Military Tech for Daily Life 234
PreacherTom writes "It is nothing new to see technology from military and governmental endeavors change daily life profoundly. One only has to look at the fruits of the space program (from computers to microwave ovens to Tang). New military gear is on the horizon that promises to do the same, including biosensors, bandages that clot blood using soundwaves, and the ubiquitous Swiss Army Pen."
Bullet-Resistant vests: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:which raises the question... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How does that work? (Score:3, Insightful)
More effective use of power for the purpose intended is something you see virtually everywhere - gears, levers, springs, virtually all mechanical devices that have ever existed are all simply ways of putting in the same amount but utilizing it better. I imagine the exoskeletal armor is no different - it might conserve energy that you'd otherwise lose, reducing the impact of varying speed or incline. If it's really good, it might be able to convert some of the energy it absorbs from impacts into energy available for you to use. It might eliminate variations in ground level, reducing the effort involved in moving over rough terrain. But really there's not much more it can do than that.
(Well, if the US military has got Tesla's theories to work, I guess they could power the suit remotely, so eliminating the need for portable power. On the other hand, if they were at that point, they really wouldn't need exoskeletal armor - or indeed soldiers. You'd just hook a Tesla coil to a microwave fillament and boil your opponents from long range.)
Re:Military-tech always trickles down to civilians (Score:3, Insightful)
Libertarian countdown... (Score:3, Insightful)
the good side of military spending (Score:5, Insightful)
The bright side of military spending is that most of that money basically goes to putting food on the tables of tens of thousands of engineers in our country. With labor costs so high and manufacturing going to everywhere in the world other than our own country, technology is our stock-in-trade. As it turns out, the structure of the govt sponsoring military technology programs with a long-term and unified approach in contrast to the much more duplicative and reactive, smaller investments for shorter-term results, approach seen in the development of technology only in the hands of individual companies reacting to market pressures method, has been very fruitful indeed.
Re:which raises the question... (Score:5, Insightful)
We get some pretty cool toys in the army, but it's all designed so that you can use it when you're being shot at after having had 15 minutes of sleep in the last week. Just because it's designed for idiots doesn't mean that the folks designing it are idiots. Actually, they're pretty brilliant, IMO... why bother developing a super-expensive way to kill somebody that centralizes your killing power in one spot when a 5.56x45 FMJ round costs less than $0.30 and kills them just as dead? When the bad guys develop armour that can safely protect them from everything we use on the battlefield, you'll start seeing new ways of killing people being developed. Until then, it's a waste of money.
Re:the good side of military spending (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But wouldn't it be nice (Score:4, Insightful)
I read something about how wonderful the advancements in prosthetics the past few years have been. I even saw a kid of 20 or 22 at the airport carrying a big green duffle bag unassisted, though he had artificial legs and a prosthetic arm and the unmistakable look of a soldier.
Just spend the money. Declare it to be a National Technological Development Something-or-other and so and spend the money on research that doesn't come at such a high cost.
Honestly, that shit is heartbreaking.
Re:which raises the question... (Score:4, Insightful)
not even an advanced amateur.
Example:
Take an untrasound of a pregnant woman, pretty cool. move the transducer 1mm away from her abdomen, nothing.
This cuff works basically the same way. A weapon would have to work in a predominately similar way.
-nB
Oh, and even if it would work all cool like you speculate, you'd still need to aim it, else the freindly fire aspect will *suck*.
Re:the good side of military spending (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of my clients are defense contractors, which, I guess makes me a defense contractor. Anyway, around this time of year they like to put on a show of doing donation-drives "for the troops." They tend to fall into two categories - getting "comfort items" (like tons of instant coffee and phone card minutes to call home with) for troops in the field and getting necessities (like food and children's clothing) for their families at home.
Its blatantly obvious that management at these companies is doing the drives to appear patriotic and weasel into the good graces of their customer, so blatant that I can't believe it works. But even worse, to me it seems like a terrible state of affairs because it is tantamount to saying that our government can't provision our troops with something as basic as enough coffee and they don't pay our troops enough to feed and clothe their families.
Re:which raises the question... (Score:0, Insightful)
Wounds remove more people from battle than do kills.
Re:Microwave ovens were patented in 8 October 1945 (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes. I did not make it terribly clear when I was talking about the space age stuff and just plain old military stuff.
Much of what we think of as space age stuff is really air age stuff, circa WWII, most of which was at least already on the drawing boards before WWII.
You can tell the true space age stuff by its use of, well, space, and its use semiconductors (a civilian invention) to make it possible/practical. A "portable" radio used to be the size of a microwave oven and had no memory.
KFG
Re:Bullet-Resistant vests: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:which raises the question... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, that was the theory behind the Strategic Defense Initiative, wasn't it? ; )
Re:Military-tech always trickles down to civilians (Score:3, Insightful)