Military spending goes beyond Iraq

‘ ‘ ‘ With more than $700 billion in military spending, the U.S. defense budget is greater than… ‘ ‘ ‘ With more than $700 billion in military spending, the U.S. defense budget is greater than the 45 next biggest spenders of the world put together, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. No doubt, you have to get creative to run up a bill that high. Although the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are a big drain on funds, they don’t even represent a quarter of fiscal 2008’s military expenditures. So, where does the rest of it go? ‘ ‘ ‘ Without further delay, I present to you this year’s awards for Best In-Development Military Technology… ‘ ‘ ‘ Honorable Mention: The Ray Gun. Designed as a crowd-control mechanism, the Active Denial System dishes out 100,000 watts of radio waves, which can penetrate clothes, plywood and even mattresses used as shields. Mounted from the top of a military jeep, what looks like an octagonal satellite can be dialed up to send painful rays into hostile masses. ‘ ‘ ‘ When the high-frequency microwave radiation hits a person, it heats up the water in the skin to a temperature of 130 degrees ‘mdash; hot enough to force you back, but not enough to leave you with any permanent burns. ‘ ‘ ‘ A running start won’t help, either. The ADS can work on crowds from up to half a mile away. Volunteers who have been shot by the ADS liken the feeling to being exposed to a hot oven or even having one’s skin catch fire, although, as a non-lethal weapon, there are not supposed to be any long-term effects. Raytheon, the company behind the ADS, now markets a scaled-down version to law enforcement agencies and security companies, and the military is considering using the system in Iraq. ‘ ‘ ‘ Bronze Medal: The Exoskeleton. Sarcos, a Utah-based engineering firm that was recently bought by Raytheon, put itself on the map a few years ago when word leaked out it was developing a powered exoskeleton for soldiers. Loosely resembling the form of a human skeleton and weighing 150 pounds, the XOS exoskeleton is fitted to a soldier, who can use its 24-hour energy store to help lift heavy objects for hours on end. ‘ ‘ ‘ In a demonstration video, a soldier stepped into the XOS, and with little difficulty made his way over to a pull-down machine set on 200 pounds. ‘ ‘ ‘ After dozens of repetitions and with little sign of any strain, the soldier finally got up from the weight machine. ‘ ‘ ‘ He stopped not because he was worn out, but because he was bored. ‘ ‘ ‘ Currently, the XOS is designed for heavy lifting and will soon be utilized in supply operations that involve repetitive lifting. Not the sexiest thing in the world, but naturally a more advanced version is in the works ‘mdash; one aimed at eliminating its noise and improving agility in hopes of becoming battlefield-ready. Master Chief would be proud. ‘ ‘ ‘ Silver Medal: Synthetic Telepathy. An early version of this was invented way back in the 1960s when someone placed an EEG around his head, then trained himself to start and stop his brain’s alpha waves enough to translate them into Morse code messages. Today the U.S. military is granting money to the nation’s most prestigious engineering programs, like Carnegie Mellon, in hopes they will develop the next generation of synthetic telepathy. ‘ ‘ ‘ Quite simply, the goal is to read the electrical activity of the brain and turn the voice inside your head into a message that can be sent to another person without ever having to utter a word out loud. ‘ ‘ ‘ There are a whole host of difficulties to overcome with this one. Of all the different mechanisms to measure the brain’s electrical activity, only the EEG is light and affordable enough to incorporate into a headset or hat, but doesn’t detect all brain activity. Still, with all the potential uses for a communication product like this ‘mdash; both military and commercial ‘mdash; Mike D’Zmura, the lead scientist on one of the telepathy projects, believes the system can be a mass-produced reality within two decades. ‘ ‘ ‘ Gold Medal: The Rail Gun. It was a tight race between the first two spots, but when it comes down to it, anyone that played Turok 64 knows nothing beats the rail gun. ‘ ‘ ‘ What makes rail gun technology unique is that it uses two electromagnetic rails to fire a non-explosive projectile at its target at speeds of up to Mach 8. This allows a single 7-pound projectile to fly almost 220 miles ‘mdash; the distance between Pittsburgh and downtown Harrisburg ‘mdash; in about six minutes, strike a target 5 meters across with startling accuracy and carry enough impact to rip through a tank. ‘ ‘ ‘ The U.S. Navy tested its most recent generation of electromagnetic rail gun technology in 2008 by launching several ‘low-impact’ test shots that required 32 mega-joules of energy per shot. Naval ships are hoping to add these guns to their arsenal, which would provide devastating long range ground support. Right now, the problem is that the rail gun is too powerful ‘mdash; it destroys its own barrel after just a few shots. If the Navy can get these problems figured out, high-powered rail guns like these could be operational by 2020. ‘ ‘ ‘ There you have it, the coolest military tech our tax money goes toward. ‘ ‘ ‘ Keep an eye out for next year’s list. E-mail Brandon at bkp3@pitt.edu.