Building Tomorrow's Soldier Today

FleaPlus writes "Wired reports on a glove developed by Stanford researchers Dennis Grahn and Craig Heller which combines a cooling system with a vacuum in order to chill blood vessels and drastically reduce fatigue. Besides the obvious military and athletics applications, the technology is also potentially useful for firefighters, stroke victims, and people with multiple sclerosis. The Wired article also describes a number of other human enhancement projects intended to advance battlefield technology. Examples include military exoskeletons, projects designed to increase cognition or decrease the need for sleep, and studies that may one day allow single soldiers to operate multiple aerial drones. Many of these were opposed by the President's Council on Bioethics."

Comments

Re:Solider?

[Larus]

Science and technology aside, this will sooner or later find commercial markets.

And why not? Human beings have made themselves to be more unhuman in every passing year. We have professional athletes whose exercise programs would be considered abnormal and pointless, (not including shaving eyebrows to achieve an iota of improvement in swim speed.) We have anti-aging pharmaceutical food and beverage offerings that cater to the Baby Boomers who felt entitled to look like 40-yos instead of 60. We have daily caffeine to boost our brains in the morning, no-dose to boost productivity in the evenings, Prozac to lift us when we're low, and even psychadelic drugs to boost creativity when we're dull. We design ergonomic chairs and keyboards while we sit in front of computers and in our cars for longer hours. We alter hormones and apply suntan lotions. We use AC's and heaters so that our habitats can include the most uncomfortable places on Earth. We give our children Baby Einstein so that they will be superkids and outcompete others when they grow up.

I'm not saying it's pointless for soldiers on the frontline to receive these booster-packs. They have a job to accomplish, and so do we. Maybe we're all trying to become Homo sapiens cyberneticus too. Maybe our environment self-selects.

Re:Great way to win the War on Terror on the Cheap

[GundamFan]

This is an excellent example of why we as a society need fiction (especially science fiction).

We have to explore or ethics as a culture very carefully before making leaps such as these, and fiction lets us do that.

Now to get more people to read worthwhile books...

too much sleep?

[rasputin465]

projects designed to increase cognition or decrease the need for sleep

Yeah, it's called 'meth', and Nazi soldiers used it while conducting Blitzkrieg. Not a new development.

Re:too much sleep?

[DrVomact]

Yeah, it's called 'meth', and Nazi soldiers used it while conducting Blitzkrieg. Not a new development.

My, that is a novel suggestion as to how the techniques of "Blitzkrieg" came into being. I suppose it should have been obvious me--it's well known that their soldiers are "fanatic" or "drug-crazed", while ours are "higly motivated".

Seriously, there's nothing new here. For example, benzedrine and other stimulants were routinely issued to U.S. Air Force pilots to keep them awake during WW II. In fact, the U.S. Air Force still issues amphetamines to its pilots and pressure them to take these "go pills". (For example, take a look at http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id= 1425252002 or http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/a pj/apj97/spr97/cornum.html or http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,57434,00. htmlhere.

It might be interesting to ask whether the pilots who were involved in the disturbingly frequent "friendly fire" incidents during our recent ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq were flying high in more than one sense. But nobody will.

May be solving the wrong problem

[Animats]

True. That may be solving the wrong problem.

The problem they're working on with this isn't one the US has. The "superhuman abilities" thing is useful when assaulting hard, heavily defended, hard to access targets. But the US military is very good at assaulting hard targets.

What the US military is lousy at is fighting guerrilla and insurgent movements. Those are about intelligence, not firepower. The opposition tries to avoid offering any hard targets. They don't fight pitched battles. It's classic Maoist doctrine: "The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue." The US couldn't deal with that in Vietnam, and it can't deal with it in Iraq.