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Smithsonian Gets Military UAVs

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Mon Apr 28, 2008 01:27 PM
from the skynet-positioning-assets dept.
The Military Technology
NetworkWorld is reporting that a new exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum is featuring some of the military's more prominent UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). In addition to the vehicles themselves, a large number of supporting technologies are also on display. "Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are used by all four military branches for missions ranging from reconnaissance and surveillance to attack and each branch is represented in this exhibit: Predator, DarkStar, X-45A (Air Force); Shadow 200 (Army); Dragon Eye (Marine Corps); and Pioneer (Navy)."
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  • It's funny that this is the second story on Slashdot in a row about military technology. For me, this shows an interesting dichotomy in how military issues are treated here. On one hand, us nerds show certain tendencies to pacifism, especially with the current war in Iraq. War, in a Star Trek sense, is often seen as belonging to a backward age of Man. On the other hand, among the nerd community there has always been an admiration of military technological advances and the efficiency of military organization. Look at the long popularity of Heinlein's Starship Troopers [amazon.com] , for example.

    • Re:Slashdot on a military roll (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TooMuchToDo (882796) on Monday April 28 2008, @01:37PM (#23227838)
      Although war is bad (though, depending on your viewpoint, a necessary evil), some of the tools of war (UAVs, etc) are engineering marvels. An example would be the SR-71 blackbird.

    • Re:Slashdot on a military roll (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jd (1658) <imipak.yahoo@com> on Monday April 28 2008, @01:54PM (#23228096) Homepage Journal
      That tends to be because the military get substantial funding for research and for recruiting the best minds. If the US Government put a trillion or so a year into civilian road car development, Slashdot would look more like Automart. Likewise, if they boosted Linux development by that amount, you'd be able to download it as a neural implant by now. The reason development accelerates in wartime is because Governments underfund research whenever possible, but the military (as much as I distrust them) have a much better grasp of the importance of such work.

    • Re:Slashdot on a military roll (Score:5, Insightful)

      by couchslug (175151) on Monday April 28 2008, @02:00PM (#23228182)
      There are plenty of "us nerds" that are far from being pacifists.
      Pacifism is fine in Moms basement. It equals "surrender" everywhere else, because it is only effective against people who aren't serious in the first place.

      "Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms."
                          Robert Anson Heinlein
      • Um, I would point out that Heinlein was a science FICTION author. Reality much?

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by turgid (580780)

          That reminds me, Gandhi had a contemporary who advocated India joining up with Nazi Germany in WWII to defeat the British. He had quite a sizable following.

          Goodness only knows what would have happened had Gandhi not been successful.

    • Re:Slashdot on a military roll (Score:5, Funny)

      by ArmyOfFun (652320) on Monday April 28 2008, @02:06PM (#23228260)
      As with most things, The Onion has already tapped this comedy vein:
      Peace Activist Has To Admit Barrett .50 Caliber Sniper Rifle Is Pretty Cool [theonion.com]

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SCHecklerX (229973)
      The reason you have your beloved Internet is because of military technology. Most good stuff comes from the military. And porn.
    • Let's see... the military finances a lot of neat techie things (ARPANET, Satellites, etc.), this is a blog about new techie things... is it really hard to make that connection?

    • Re:Slashdot on a military roll (Score:4, Insightful)

      by hey! (33014) on Monday April 28 2008, @02:27PM (#23228518) Homepage Journal
      Well, the military gets the money to buy the toys; if we moved, say, 20% of the military tech budget into space exploration, that would be a lot sexier right now.

      This is one of the things the general public doesn't understand about nerds/geeks/whatever you call people who are defined by enthusiasms for difficult to understand things. Geeks differentiate between the utility of things as objects of study, and their intended utility, as any computer security researcher would tell you.

      So just because you are fascinated by things that go boom doesn't mean you want to see them used on people. In fact, it's only idiots who like to play with explosives. The geek aspect of the game is doing things that would be stupid for other people, but not for you because you know exactly what is safe and what is not.

      As far as geek militarism/pacifism goes, it seems to follow a pendulum like with everyone else, with the geeks being a bit ahead of the curve. You wouldn't be a geek exactly if your way of looking at things made you fit in.

      Geeks are just smarter than the average populace. They aren't necessarily wiser. The very basis of wisdom is accepting that you might be wrong. Some people are so good at arguing and so used to being more right than their neighbor that they never have to confront their own fallibility. So geeks can represent both the best and worst humanity has to offer, the most enlightened viewpoints and the most stubbornly insular.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by R2.0 (532027)
        "Well, the military gets the money to buy the toys; if we moved, say, 20% of the military tech budget into space exploration, that would be a lot sexier right now."

        Social Security took up 20.2% of the 2007 federal budget. Defense took up 19%. By your logic, most geeks would be turned on by granny porn.

        Not that there's anything wrong with that...
        • Wow, that was an incredible piece of irrelevant observation. Yes, indeed, if we moved the social security budget into space exploration, then the space program would be more interesting to geeks than it is now, because it would be developing more technology. You, however, seem to think I'm arguing geeks are interested in things that money is being spent upon. Obviously, that's not true, otherwise we'd be fascinated by federal flood insurance.

          I'm just refuting the notion that geeks are necessarily militari

      • The very basis of wisdom is accepting that you might be wrong. Some people are so good at arguing and so used to being more right than their neighbor that they never have to confront their own fallibility.
        Yeah, I used to think that, but I was wrong .... so wrong.
        • Correction -- you might have been wrong. You might still be wrong now. Keep trying, and you'll get there.
    • On one hand, us nerds show certain tendencies to pacifism, especially with the current war in Iraq. War, in a Star Trek sense, is often seen as belonging to a backward age of Man.

      Haha that reminds of a song!

      Star Trek'n

      Captain James T. Kirk

      "We come in peace, shoot to kill, shoot to kill, shoot to kill, We come in peace, shoot to kill, Scotty beam me up!"

      If you mean nerd as in a WOW/ART/Music/Myspace Nerd, then yes I might agree with you. They are typically a notch or two on the evolutionary sca

      • While I'm not sure if we'd drop the nuke on France, given than in Starship Troopers they had nuclear hand grenades, most of the rest makes sense.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by shmlco (594907)
            "Anyway in a ST world France wouldn't exist anyway since if you weren't willing to do service in the military you pretty much were bred out of the human race since "Civilians" were only allowed to have 1 child per couple."

            Got a reference for that one? As I recall, in the book you needed military service in order to gain your franchise (the ability to vote). Everyone had to serve for a limited period in som fashion (e.g. public service), but only military service conferred the vote.

            So if you wanted a say in

      • 10/21 The rest of the world, in a "surprise" strike, nukes the US back to the stone age, and then, for a good measure, again, back to the primordial slime age. All US citizens abroad, all their spouses, children and anyone who says a word of sympathy towards them are then hunted down, tried, and duly executed.

        Following which the world takes a few decades to get over the latest of the failed hegemonic empires to stink up the planet Earth, after it has joined the ranks of the like of Rome and Ghingis Khan in

        • 10/21 The rest of the world, in a "surprise" strike, nukes the US back to the stone age, and then, for a good measure, again, back to the primordial slime age. All US citizens abroad, all their spouses, children and anyone who says a word of sympathy towards them are then hunted down, tried, and duly executed.

          After which they'll start nuking each other just to make sure that nobody gets any funny ideas.

        • Yes and history would "march on", right into another empire. Most likely Russia or China or Europe lording over everyone. But let me guess, in this "what goes around comes around" view, the world has once and for all rid itself of elitist bent on world domination by this sneak attack right?

          What is most insane is the view that the US is somehow the "most" evil, when in fact right now in every country elitists strive to control the populace through fear, oppression, and outright murder.

          Name a country and I wi

    • It was my understanding that the military geek was more a specific sub-type (in Japan they are called gunji otaku [wikipedia.org]) rather than a contradiction in terms.

    • Re:Slashdot on a military roll (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Russ Nelson (33911) on Monday April 28 2008, @03:38PM (#23229358) Homepage
      Efficiency? You mean like designing and building four different UVAs for each branch of the US military? You mean like designing a computer language for its own projects that nobody else uses (Ada)?

      Don't get me started about government efficiency.
  • There's five branches in the U.S. military. Four in the Department of Defense, and one in the Department of Homeland Security.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by techpawn (969834)
      Coast Guard? Coast Guard is the strange cousin of the Military. They invite him to the family get together but you know they talk about him when he's not in ear shot.
      Don't get me wrong. I respect the men and women who do it, I don't want to be on the water like that.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Solandri (704621)

        Coast Guard? Coast Guard is the strange cousin of the Military. They invite him to the family get together but you know they talk about him when he's not in ear shot.

        Prior to the formation of the Department of Homeland Security, the US Coast Guard was part of the Treasury Department (along with Customs and Border Patrol) during peacetime, and transferred to the Department of Defense during times of war. e.g. During Desert Storm (Iraq War I), the Coast Guard was transferred to the DoD and some of its ships

    • There's five branches in the U.S. military. Four in the Department of Defense, and one in the Department of Homeland Security.

      In your snarkiness, you were partly right (since you left out the Coast Guard), even as you knew you were wrong about DHS. If you're going down that road, why not say that Agriculture Department is part of the DoD, since pilots have to eat? Or that the IRS is just the revenue collecting branch of the military? Or that Nancy Pelosi is part of the military since it's something she t
      • Well, unless of course you're not trolling, and decided to be REALLY oblique about the Coast Guard. Which isn't exactly how that played, is it? Most people here don't like the necessary interaction between, and sharing of intel between the domestic activities of the DHS and the military intel people. Well, unless they can complain that sharing it badly is a defect of whatever administration they don't like, in which case sharing correctly is goood... but otherwise it's bad, see? One must slashdottify one's
          • Well, there are all sorts of government agencies that (sometimes) wear uniforms, carry guns, and even operate overseas. Like the State Department's protective people... yes, the Secretary of State might have Marines guarding her at some locations, but State's own crew is out in advance, sort of like the Secret Service. The Secret Service, of course (part of the Treasury!) is also out, overseas, packing heat, in advance of the arrival of certain parts of the government showing up. There are more, of course.

      • Unless I'm missing something, or not comprehending something correctly, in your response, the U.S. Coast Guard is structured under the Department of Homeland Security. Prior to the existence of DHS, it was part of the Department of Transportation. FWIW.

    • Four. Three in the Department of Defense, and one in the Department of Homeland Security. Unless you can name the Secretary of the Marine Corps for me.
  • I was actually at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum [si.edu] a week ago. The museum overall is simply fantastic--a must see for any die-hard geek. Actually, the Air and Space is split into two parts: a museum in downtown DC [si.edu] that has some planes and the lunar re-entry vehicles; and a larger hangar [si.edu] near the airport (Dulles, in Virginia) that has larger planes and space vehicles (including the Space Shuttle Enterprise [wikipedia.org]). Best of all, the Smithsonian Museums all have free admittance. (I probably sound like an ad for t
    • I'm definitely putting _them_ on my must-see list for when I visit the USA next time (dunno when that'll be, but it will happen). I am particularly interested in the UAVs, but I doubt the exhibit will still be up by the time I'll get over to yankeeland. I'll definitely try to come by the end of the year, though.

      Other geek-friendly places to see?
      • The wife and I decided to go to DC last July and had a great time. We only rented a car one day and it was to go to the Dulles arm of the Air and Space and a outlet mall. The entire time we were there we relied on the Subway and taxis. All of the Smithsonian museums are free to get in. The only one I know of that costs is the Spy museum which is privately run if I recollect.
    • I totally agree, having the Smithsonian Museums within driving distance is one of the best parts about living in the Northern VA / Maryland area.

      It's worth noting that the charge for parking at the Dulles Air and Space annex.
    • I went to the one by Dulles a couple of years ago. They were actually having an air show at the time, which made it pretty cool.

      One of the things they were doing inside was putting together a UAV so you could see the packaging it came in and how quickly a team could get the thing put together and ready for flight.

      The museum is way cool if you have any interest in flight. There are a lot of historic aircraft there including a Blackbird, Rutan's first Cozy, adn like the poster above stated, the Enterpri

    • Just to pile on, about 2 years or so ago I drove my parents down to the Dulles branch (my mom suggested we go so I drove). The real issue was that there were some ham related (as in amateur radio) satellites and exhibits on display and she wanted to surprise my dad when he saw it (K3SZH for anyone that is interested).

      In the same room as the shuttle, they have a cut away of a V2 rocket engine bell which allows you to see the channels the liquid fuel went through when it cooled the bell before being consumed
  • They use them more now than the little electric carts with six wheels. They go through the gate and can fly and some have little missles that can take out small squads of Jaffa really quickly.

  • UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles)

    Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)

    Was that really necessary? :p

  • From the article:

    On one notable mission, a group of Iraqi fighters surrendered to the [UAV] as it flew over their heads. Marines were directed to their position, where they then captured the fighters.


    Ahhh ha ha. Suckers.

    • From the article:

      On one notable mission, a group of Iraqi fighters surrendered to the [UAV] as it flew over their heads. Marines were directed to their position, where they then captured the fighters.

      Ahhh ha ha. Suckers.

      The UAV was supplying live feed to a US battleship for targeting coordinates. This was the second UAV to fly over them. Just previously they had received some presents curtesy of the USS Wisconsin's and USS Missouri's 16 inch guns. They decided they wanted to live. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Wisconsin_(BB-64)#Gulf_War [wikipedia.org]

    • See? Some people do welcome their robotic overlords.
  • they should try and get their hands on the uk 'bugger off' drone

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/26/phoenix_says_goodbye/ [theregister.co.uk]

    if only so future generations can learn how not to make a drone.
  • But I'm wondering...why no Frogstar Fighter?
  • I wonder if this could have any impact on operational security.

    Obviously, someone vetted putting these on display, so I'm likely wrong ... it's just hard not to wonder if being able to walk into a museum and take photos and whatever of something deployed in an operational theater mighn't be problematic.

    Then again, I'm sure all of the good bits like avionics have been stripped, so the carcass of the drones probably doesn't tell you much.

    Cheers

  • New? (Score:3, Informative)

    by (arg!)Styopa (232550) on Monday April 28 2008, @02:55PM (#23228808) Journal
    Not sure how new this is, we were there well over a month ago and it was already there.

    I found it underwhelming - I mean, instead of an interesting exhibition on some of the capabilities of UAVs and how significantly they are changing the tactical landscape, it was just a few UAVs hanging at one end of the hall. (shrug).
    • No no, they don't have the funds to do global surveillance. They use the drones to fire missiles at competing museums. It's how the Smithsonian has maintained its dominant position in the museum wars for so long: unchecked aggression.

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