The Geek Church

I think we all know about smart-bombs, missiles, and other type of weaponry that is guided, but what about bullets. Sandia National Laboratories has developed a smart bullet with built-in actuators and fins that will guide it in flight to hit targets over one mile away.

The bullet has an 8-bit processor to adjust the position of its fins at 30 times per second, keeping a lased target in front of it. While most bullets from conventional rifles spin like footballs in the air, this guided bullet has a center of gravity flies like a a dart.

Okay, is anyone else a little bit afraid of a bullet that might have your name on it? I mean, it looks like it can hit a target with an accuracy of 8 inches of a mile target, while an ordinary bullet can do within 29 feet of traveling a mile. Granted, these bullets are definitely more special than ordinary bullets, and they will probably cost more as well.

However, if you can imagine an age where these smart bullets hit every target that they can put a laser to is somewhat out of science-fiction, and I’m talking about the nightmare Terminator stuff. I suppose we will see what the future has to offer with it’s guided bullets that seem plucked from the Tom Selleck movie Runaway.

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Recently, a defense contractor named Northrop Grumman was given a project to develop combat airships for the U. S. Armed Forces. These aerial vessels will be used specifically for deployment in Afghanistan to keep a constant watch on the country.

Furthermore, these combat airships will be housed and launched from an massive air base designed to float continuously over Afghanistan. This air base is called the Long-Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV), which seems to be resemble an aircraft carrier. The air base is intended to float over certain global locations of interest like Afghanistan at a height of 20,000 feet and monitor the landscape with a series of sensors. The LEMV’s sensory view is designated as the campaign view. Meanwhile, combat airships are also designed for surveying combat areas and their view is known as the Real-Time Strategy (RTS) view. Lastly, foot troops with helmet cams and embedded sensors will be responsible for the First Person Shooter (FPS) view.

Of course, the idea here is to gather more information for making better decisions during military operations on every level of personnel to achieve greater mission success and lower casualties in active duty. Personally, I have to wonder how realistic it is to be developing combat airships to be deployed from a huge, flying fortress. I’d hate to think how much Americans will have to pay in taxes to cover the cost for all that high-tech equipment.

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This is the Uzi Tactical Pen. Just so you know, it is not a pen that can shoot like an Uzi. It would probably have to be larger for that.

Here is what it can do. Imagine that you get mugged by someone like the guy in the picture on the right. Now, you could just escape him, but he could just run away and you would never see him again. How can you press charges against this Bono wannabe without any evidence?

You could stab him with this Uzi Tactical Pen. It has a razor shard DNA catcher that can trap the assailant’s blood sample so the DNA therein can be used against him in a court of law later.

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In the development of new technology, making better vehicles is one of the goals that researchers seek to achieve. Of course, this leads to projects in which new vehicles are designed to be faster, more fuel efficient, easier to operate and safer for the user. Thus, the Air Force made a recent achievement in aviation when one of their scramjet engines set a new record for hypersonic flight yesterday.

The test vehicle they used is called the X-51A Waverider, which reached a speed of Mach 5 in 200 seconds. Now this is the longest recorded hypersonic flight in history since NASA’s X-43 was the former record holder in 2004 and the X-51A flew ten times longer than the X-43. In its test flight, the unmanned X-51A Waverider was launched from a B-52 plane over the Pacific Ocean and the X-51A used a rocket booster to reach Mach 4.8. Then the booster was jettisoned and the X-51A’s SJY61 scramjet engine did the rest of the work, generating supersonic combustion to make a shockwave that the jet used for propulsion. After setting its historic flight record, the X-51A crashed into the Pacific Ocean, abandoned as a lost vessel.

However, three other X-51A Waveriders have been scheduled for future test runs later this year. According to Air Force X-51A program manager Charlie Brink, the record setting flight was a big day in aviation technology. He also went on to say that the development of the scramjet engine is an achievement equal to the innovation of jet engines replacing propeller planes after World War 2. Considering that the X-51A was unmanned during its test flight, I wonder how long it will take the Air Force to ensure that hypersonic planes are safe for human pilots and passengers in the future.

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In this modern age, technology continues to become more portable for greater accessibility and effective use on the go. This applies not just for consumer products but also professional equipment and hardware for the military as well. The U.S. Armed Forces is currently looking for a better method of communication between soldiers during their operations in active duty. So, the mighty computer company Hewlett-Packard is in the process of developing watch computers for our nation’s troops.

They’ve named their concept the Dick Tracy watch. This device will utilize a flexible, wrist-mounted display designed to run on solar energy and plastic will be a major component in its creation. The purpose of this project is to create a versatile, communication device for use on the battlefield that won’t be hindered by a limited power source or possible malfunction.

Currently, there is no information about the military’s long-term plans for using the Dick Tracy watch. Personally, I wonder how realistic it is to actually make this technology in the real world since the concept itself is named after the tech of a comic book character. It seems that scientists, inventors and research companies like to draw their inspiration for new innovations directly from the literature and films of science fiction and fantasy.

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Let’s consider some of the methods used to prepare soldiers for active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces. Of course, these methods include boot camp, obstacle courses and regiments for physical conditioning, hand-to-hand combat and weapons training. Now augmented reality is another tool for getting military personnel ready to serve their country on the battlefield. A company called the Cubic Corporation has created a special helmet for running combat simulations.

They’ve named this device the COMBATREDI. It is a high-definition equipped helmet that features a mounted OLED video display for a 60 x 45 degree field of view, an integrated 3D stereo audio headset and a wireless, simulation rifle. The rifle itself is actually designed to be used like a real gun, requiring fresh magazine clips and it has a variety of firing modes. A REDITAC tactical computer is also worn on the user’s back to follow his movements through a series of sensors. This computer will determine where the soldier is looking and what his current posture is, whether he’s standing still, on his knees or lying flat on his belly.

Cubic was recently hired to provide the Florida Army National Guard with twenty-seven sets of the COMBATREDI training system for a sum of 4.8 million dollars. According to Cubic Corporation, this combat simulator is currently the most realistic way to train soldiers. However, the COMBATREDI could find customers among the gaming community as well as the military. After all, it was created to give users an authentic experience of combat on the battlefield without engaging in actual warfare.

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Development of military technology has recently taken an unexpected turn in the creation of new combat hardware. Apparently, remote-controlled robot drones are a frontier of great interest for researchers in Israel. They have actually created a small robot that finds and neutralizes explosives and enemy targets hiding on the battlefield.

Israeli scientists in the field of robotics developed a machine they call the Pincher. The purpose of this robot drone is to counteract the threat of hidden improvised, explosive devices (IEDs) by detonating them before they can be triggered by unsuspecting soldiers or civilians. The Pincher uses a small, eight-inch rocket called a pyrophoric arrow, which will embed itself into an explosive and burn it up after being fired. Of course, the idea behind this robot is to give military personnel the ability to go into hostile territory and flush out unexpected threats without risking the lives of one’s own troops.

However, the Pincher is only fifty square inches in size, so it’s small enough to be considered a children’s toy. Nevertheless, such a device could open new possibilities for attack and defense capabilities on the battlefield and preserving the lives of soldiers despite its size. After all, one should never underestimate the little guy in the art of warfare.

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Research companies, scientists and inventors continue to explore new concepts in warfare technology to develop better weapons, equipment and vehicles for the military. One of the primary goals in their research is to make our troops safer on the battlefield and find ways to decrease the dangers they face in active duty. Now Boeing seeks to keep fighter pilots out of deadly aerial combat through their recent development of a new, unmanned stealth aircraft.

This stealth jet is called the Phantom Ray, a remote-controlled aircraft that is thirty-six feet long and is very similar to the size of a fighter jet. This aerial vessel was designed with its engine hidden within its fuselage so it can’t be easily detected by infrared, imaging devices. According to Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing’s CEO of Defense, Space and Security, the Phantom Ray will be a means for testing new technologies for military operations such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Furthermore, this stealth aircraft is intended to serve functions that include suppression of enemy air defenses, electronic attack and automatic aerial refueling. The Phantom Ray is meant to open up an entirely new world of opportunities in military technology.

Nonetheless, the main selling point of this stealth aircraft that it was created to operate without the need for a human pilot, making it a lighter vessel capable of speeds up to 614 miles per hour. The Phantom Ray is also designed to perform aerial maneuvers in flight that a person couldn’t survive, so it is meant to wage warfare without putting soldiers in harm’s way. Test flights of this stealth aircraft will be conducted during the summer.

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In this age of modern warfare, research and development of new weapons technology is constantly in motion. Scientists, researchers and inventors continue to conceive designs for better weapons to make soldiers more effective on the battlefield. You might be familiar with the concept of an advanced gun with programmable, adaptive ammunition for handling a variety of situations. Well, technology has finally come far enough for the military to bring this concept into the real world.

A new weapon called the XM-25 Individual Airburst Weapon has been developed for military personnel. This gun actually fires a 25-millimeter “smart round” that can be pre-programmed to detonate at a specific distance chosen by the shooter. Not only is the XM-25 is capable of spreading shrapnel in all directions when firing explosive rounds, but it is also equipped with a rangefinder that allows a soldier to determine the actual range of a current target and manually adjust the gun’s bullets to detonate accordingly under the current circumstances of a situation. The main purpose of the XM-25 is to give soldiers the ability to attack entrenched targets around corners and in buildings with greater ease.

Currently, the XM-25 Individual Airburst Weapon is being tested at the Aberdeen Test Center in Maryland. It seems that this smart gun is meant to be the ideal weapon for giving soldiers versatility and a tactical advantage for various types of threats in combat. This new firearm could serve as an example of new weapons technology inspired by the imaginary technology we often see in science fiction. However, I hope this weapon was also designed with safeguards against misfiring rounds. On the battlefield, a soldier’s worst enemy may not be hostile combatants but a “yet-to-be-proven”, heavy-looking, experimental gun with explosive ammo.

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In the development of new technology, researchers will eventually conduct a test run of their latest creation to evaluate its overall effectiveness and determine if it is ready for use in the real world. Of course, there are successes and failures in designing experimental technology and researchers don’t always get the results they’re looking for. Things certainly didn’t go as planned for the Air Force when their new aircraft was suddenly missing in action nine minutes after it took flight. Thus, its current location is still unknown.

This new aircraft is called the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2. Its intended purpose is to attack global targets at a speed of Mach 20 and launch conventional weapons against a target anywhere on the planet in one hour. This capability was meant to make it a perfect substitute for Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. The Falcon was created by Lockheed Martin as part of a DARPA program and it was launched last week on a Minotaur IV rocket from the Vandenberg Air Force Base. The plan was to have it splash down in the Pacific Ocean after it finished a flight test of 4,100 miles in just half an hour. But it disappeared after its launch, the Air Force lost all contact with the aerial vessel and it hasn’t been seen since.

According to the preliminary report by DARPA’s Johanna Spangenberg Jones, the Falcon achieved controlled flight within the atmosphere at over Mach 20 before contact with it was lost. Then the telemetry data signal vanished and the vessel went off the grid as “MIA” (Missing In Action). This launch was the Falcon’s first actual flight after previous test runs were performed in wind tunnels and simulations. Despite the new aircraft’s disappearance, another test flight is still scheduled for early 2011. Well, maybe this aerial prototype will eventually turn up or the tech guys in the design department will have to start again at square one.

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