Boeing's vision of its contender for Vulture (above). Possible Vulture high-altitude, long-duration, unmanned aerial vehicle as envisioned by a Lockheed Martin artist (below).
Planes that stay aloft for five years. Vaccines that take weeks, not years, to develop. Surveillance drones that are launched into combat zones atop ballistic missiles.
All these futuristic military projects are outlined in the just-issued Strategic Plan 2009 of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which lays out what the high-tech Pentagon division — responsible for developing the Internet, among other things — is working on.But are expensive projects like these, with no guarantee of success, really worth developing as the Pentagon pares back its budget? Defense Secretary Robert Gates' recently axed the Future Combat Systems program and the F-22 fighter, leading many to suspect that high-concept research and development ventures could be next to go — even as some say that would be shortsighted and might jeopardize America's technological competitiveness. More>>
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