DARPA Celebrates 50 Years of Pushing the Envelope

holy_calamity writes "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency was founded in 1958 after the Soviets shocked the world by launching Sputnik. New Scientist recounts the history of the agency charged with protecting the US from 'technological surprise' and lists some of its most spectacular successes and failures."

Comments

I'd never heard of Project Orion but...

[DanWS6]

The top cruise velocity that can be achieved by a thermonuclear Orion starship is about 8% to 10% of the speed of light (0.08â"0.1c). An atomic (fission) Orion can achieve perhaps 3%â"5% of the speed of light.[citation needed] A nuclear pulse drive starship powered by matter-antimatter pulse units would be theoretically capable of obtaining a velocity between 50% to 80% of the speed of light.[citation needed] Missions that were designed for an Orion vehicle in the original project included single stage (i.e., directly from Earth's surface) to Mars and back, and a trip to one of the moons of Saturn. One possible modern mission for this near-term technology would be to deflect an asteroid that could collide with Earth. The extremely high performance would permit even a late launch to succeed, and the vehicle could effectively transfer a large amount of kinetic energy to the asteroid by simple impact. Also, an automated mission would eliminate the most problematic issues of the design: the shock absorbers. Interesting. I'm not sure about the efficiency claims but interesting nonetheless. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)

Re:I'd never heard of Project Orion but...

[Dripdry]

This topic seem sto get a lot of play here on Slashdot. Basically, the limits of chemical propellants have been reached. The next step up could be "Nuclear Pulse" engines such as the one developed for Orion. They would allow MUCH larger payloads to be put into orbit, and my understanding is that the number of "bombs" needed do not correlate linearly to the mass of the payload as it increases, allowing for a very efficient, by today's standards, method of travel.

Re:I wish this one wasn't killed....

[maxume]

Apparently other people are also interested in weather markets can predict things:

http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/
http://www.intrade.com/
http://www.google.com/search?q=political+markets

Notice at Google that major media outlets are running them now. UIowa was pretty early if they weren't the first.

DARPA and open source

[tcopeland]

When I worked on the DARPA COUGAAR distributed agent project they used lots of open source code and had no problems with donating code back. The whole PMD source code analysis tool started there and has lived on long after the sponsoring program ended... good stuff.

hear hear

[WinPimp2K]

Really, just calling them failures shows a considerable failure on the part of the folks compiling the list. Lack of political will is not the same as lack of technical ability. And demonstration of negative results is also good for when the matter comes up again. The telepathic spies WILL come up again within 20 years as we get more and more unthinking morons in positions of budgetary power.(and the current crop of "consensus scientists" will need to find another scam when they hit middle age)

And calling the exoskeleton a "current" project? There has been ongoing research into this before RAH ever dreamed of the Mobile Infantry.

Re:hear hear

[jank1887]

"current" project = project with "current" funding. It didn't say 'hot new project ideas'. The Army has a current project to develop Silicon Carbide power electronic devices. It's a decade or so old now. Significant progress has been made. There's still more to come. The idea is old. The project is current. See?

Re:I wish this one wasn't killed....

[Hankapobe]

Some stuff is just unspeakably evil, or unspeakably dumb. A market for medical knowledge gained unethically, for example. This is one of those can/should discussions: the fact that an action is possible doesn't make it a bright idea:...

Who would get hurt if there was a market of this type? If anything, it would save lives. I don't see anything unethical about it. If there was anything that was unethical it was the politicians killing this for political points.

There's a huge industry that bets on when people will die. Is it unethical? It's kept many families from becoming destitute after the death of the bread winner. I'm talking about life insurance.

Re:Remote Viewing

[c6gunner]

As to "telepathic spies," the Army's remote viewing program (a.k.a. STARGATE) shouldn't be regarded as a failure. It's an interesting topic, difficult to research due to an abundance of pseudo-science, but there are valid academic [ucdavis.edu] studies [nytimes.com] which conclude that the phenomenon is real.

Heh. Right. And there are "academic studies" which supposedly disprove evolution. The thing is, as soon as you start to examine these studies you generally find that either the researchers involved in the study have a personal stake in reaching a certain result, or you find that they've simply been mislead. I suggest you check out James Randi's Project Alpha Hoax for a good example. There you'll find an example of respected scientists performing a study for a major university who are made to look like utter fools by slight-of-hand tricks performed by two magicians. The problem is simple - these scientists WANTED a positive result, and they didn't use proper scientific procedures to perform their tests. Scientists are people too - they make mistakes just like the rest of us.

Anyway, as of this date there is absolutely zero credible evidence to suggest that "psychic viewing" - or any other powers which "mentalists" claim to possess - are anything more than tricks played by frauds and charlatans. If you think you can prove otherwise, I suggest you go and apply for James Randi's "Million Dollar Challenge". Over the last few decades thousands of people have taken the challenge, yet somehow Mr. Randi continues to hold on to his money.

Re:Spectacular miss

[icebike]

Not so spectacular, and not really a miss, just (like everything DARPA does) a tad ahead of its time.

http://bostondynamics.com/content/sec.php?section=BigDog

Watching the video, it actually looks alive.
http://bostondynamics.com/