prezhorusin04
May 25th, 2004, 1:49 AM
02:00 AM Mar. 15, 2004 PT
http://www.phaseiii.org
ANAHEIM, California -- Conspiracy freaks, hold onto your tin hats.
Darpa, the Pentagon's far-out research arm, may have publicly abandoned its creepiest programs, like Total Information Awareness. But the agency, as shown at its DarpaTech conference, still has a project to make you run full-speed into your bunker.
Today's the Day. Mighty Isis: Darpa wants to start planning for a blimp, three times the size of Goodyear's, that would keep watch over an entire city.
Hovering 70,000 feet above ground, the ISIS (PDF) airship (short for Integrated Sensor Is Structure) would use a giant, flexible radar antenna to give, in the words of Darpa program manager Larry Correy, a "dynamic, detailed, real-time picture of all movement on or above the battlefield: friendly, neutral or enemy."
"We will apply this technology to track people emerging from buildings of interest and follow them as they move to new locations," said Darpa's Paul Benda. "Imagine the impact it will have if ISIS tracks the movement of individuals for months. Hidden webs of connections between people and facilities will be revealed."
Such a system is meant to keep tabs on urban combat zones -- abroad, of course. But there's no reason ISIS couldn't float over New York or Chicago or Kalamazoo.
For now, hold off on buying that one-way trip to a secluded Caribbean island. ISIS is futuristic, even by Darpa standards. At the moment, the agency is only studying the feasibility of the airship. Darpa won't even begin soliciting research proposals until 2005.
A key problem to tackle: how to store energy for the blimp. Correy figures that to stay aloft, ISIS will need batteries that weigh one-tenth what today's cells weigh. Building the airship's enormous radar antenna -- as large as the ship itself -- is going to be a huge challenge, as well. The lightest space antennas weigh 20 kilograms per square meter. For ISIS to work, that will have to drop at least sevenfold.
- - -
Flights of fancy: One of the big ironies of the DarpaTech conference is the disconnect between the program managers' lofty visions for the future and the often mundane experiments they show off. Robotics is probably the most striking example.
In the cavernous conference hall at the Marriott Anaheim, Darpa's Ted Bially sketched out a vision of tomorrow's fighting force. Fleets of drones do most of the fighting, he said, and a couple of humans would be left to make a few big-picture decisions. Across the corridor, at the agency's Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems' display, was a prediction by Sen. John Warner (R-Virginia) in big, bright letters. By 2010, he foretold, one-third of America's deep-strike aircraft would fly without a pilot.
Inside the booth, as if to confirm the senator's statements, a trio of flat-panel screens showed snazzy animations of U.S. drones blowing up Scud missile launchers to a techno soundtrack.
But a few feet away, the reality was a whole lot more humdrum -- and a whole lot cuter.
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Next month, a V-shaped airship bigger than a baseball diamond is due to rise from the West Texas desert to an altitude of 100,000 feet (30.5 kilometers), navigate by remote control, linger above the clouds and drift back to earth.
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http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Video/040518/050418_ascender.hlarge.jpg
PICTURES
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5025388/
http://www.phaseiii.org
ANAHEIM, California -- Conspiracy freaks, hold onto your tin hats.
Darpa, the Pentagon's far-out research arm, may have publicly abandoned its creepiest programs, like Total Information Awareness. But the agency, as shown at its DarpaTech conference, still has a project to make you run full-speed into your bunker.
Today's the Day. Mighty Isis: Darpa wants to start planning for a blimp, three times the size of Goodyear's, that would keep watch over an entire city.
Hovering 70,000 feet above ground, the ISIS (PDF) airship (short for Integrated Sensor Is Structure) would use a giant, flexible radar antenna to give, in the words of Darpa program manager Larry Correy, a "dynamic, detailed, real-time picture of all movement on or above the battlefield: friendly, neutral or enemy."
"We will apply this technology to track people emerging from buildings of interest and follow them as they move to new locations," said Darpa's Paul Benda. "Imagine the impact it will have if ISIS tracks the movement of individuals for months. Hidden webs of connections between people and facilities will be revealed."
Such a system is meant to keep tabs on urban combat zones -- abroad, of course. But there's no reason ISIS couldn't float over New York or Chicago or Kalamazoo.
For now, hold off on buying that one-way trip to a secluded Caribbean island. ISIS is futuristic, even by Darpa standards. At the moment, the agency is only studying the feasibility of the airship. Darpa won't even begin soliciting research proposals until 2005.
A key problem to tackle: how to store energy for the blimp. Correy figures that to stay aloft, ISIS will need batteries that weigh one-tenth what today's cells weigh. Building the airship's enormous radar antenna -- as large as the ship itself -- is going to be a huge challenge, as well. The lightest space antennas weigh 20 kilograms per square meter. For ISIS to work, that will have to drop at least sevenfold.
- - -
Flights of fancy: One of the big ironies of the DarpaTech conference is the disconnect between the program managers' lofty visions for the future and the often mundane experiments they show off. Robotics is probably the most striking example.
In the cavernous conference hall at the Marriott Anaheim, Darpa's Ted Bially sketched out a vision of tomorrow's fighting force. Fleets of drones do most of the fighting, he said, and a couple of humans would be left to make a few big-picture decisions. Across the corridor, at the agency's Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems' display, was a prediction by Sen. John Warner (R-Virginia) in big, bright letters. By 2010, he foretold, one-third of America's deep-strike aircraft would fly without a pilot.
Inside the booth, as if to confirm the senator's statements, a trio of flat-panel screens showed snazzy animations of U.S. drones blowing up Scud missile launchers to a techno soundtrack.
But a few feet away, the reality was a whole lot more humdrum -- and a whole lot cuter.
----------------
Next month, a V-shaped airship bigger than a baseball diamond is due to rise from the West Texas desert to an altitude of 100,000 feet (30.5 kilometers), navigate by remote control, linger above the clouds and drift back to earth.
---------------
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Video/040518/050418_ascender.hlarge.jpg
PICTURES
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5025388/