Guys in the military dig the kick-ass weapons in sci-fi movies and TV shows just as much as you. The difference is, they’re actually developing them.
By Ryan Penagos
Sci-fi movie weapons like lightsabers, Proton Packs, and that wristband-zapper dealio with which Daniel Craig blasts alien spaceships in Cowboys and Aliens aren’t fetishized only by geeks who waste spend thousands of dollars on Comic-Con costumes. We’d love to have them too … even if all we’d use them for is to slice butter or annoy the neighbors.
But while we’re watching them on film or shooting invisible concussion blasts from store-bought Iron Man suits, military eggheads, aided by highly trained soldiers, are inventing futuristic sci-fi movie weapons in real life. Fusing man and machine, setting phasers on stun, the enjoyment of watching a conference room full of corporate douche bags obliterated by ED-209 — what was once movie magic is now starting to become reality.
Exosuits (as seen in Iron Man)While the anti-tank missiles, retrothrust jets, and anti-personnel guns built into Iron Man’s Mark III suit are nowhere to be found in nonfiction exosuits, current military prototypes are providing the building blocks for future armies of iron men. Defense and aerospace company Raytheon has been working on a 150 lb. exoskeleton that would allow even a pre-serum Steve Rogers to lift objects up to 200 lbs. hundreds of times without breaking a sweat. On, and punching through 3-inch thick boards? No problem! In fact, the XOS 2 Exoskeleton was such an improvement over Raytheon’s initial prototype, Time named it one of the best inventions of 2010.
Lockheed Martin has also entered the robotic-suit race with the Human Universal Load Carrier. The 53-pound HULC (get it?) exosuit is a hydraulic-powered lower extremity that enables the wearer to carry up to 200 pounds on a backpack attached to the exoskeleton. It won’t add arm strength like the XOS 2, but it’s flexible enough to allow the user to do deep squats and crawl on the ground in combat.
Railguns (as seen in The Last Starfighter)Railguns have been a video-game mainstay for first-person shooters since Quake in 1996, but those handheld death cannons are unrealistic; they shoot large masses of rock that can reach a zillion-mile target. You’ll have to look to The Last Starfighter’s meteor gun or Battlestar Galactica’s super-sized railgun for a peek at what the military is in the process of perfecting. Forgoing chemical propulsion for electromagnetic energy, the Navy’s electromagnetic railguns can fire projectiles more than 200 miles at a velocity seven times the speed of sound. Instead of destroying targets with explosions, the railgun obliterates them with kinetic force. The U.S. Navy made its first major breakthrough in 2008 when they successfully test fired the weapon in the video below; the plan is to have a working prototype by 2018.
Phaser (as seen in Star Trek)Star Trek‘s phaser, a direct-energy weapon capable of stunning or completely disintegrating uncooperative space aliens, first served as an inspiration for the the Pulsed Energy Projectile. The PEP was designed to shoot a plasma pulse that either stunned or killed targets, but was abandoned after six years when scientists determined, in technical terms, that “The damned thing doesn’t work.” Still, that led to the invention of the Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response gun, or PHaSR, which was built by the Department of Defense to temporarily blind and disorient bad guys. It uses two lasers: one to distract, and one to heat up the skin and repel the assailant. Unfortunately, it sounded a lot cooler than it was; it would only work properly when the skin was completely bare. Since not many villains roam the streets nude, it was a bust.
Okay, but now scientists have figured it out! The “Phased Hyper-Acceleration for Shock, EMP, and Radiation,” or PHASER, will use super-fast lightning projectiles to stun the hell out of someone and fry the electronics on their vehicle or rocket. The technology has yet to be perfected; funding has and continues to be an issue.
Lastly, the Multimode Directed Energy Armament Systems (MDEAS) project, still in the experimental stages, will use a laser pulse that can deliver an electric shock subtle enough to stun or powerful enough to kill the target. A prototype is scheduled for release by 2012.
Cyborg Soldiers (as seen in Star Wars, Robocop, Cyborg)We may never see cyborgs like Darth Vader and Robocop greasing their hinges at Starbucks like the Tin Man, but there has been progress fusing man with machine. The Augmented Cognition programs run by the U.S. Army and DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) aim to extend a person’s mental abilities and clarity through technology implanted in a soldier’s body. Chips installed in the brain could, in theory, allow a computer to do things like process data and calculate depth, distance, and rate of speed after analyzing information sent from the human eye.
Another DARPA project is the “Brain Interface Program,” which seeks to allow soldiers to use mind control to manipulate machines such as tanks, planes, and computers. The slightly sinister organization is also researching tech that will enable soldiers to block out intense pain and continue to fight with severe injuries and exhaustion. Essentially, they’re out to create Captain America. Not surprisingly, the Department of Defense doesn’t offer many updates on the project.
Combat Robots (as seen in Robocop, Short Circuit)The T-800 Terminator, Johnny 5, and Optimus Prime were all capable of beating people down on the battlefield. But expect 21st century mechanical death dealers to be more like ED-209 from Robocop.
Modular Advanced Armed Robotic Systems (MAARS) are remote controlled machines that have the ability to shoot beanbags, smoke, and pepper spray to subdue unruly crowds — and that’s if they’re playing nice. Get nasty and they might unload with grenade launchers capable of unleashing 40mm high-explosive grenades or an M240B machine gun loaded with 400 rounds of 7.62mm ammo. And unlike ED-209, the MAARS is equipped with tank treads, which means it will actually be able to handle stairs.
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