Will Defense Cuts Hurt R&D Projects?

Hawks: Cuts Will Dull Military's Edge -- Politico

“Proven” and “affordable” are words you hear a lot these days from sellers of military aircraft and other weapons systems in this dawning era of tight defense budgets.

The word you don’t hear so much is “new,” which worries some key lawmakers, Pentagon officials and defense contractors. Deep cuts in defense spending, they say, are threatening American industry’s ability to maintain its technological edge and causing a loss of intellectual capital that will be hard to get back.

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My Comment: The short answer is .... definitely yes.

The sentence that caught my attention is the following ....

.... “For the first time in 100 years, we do not have a design team working on a new manned airplane,” Boeing Executive Vice President Jim Albaugh said at a news conference last week, assuring skeptical reporters that it’s indeed possible to forget how to do that if you don’t have engineers with the right experience.

Indeed.

‘Impossible’ Device Could Propel Flying Cars, Stealth Missiles

From the Danger Room:

The Emdrive is an electromagnetic drive that would generate thrust from a closed system — “impossible” say some experts.

To critics, it’s flat-out junk science, not even worth thinking about. But its inventor, Roger Shawyer, has doggedly continued his work. As Danger Room reported last year, Chinese scientists claimed to validate his math and were building their own version.

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My Comment: If this is even remotely possible, warfare as we know it will completely change. Again .... it is a big if.

Underwater Laser Pops In Navy Ops

From The BBC:

US military researchers are developing a method for communication that uses lasers to make sound underwater.

The approach focuses laser light to produce bubbles of steam that pop and create tiny, 220-decibel explosions.

Controlling the rate of these explosions could provide a means of communication or even acoustic imaging.

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My Comment: The geek in me loves reading reports like this one.

Military Sonar Blamed For Deafness In Dolphins

From The New Scientist:

Sonar can temporarily deafen dolphins, a new study has found, suggesting that mass strandings of cetaceans could be caused by military activities.

The US Navy has suspected as much for years. In 2002, it admitted that a beaching incident was caused by military sonar, and autopsies on the dead whales revealed haemorrhaging near the ears.

The new study, by Aran Mooney and colleagues at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology found that repeated sonar "pings" cause temporary hearing loss in dolphins.

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