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."

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

[Hankapobe]

FutureMap: This program hoped to use a kind of terrorism futures market to predict key developments and even attacks. It was thought market valuations of possible future events could reflect the probability of their occurring. However, FutureMap was scrapped in 2003 after the notion of betting on terrorist atrocities was called "ridiculous and grotesque" by US politicians.

I really wanted to see if it would work - grotesque or not. It intrigued me that a "market" could be formed for things that aren't being bought and sold. And I wanted to see if the market could predict things.

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

[TheRedSeven]

Mod parent up.

This is another example of how politicians screw up what could otherwise be a good idea.

One could introduce an idea of how a terrorist might attack the country. If others think it's viable/vulnerable/highly possible, they buy the 'share'. As the share price goes up, it gets more attention (and hopefully response). When the response negates the risk, the viability/vulnerability/etc. goes down and people start to want to sell.

Seems a good way to use market forces to address real issues. Politicians saying, "Gosh! You're going to be proactive and creative in addressing terrorism rather than using the politically expedient FUD?! We can't have that!"

Freakin' politicians!

DARPA's continued importance

[DesScorp]

When I hear arguments for cutting DARPA's budget, or for eliminating it completely because "the Cold War's over, and China won't be a threat for 30 years", I think of how long the agencies successes took to come to fruition... GPS, the Internet, etc. It took decades of work. Its not like we could shut DARPA down, re-open it in 20 years, and then just magically start churning out big results again.

Interesting "Failures"

[R2.0]

"The mechanical elephant: Frustrated by a lack of decent tarmac in the jungle, DARPA sought to create a "mechanical elephant" during the Vietnam war. Its vision of high-tech Hannibal's piloting them through the forest never came true. It is alleged that when the director heard of the plan he scrapped the "damn fool" project immediately in the hope no one would hear about it." So we could be 30 years ahead in robotics instead of 10 years behind. Thanks, asshole.

"FutureMap: This program hoped to use a kind of terrorism futures market to predict key developments and even attacks. It was thought market valuations of possible future events could reflect the probability of their occurring. However, FutureMap was scrapped in 2003 after the notion of betting on terrorist atrocities was called "ridiculous and grotesque" by US politicians." Politicians. No further comment required.

"Orion: Set in motion shortly after DARPA was created, Project Orion aimed to drive an interplanetary spacecraft by periodically dropping nuclear bombs out of its rear end. The entire craft was designed like a giant shock absorber with the back covered in thick shielding to protect human passengers. Concerns about nuclear fallout and the signing of the Partial Test Ban Treaty ended the project in the early 1960s." Fallout - OK. Test ban treaty? More like political cover for killing a program disliked by the No Nukes folks.

3 of 5 were not technical failures, but political ones. Another, the "telepathic spies" project, is listed as a failure even though it did produce something important - evidence that telepathy is bullshit. The Halfnium bomb is another one. So it didn't work - BFD. are they saying that NO important research data was gained?

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

[explosivejared]

I don't know if I would mod this up or not. Here [iwar.org.uk] is a little more info on the program. There are a lot of obvious holes. For one, gaming national security is always a downside, and markets can be gamed. Another is the fact that government intelligence agencies would have great sway over which way the market went. With that in mind, think about how often cronyism and nepotism crop up in government. There would be huge risks in such an investment. In the end, it may be a unique idea, but I don't think it would have worked.

The important point in all of this though is that, for all the pork and excess, DARPA does foster innovation. Bringing new ideas to important problems is a good thing. If only we could create a DARPA project to lead to a solution for cutting government wastefulness.

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

[bjourne]

FutureMap: This program hoped to use a kind of terrorism futures market to predict key developments and even attacks. It was thought market valuations of possible future events could reflect the probability of their occurring. However, FutureMap was scrapped in 2003 after the notion of betting on terrorist atrocities was called "ridiculous and grotesque" by US politicians.

I really wanted to see if it would work - grotesque or not. It intrigued me that a "market" could be formed for things that aren't being bought and sold. And I wanted to see if the market could predict things.

Um.. or maybe the idea didn't sell because there is absolutely no logic to it? If share prices go up for "terrorist incident in country X" does that mean that it becomes more likely that a terrorist incident occurs in said country? No. It just means that the share price went up. If Al-Qaeida says that they are planning to blow up something in country Y and that causes the share price to sky rocket, then yeah, the "market" worked. But you don't need a bloody stock exchange for that!

Plus, you would need thousands of players playing this stupid zero-sum game and essentially doing the same job that one terrorism analyst could do hundred times better.

Re:DARPA's continued importance

[SatanicPuppy]

It'd be a waste to shut it down anyway. The DARPA budget is tiny compared to the military budget as a whole, and new technology has a better chance of making a difference than another couple of fighter planes.

Failure =/= Mistake

[porcupine8]

I don't like the fact that they call several of the failed projects "mistakes" or "blunders." Their entire mission is to push the envelope farther than what they can imagine other people going. They're not going to come up with crazy-ass successes like the internet and stealth planes without also coming up with some crazy-ass ideas that wind up not working, like a spaceship that uses nuclear bombs for propulsion and psychic spies. Those things did fail, but that doesn't make those things mistakes - they're a natural byproduct of a process aiming for both high creativity and high productivity.

Re:Proving liberals wrong...

[maxume]

A massive number of people in the US just completely misunderstood what you said.

Re:Remote Viewing

[c6gunner]

I'm able to remote view, I don't make public claims other than this one, I don't work for anyone, I don't feel the need to prove it. For some of us with the gift, money, fame, and all of that mean nothing.

Ah, yes, the typical response of the fraud: "I really DO have powers, but I don't need one million dollars!".

What a load of crap that is.

Tell ya what, how 'bout you go win the challenge, claim the prize, and then donate it to charity? Maybe you don't need the money, but there's plenty of sick kids and homeless people who could use a hand. Are you so heartless that you won't even give a couple hours of your time in order to help the less fortunate?

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

[MikTheUser]

A market for medical knowledge gained unethically, for example.

Who would get hurt if there was a market of this type? If anything, it would save lives.

Right! Actually, Dr Mengele was saving lives when he took Auschwitz inmates and subjected them to the most outrageously inhuman procedures for medical insight (and a bit of sick pleasure, no doubt). Nothing bad could come of a system that would allow such people to even make a profit out of such practices!

And don't you try and tell me such things could only happen in a dictatorship. I'd bet you anything that somewhere out there is a CIA agent that enjoys waterboarding so much he'd be more than willing to keep records of how long the 'terrorists' can take the torture for an extra buck.

You, Sir, are a sickening egoist.