment needed here)
Most Nutrition Research -- Yeah folks they were from the 1860's on the primary research effort into human nutrition
Vaccinations of nearly all types. -- Yes I know there is some history before and outside the Army but most of the efforts to contain disease are US Armed Forces based this is world wide.
Water Purification -- Most of the efforts at good potable water development are US Armed Forces developments.
Mapping - Not just GPS folks the US Armed forces have been involved in this to the limit and it benefits all mankind including those around the world who use the Satellite technology for such. This is cheaply available because of the US Armed Forces.
Weather -- The US Armed Forces provide a very large part of the weather research around the world and millions owe their lives to it. This is on going research
Electrical and Magnetic Technology advances. -- Funny how those typing on computers can complain so about the US Armed Forces. Computers wouldn't be hear and that famous OS Microsoft sells wouldn't be here either.
Education -- You know all those kids from the far East who are knocking us Americans out of a job because their schools work? Well they learned in schools largely patterned after US Armed Forces Schooling technology. The contribution of the US Armed Forces to Human Learning is very deep.
I know it may not be popular to say so but the US Armed Forces have done a lot of good.
To be fair, in this "Free Trade" world, the new technology is more likely to displace an American from his job than it is to make him one. But that is a matter of US Tax and Trade policy it is not one of the US Armed Forces. The US Armed Forces are in their R&D beyond belief. Here is a short list of what is coming: [1] Cars that drive themselves saving millions of lives and billions of barrels of oil and stopping much damage to the environment. [2] Faster and better computers. [3] New Energy Technologies. [4] More disease control. Are there bad things? I am sure some things will always go wrong. But on the whole, the loss of US Armed Forces Research is nailing the lid on the casket of the USA in future generations.
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
When it comes to helping the homeless or the poor, or people in need. Geez, look at
what happened just a little over a yar ago in the gulf coast (and the condition N.O. is still in!).
Yet, they somehow get enough money to create "pseudo cyborgs" and fancy milti-million dollar remote controlled planes.
> cold war was won
Well, it was won just like Vietnam was won. The USA just doesn't admit defeat. Remember, there was a treaty saying that weapon stashes would be diminished, and after that Russia fell apart.
"it has also given us a bloated military and lots of wars, because that bloated military wants to do something."
OK, I'll bite. Since you're obviously an expert, please be so kind as to tell us exactly how big the US military should be to defend the US, deter would-be agressors, fulfill international treaty obligations, etc. And do you honestly believe that servicemen and women want to go into combat, and risk life and limb? For what, the excitement of battle? Or do you believe that the military dictates foreign policy to elected officials? "We're bored, and we have all this untested high-tech shit laying around. I know! Let's invade someone!" Generals and admirals are the interface with the civilian overseers of the armed services, and as such tend to be highly-political animals, especially when it comes to defending pet programs against budget cuts. But to suggest that they instigate warfare in order to validate their weapon systems, strategy, operational abilities etc, is not only naive, it is insulting.
When war breaks out, blame the politicians, not the people who have to fight it. I do agree with your comments about effective funding for research, but by calling the military a "gimmick" you're merely parading your ignorance of geopolitical reality. Do you honestly believe that the US doesn't need armed forces? Sadly, the fact that the US can more afford a more powerful military than any other nation has tempted our elected things into pursuing adventurist policies. We have leaders who have put young people in harm's way to scratch an ideological itch. *cough* neocons *cough*
Maybe you don't remember but the warlords are intercepting this food and using it to make them stronger.
It takes a lot more to the problem in Africa than dumping money and supplies into there.
I don't think we'll see peace until we stop focusing our energies on new ways to wage war...
"If this goes through, the loss of future medical technology will be enormous."
I think our medical technology in the fields of blunt trauma and prosthetics are "good enough" at this point. The Army can develop ways to better help you cope with getting shot or getting into a car collision, but they haven't touched the field of disease since they figured out how to avoid malaria and promote hygene. I don't see the Army curing cancer or AIDS or anything of the sort.
Besides, a lot of the treatments developed by the Army nowadays are so expensive you'll need the budget of the Department of Defense to pay for it.
You can directly fund and make medicine progress without any military involvement.
Its the MONEY that funds the science and engineering that invents the stuff, it is NOT the military. The military just defines the problems to be solved.
Necessity is the mother of invention, so I'd be willing to go for civil war, WW1 and WW2 pushing many things forward but NOT the others.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Am I the only one annoyed that some advancements can only be done 'through' the military ? I mean, if it's a medical advance, why should it be on a military budget ? The military is here to kill people. Give the money directly to a medical research institution instead. Yeah, I know Darpa has done great civilian advances, the internet, yadada. But why ?
Non-Linux Penguins ?
... biggest military boondoggle ever.
... biggest military boodoggle yet."
Read: "
-kgj
-kgj
And now, this word from the Military Industrial Complex ...
Did you know that war is good for you? That's right: think of all the amazing medical benefits which trickle down like a warm, red rivulet of blood from today's mechanized battlefield! Artificial limbs, artificial skin, artificial eyes ... just thank a disfigured soldier!
But that's not all! Thanks to military development, you can buy a combat-sized humvee just like the ones you see smoldering on TV (armor not included -- see dealer for details). Your police department's armaments have never been deadlier. And coming soon: pain-causing crowd control devices guaranteed to put the "obey" back in "civil disobedience."
You U.S. citizens are fortunate to live in a nation which has been continuously at war somewhere in the world for over sixty years. Nothing benefits the homefront more than the front line. So call your legislator now, before the new Democratic congress, and tell him or her you demand the rich benefits of bloated defense appropriations. Because there's no bigger buzzkill than stopping the killing.
War ... what's it good for? It's good for you!
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Scientists hate to see any funding go away. Sure, it would be better to get that $500 million invested directly into research, but cutting that money out of a military research program hardly means it will be directly spent on research. The total NIH budget (the government's medical research department) has a budget of around $30 billion, and goes up by something like 1% per year (less than inflation, or Congress's cost-of-living raises).
Until more science-minded people actually go into the deciding (rather than advising) areas of government, this kind of situation will continue.
How about this:
You are right wing: torn and confused
Positives: military spending
Negatives: the government is doing what the private sector should be doing.
You are left wing:
Positives: mmmm.... none
Negatives: why not just directly spend the money on medical research?
>we are engaging most of the enemy (terrorists) in that fight and we have not been attacked on US Soil.
The attacks have happened in Spain and Britain instead. Both had troops in Iraq. Fighting in Iraq does not prevent terrorist attacks.
It was one of our allies who acknowledged that the current President is "the best recruiting sergeant ever for al-Qaida".
bin Laden's second in command, Zawahiri, publicly thanked God for the situation in Iraq.
AQ strategist Yusuf al-Ayeri published a book arguing that the best thing that could possibly happen for the bin Ladenists would be a US invasion of Iraq.
The Iraqi War has not really increased the threat to the west or created more jihadists. The outrage amongst extremists would be the same due to the war against the Taliban and Al Quaeda in Afghanistan. Jihadists from around the world would have flocked there rather than Iraq. The Jihadists stress Iraq today because they are media and PR savvy enough to know that Iraq is where they can drive a wedge between westerners. They learned from Vietnam that wars can be won by victories in the press, despite defeats on the battlefield. Keep in mind that both sides are lying to you and manipulating you. Militant Islam has been attacking the west since the 1970s and they have been getting better and better at it each year. They want a conflict with the west, they want to destroy the west. The only thing that the Iraqi War has changed is that the IEDs are going off in Bhagdad, Iraq rather than Kabul, Afghanistan.
the Pen, sir, is mightier
A particular person may be mightier holding a "pen" rather than a "sword", however that is only true because someone else with a "sword" is protecting the writer. Without the protection offered by another, the writer is at the mercy of others. The holder of the pen becomes the prop for a jihadist video.
there is no jihad.
Military hardware - especially nukes - is never meant to be USED.
It's meant to be PAID FOR.
And it's only used when somebody wants to GET PAID AGAIN FOR REPLACING IT - or use it up arranging for somebody else to get paid (in oil or whatever resource is the reason for the war.)
"Boondoggles" happen for a reason - and it's not simple stupidity or incompetence.
Years ago, I read in an electronic engineering journal an article by an engineer who consulted for a company manufacturing a certain component for the US government. He arrived at a factory with scores of employee cars in the parking lot, a big building, and a revenue of $100 million. He estimated he could produce this component for $100 with ten people. The owner of the company told him: "You can produce it for $100. I produce it for $100 million. Who's smarter?"
Get a clue.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Two Words: Avro Aero
There are a number of other systems that need to be cut so that we can move on.
With the above commentary about replacing the M-16. I have been reading that from many sources.
With armor. Why not start distributing protection on the gun. A bullet should never get close to our people. We have some of our people in Iraq making them "Pope Glass" on site. Just like the hillbilly armor on humvee's get those trucks out of there and put in something that will stop an ak-47 bullet and with a bit of money would stop an RPG. (that seems to be happening a little bit at a time with the M113 upgrades) FYI, I have to believe that we can make the same type of protection for our troops like the "Pope Glass" for less than 7500 (which is what the stuff costs for our troops to make them)
Other things... why are we spending so much on ships? Are we going to have useful Wing in Ground (aka: Ekranoplan) boat/planes?
Dealing with planes oye... We are spending much more money for a lot less planes. Is a F22 really 10 time better than a F16? It costs that much more. And the reason for it... We sold the F16 to those who we may have to fight great. BTW, we plan on doing the same with the F22. Also, is the F16 or F22 really approriate for Close Air Support? Why not invest in cheaper planes like the A10? ops. really we need to buy 300mill dollar planes to do the work that a 10 million dollar plane can do better.
better? what do I mean better... The F22 is not designed to take hits by ak47's. The A10 is. Look up Killer Chick.
But, no, the planet is full of violent assholes, bent on taking over the world, and then there are their opponents: the rest of the world.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Well, actually, Islam has been at war with the West since its inception. And not just the West, but other parts of the world too (such as India, which is still suffering from terrorism).
The first thing they mentioned as being lost are endoscopic pills (imaging pills).
Do they mean the imaging pills devloped by an Israeli company, without using technology (they're not paying royalty) of the US Army?
The pills devloped by an Israeli company, with investment of money from various commercial companies, not the US Army?
Gee, I can see if the Land Warrior is cancelled, how the guys at Given Imaging are going to go bankrupt. Go check their stock, and see how well they've been doing.
Everyone should have nukes if they can wrangle it. Why does the USA get to pick and choose? I don't give a shit if Iran nukes Iraq, or Israel nukes Iran or who nukes who over there. I see you have a bias against arabs because you try to appeal to the "White guilt over Jews" that is so prevelant in the USA. I bet if I told you that I thought the way the nation of Israel was created was rascist and unfair, you'd call me an anti-semite.
Yes asshole, you WAIT until someone has attacked you to attack back. Pre-emptive strikes are amoral. How about I go to your house and shoot you in the face and kick your pregnant wife in the stomach because i think your kid will grow up to be a drug addicted drain on society? Maybe I'll light your house on fire and off you all as you run from the burning building! I gotta defend myself!
I don't use the number of people dead in Iraq as a reason to end the war, I lament because all those people died for a rediculously impossible pipe-dream. What does Korea have to do with the US's foreign policy? Are you trying to change the subject?
Blar.
Sorry but this is just wrong (and ignorant).
It is historically wrong. It is wrong nowadays.
Islam like nearly every other religion has been used for very different aims. And such a simplified ahistorical statement like yours won't help a rational approach.
Please, don't try to fight stupidity with stupidities.
(And the role of Islam in Indian history is highly complex and Islam is an integral part of the Indian culture.)
"Hannibal's plans never work right. They just work." Amy/A-Team
Is that 300 billion dollars, or 300 billion cents?
It's not historically wrong, it's a plain fact. Also, I'm sure that Islam has had a fantastic role in Indian culture.
Military research provides source material for ideas for FPS games. GRAW! Rainbow Six Vegas!
There's already way too many WWII games out there, Normandy can only be invaded so many times.
[/joking]