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."

Comments

not quite..

[macadamia_harold]

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.

Re:not quite..

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I still wouldn't call it a military boondoggle, because we are engaging most of the enemy (terrorists) in that fight and we have not been attacked on US Soil.

The key mistake in this argument is the assumption that the people we're fighting in Iraq are people who would, if not so occupied, be flying planes into US buildings. Now, some of them probably are, but the best evidence -- given how al-Sadr, bin Laden et al are using the war as a recruiting tool -- is that most of them are people who, before the war, may not have liked the US very much, but didn't actively hate it enough to go out and try to kill Americans; even if those Americans were right next door, not halfway around the world!

Before 9/11, there were plenty of Americans who didn't have any warm'n'fuzzy feelings about the Middle East, but they weren't in any rush to go and enlist to sit out on some chunk of sand in Saudi Arabia either. After 9/11, recruiting stations had lines around the block. If you can't see the parallel here, you're blind.

Re:not quite..

[jfengel]

I don't think he's claiming that America's actions caused the jihad. He's claiming that it has made it worse, or rather, that it may be making it worse by providing recruiting tools.

It's based around the (debatable) idea that 9/11 was a one-shot with no follow-through. I think that part of what made 9/11 so horrible was that everybody was expecting it to be part of a campaign, one which was easy enough since the country is full of soft targets. I don't know if it didn't materialize because of the toppling of the Taliban, or increased enforcement (including Guantanamo and wiretapping), or just because they didn't plan well.

At this point proving causation is just impossible. They have a lot of bones to pick with us, but the rhetoric is often obtuse and bragging. The real question is not what got us here, but where we go from here. Most people are agreed that simply dropping the Iraq war is not an option, including (I suspect) the grandparent poster. But "winning" in the usual sense may also not be an option, in which case you're kinda stuck between a rock and a very difficult policy decision.

FUD

[Bob Gelumph]

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?

Re:FUD

[mrbluze]

Although historically medical advances were military in origin (major surgery mostly), the major diseases that confront wealthy societies have very little to do with combat. Take cancer or heart disease or diabetes as examples (although depleted uranium may be a way to generate cases) - we don't have any shortage of people with these complaints. Civilian society is driving medicine forward in these fields. What is more, vaccination against common fatal infections was arguably the greatest medical advance of the 20th century, and this did not come about because of the army. Just to give credence to your point :)

Re:FUD

[legoburner]

Indeed, I would wager that $300Billion pumped directly into medical research would have given a hell of a lot more results than 'land warrior' trickle down.

Re:FUD

[legoburner]

nah, $300billion would buy a lot of "homeless shelters"

It make no sense, sènior

[Toby The Economist]

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.

Re:It make no sense, sènior

[lixee]

This is OUR money that's being spent.

That's, in part, the answer to the infamous "Why do they hate us?" question.

You can mod me down now.

Re:It make no sense, sènior

[kinnell]

1. why aren't companies like Pfizer investing in it?

The trouble with investing in government programs is that the entire project can be ditched overnight for the benefit of someone's political agenda

Re:It make no sense, sènior

[UbuntuDupe]

1. why aren't companies like Pfizer investing in it? (probably they are?)

Well, libertarian or not, you're going to have to accept that just because a technology is really cool, doesn't mean the private sector wants to invest in it, even if they got guaranteed patent rights to it. The risk/return/time horizon profile may not be justified compared to other investments.

2. why doesn't the US Government have the sense to invest directly in such things?

I suppose you could ask the same thing about the space program.

Re:Damnit.

[Anonymous Coward]

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's why it's being axed.

It's a load of horseshit.

Have you seen the sorts of prototypes they've been showing off? They don't look like battlefield systems. They look like toys. Few looked actually deployable, and only a couple looked really useful.

I'm a big fan of random, pointless research. But I don't like it being sold as something else. This is an out-of-control R&D project that's been light on the "D."

How about this?

[EyyySvenne]

Many do not realize the enormous amount of medical technology that trickles down from the military. Many do not realize the enormous amount of medical technology that would emerge from spending $500 Million on it directly.

no it's not...

[dwater]

> $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'.

Waste of money

[lupine_stalker]

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).

fix funding

[idlake]

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.

Re:problem

[Daniel Dvorkin]

You want to help the grunt? Okay, invest your money in:

1. Body armor. First, make sure there's enough of the current generation to go around; then put R&D money into developing lighter, better armor that will offer the same level of protection without adding so many pounds to the already killing load the modern-day soldier has to haul around the battlefield.

2. Medevac choppers. Nothing new, nothing fancy, just the same Blackhawks that have been quite successfully pulling wounded troops off the field for the last couple of decades. And, of course, the medics and equipment to turn those choppers into first-class air ambulances. One of the major reasons we lost so few people in Desert Storm (trust me on this one; I was one of the people doing this job) is that we had so much surplus medical capacity in the air that any soldier, injured anywhere in the theatre, combat or non-combat, was guaranteed to be on a chopper within minutes and at a hospital within half an hour. That was the first war in history (and so far, the last) where this was true, and it shows in the casualty reports.

3. A goddamn rifle that works. The M16 and its variants have been failing American soldiers on the battlefield for forty years, for fuck's sake! Either it doesn't shoot at all ("Okay, this thing doesn't work so well in the jungle. So let's make it work really well in the jungle ... ooops, now we're fighting in the desert!") or it shoots fine, but its tiny bullets don't make a big enough hole and the enemy keeps coming.

All of the above are a lot cheaper than trying to turn our troops into something out of an anime, you know? And last but certainly not least:

4. The State Department, so maybe we can stop putting our troops into wars we never should have had to fight in the first goddamn place.

FUD by the Opponents

[cluckshot]

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.

Re:If the US didn't go into UNJUSTIFIED wars...

[Eunuchswear]

So, what exactly is your plan for stopping Iran getting nukes? Destroy their two biggest enemies (al-queda and Saddam)?

Since 9/11 the US has helped Bin Laden achieve his major war aim (US troops out of Saudi), destroyed Iran's enemies and given control of Iraq to Iranian allies.

Maybe you'd better learn to look before you leap.

And now, this word ...

[kitzilla]

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!