Feb 26
From self-aiming sniper rifles to bionic power suits
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Feb 25
While today’s high-efficiency washing machines use far less water than their predecessors, they still consume between 10 and 24 gallons of water per load—and as much as 9,000 gallons per US household per year. That’s a lot of water just for cleaning clothes, especially with the growing drought conditions throughout the American West. But Xeros’ revolutionary washing machines could reduce our laundry water usage to a trickle, using… plastic beads?
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Feb 24
The rapid exit of US ground forces from Afghanistan has caused an unforseen problem for forces in the region: Afghanistan’s most remote regions are suddenly out of range of our conventional turbo-prop UAVs, making CIA interdiction against the Taliban nearly impossible. But a new generation of jet-propelled Predator drone will soon take to the skies and venture up to 1800 miles from its base.
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Feb 21
In the mid-1960’s, New York Central Railroad engineer Don Wetzel was exploring ways to make trains run safer, cheaper, but most importantly: faster. And, clearly, the most logical means of accomplishing all three of these objectives was to strap a pair of Air Force surplus jet engines to the roof of a prototype high-speed locomotive, creating the world’s fastest self-propelled train. Wait, what?
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Feb 20
The Incredible Flying Tanks of WWII
Posted in: Today's Chili
Given how devastatingly effective both newly-invented tank and airplane technologies proved during World War I, it was only a matter of time before enterprising military designers on both sides of the Atlantic thought to combine them into a flying Reece’s Peanut Butter Cup of armored mayhem. And they almost succeeded. Well, at least the Soviets did.
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Feb 19
The US military has poured millions upon millions of dollars into squad-based tactical UAVs—the kind deployed by troops for close-range ASAP reconnaissance—over the past few years, developing the likes of the Puma AE
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Feb 18
How do you move three tons of Peterbuilt tractor-trailer more than 1300 feet in less time than it takes to read this sentence? By strapping on a trio of jet engines, obviously.
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Feb 17
Designed to act as the eyes and ears of the Soviet Pacific Fleet, this massive command ship was among Russia’s most ambitious Cold War constructs. Packing cutting edge electronic warfare and communications systems, this enormous ship could have become the monolithic centerpiece of Russia’s navy. So why did it end up rotting away as off-shore barracks instead?
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Feb 14
Chuck Yeager’s historic supersonic flight in 1947 set off a firestorm of research into flight beyond the speed of sound. The most ambitious of these projects was the X-15 program, a top secret USAF program that aimed to test the limits of Mach 7. In X-15: The World’s Fastest Rocket Plane and the Pilots Who Ushered in the Space Age, John Anderson and Richard Passman recount the death-defying flights of a steel-nerved team of test pilots at the controls of the world’s first rocket plane.
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Feb 13
Between their remote locations and the ever present threat of ambush (or worse yet, IED), it’s simply getting too dangerous to deliver the average 100,000 pounds of supplies that far-flung American forward combat bases require each week. Air drops by cargo plane or helicopter are one option, but DARPA researchers may already have a better solution: shape-shifting, cargo-carrying UAVs.
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