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DARPA Fractionated Spacecraft Program Starts
An anonymous reader writes "Start buying Cold War nuclear shelters and piling up the canned food, because Boeing Advanced Systems has started System F6: 'DARPA's Future, Fast, Flexible, Fractionated, Free-Flying Spacecraft United by Information Exchange space technology program.' In other words: multiple, networked specialized spacecraft swarms that are intelligent enough to perform a single coordinated task together, like analyzing the crops or deciding to destroy humanity, Skynet-style. Actually, it could completely change satellites for the better, according to some experts."
I for one, welcome our new free-flying fractionated overlords. Especially if they turn out looking like Summer Glau...
This product is brought to you by the letter 'F'.
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
...welcome our modular satellite overlords.
If you ignore the "...Will probably change the face of sattelites for the better, if you ignore that they might decide to wipe out humanity at any given time..."
Dude, gives a whole new meaning to "the threat of hacking"
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
In two minutes, 4 oblig cliches posted in response. Is that how snarky we have become?
Bearded Dragon
I thought the writers strike was over. Why do we still have these drama writers working at slashdot exactly??
1.) Improved station-keeping to allow greater numbers of satellites to operate safely in space. In particular, multiple satellites could navigate as a group, maintaining their positions relative to each other and therefore occupying only one "slot" in orbit.
2.) Synthetic apertures. NASA is planning a future mission using station-keeping or physically separated mirros to create an ultra-high resolution telescope. The idea is already used in ground scopes (and the basic principles are used in the F-22's radar). This can also be applied to increasing the resolution of topographic maps and of satellite imagery.
This system would be great for locating lost objects. I for one have misplaced my Sarah Connor.
Holy shit, do the editors even read the articles anymore?
/. isn't playing the digg game, then what the hell are the editors actually doing with their time?
The submission is just a blatant ripoff of the gizmodo article it links to, which in turn is incredibly vague and sensationalist without any real content whatsoever.
If
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Something obviously went wrong ... with /.'s tagging system.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
not so much a ripoff of gizmodo but this story was already slashed last week: DARPA Funds Development on Modular Satellite Network....
this is, for all intents and purposes, the same article as this
Fantastically fabricated, these fierce forebears of flowing fairy finesse fire forth fast fletchettes, forcing the faithful few to focus their fears: friend or foe? But fah, I forstall. In short, you may call them "F".
ceci n'est pas une
*sigh* I'm waiting for the whatcouldpossiblygowrong tag to show up.
I know it's been said before but it seems like lately there has been a lot of fear mongering going on in the world. I understand when I see it on TV; all the soccer moms of the world need to know the latest threat to their little angels.
But Slashdot should be better than this. Every time an article comes up that mentions AI, virusses, bacteria, censorship, anything remotely threatening it gets the fear mongering going.
Here, we have a developement that could save millions of dollars worth of launch costs; yet we fear it because... why exactly? It might spontaneously gain intelligence and attack the human race? Someone might hack it and tell it to attack? Attack using what exactly? I hope that the poster was joking, but honestly, I doubt it.
DARPA's Future, Fast, Flexible, Fractionated, Free-Flying Spacecraft United by Information Exchange space technology program.
Have there been a ridiculously large number of Skynet references lately on /.? This must either be,
1. a result of the new Terminator series on TV or
2. we really have something to worry about.
Take off every 'sig' for great justice.
Can it find Sarah Connor?
This space intentionally left blank
Millions of 2lb satellites launched from fixed wing aircraft R probably the way it's going to be done. The satellites could unite to form 1 huge spaceship or become space debris.
it is a little known fact that the editors are shells
Oops, mis-spelled "shills" again! Maybe next time I'll use "preview".
Seriously, this is one f'ed up article.
This program is a shoo in to win the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate award.
Have gnu, will travel.
Remember back in the old days when there was one monster mainframe that served all the users and access to it was tightly controlled? Then we discovered the wonders of having thousands of smaller computers all networked together, giving incredible flexibility and scaling?
That's what this is for satellites. Instead of having billion-dollar single point failures floating around in space, DARPA is trying to develop the technologies to have constellations of tens, hundreds, thousands of smaller satellites working together in an integrated mesh network. A network that can be improved by launching new nodes with upgraded features, one with fault tolerance in case of node failure.
F6 is one of the precursor technologies to be able to do this. And yes, like many things in space it can be used for evil purposes just as it can be used for good."Trying is only the first step towards failure." - Homer
Is fractionated some kind of wierd post tensile enconjurfiverbificationization of fraction? What's wrong with divided? Or distributed may be better.
While some may think that inventing new words with more syllables makes them sound more intelligent, it just makes them sound really, really stupid.
Oh yeah, it's US defence... sorry, as you were...
I don't therefore I'm not.
Here's the difference: the issues of AI, censorship, etc. are real issues that are not well understood by most people and underreported or misunderstood by the media.
Fear mongering is to exaggerate or completely fabricate threats that play on the irrational fears of ignorant people (sorry soccer moms, it's true)
Big difference
Thank you Dave Raggett
But much more ominous in black with a red light.
It's interesting to note the 2-hour season ender for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, focused around thwarting the construction of a network of traffic monitor sensors. It's rare to see science fiction lagging behind real-world technolgy in real-time development.
And we haven't even gotten into the robotic mobile machine guns, predator unmanned aerial vehicles, and tiny dragonfly-type robots with poison stingers. Here, not in the Sarah Connor Chronicles.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Okay, so someone needs to watch Cowboy Bebop Episode 9 (Jamming with Edward) before this thing gets off the ground, lest "[l]aser satellites in Earth orbit begin carving pictures onto the planet's surface, in the style of the Nazca Lines" when the AI gets bored from watching all of us. (Quote from the episode description on Wikipedia.)
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Where *did* I put that link to buy up an old Titan II missile shelter?
Dammit, every time I have a computer crash, I lose more than the operating system; I lose a zillion small, fun, interesting, and could-be-useful-if-I-meet-Summer-Glau links.
I just hate crashes.
mutter, mutter, mutter.