An examination of the Army's current efforts to deploy unmanned ground vehicles into combat.
"After decades of expensive, well-publicized failures, laser weapons may finally be on the horizon. Can scientists end the era of bombs and bullets?"
Feature-length article from popular science on the various U.S. defense department projects to develop autonomous military robots that will fight alongside U.S. soldiers.
Los Alamos scientist Steen Rasmussen plans to one-up nature by cobbling together a brand-new creature that reproduces and evolves.
Awed at the pace of technological advances, a faction of geeky writers believes our world is about to change so radically that envisioning what comes next is nearly impossible.
The author surveys five futuristic military technologies currently under consideration in the U.S, including laser weapons, space-based kinetic-energy projectiles, and hypersonic missiles.
The Pentagon needs 21st-century analytical tools to replace the outmoded war games of yore, which, despite improvements in computer power, are still one-dimensional, culturally blinkered and of small use in devising strategies for asymmetric warfare. So it has earmarked over $100 million to determine whether the agent-based models used in commercial role playing games can advance the strategic game.
Astronaut Sally Ride argues that U.S. plans to develop space weapons risk space exploration efforts because weapons testing would dramatically increase space debris.
A feature article in Popular Science on the Pentagon's plans to develop space weapons. Focuses more on the variety of space weapons and the valuable military and commercial space resources they will be protecting.
Scientists provide a 'how-to-guide' for a theoretically acceptable time travel technique.