Military Materials Advance

SR-71 Blackbird is a good example.

I understand it was being built before allot materials (metalurgical ) were developed.

Also the F-117 and the B-2 stealth bomber - the F-117 was constructed with lots of carbon fiber composites which had only been created after the airframe was designed (or at least in about the same timeframe). Civilianization of military-industrial complex invention has driven a surprising lot of our economy. The Internet started with DARPANet for instance. And the civilian HUMMER (aka Schwarteneggermobile!) is a continuation of the civilian Jeep lineage, after a fashion.

the skunk works set the standard. build it and develop the materials it along the way

Hi,

While there have been lots of neat technologies developed by the military becoming spin-offs for civilian use, I'd have to question a country spending more than the rest of the world combined on the military while representing less than 5% of the world's population. Isn't there something wrong with this picture? I'd also wonder how much of this neat technology benefits civilian applications. Maybe if the same amount of effort was directed at civilian uses, we'd be much further ahead in other areas like solving our energy and health concerns.

I'd have to question a country spending more than the rest of the world combined on the military while representing less than 5% of the world's population.

Can you also question other items this country spends in relation to the rest of the world. Such as ;

Aid, Domestic and Foreign.

Grants, Domestic and Foreign

ect...

"...I'd have to question a country spending more than the rest of the world combined on the military..."

So would I - that country currently is China, from what I read. And it's a million-man standing army, too, from what I read. Now what I read may be wrong, but if not, don't be afraid. Be VERY afraid. Our military capability has recently been squandered away along with several trillions of dollars on an escapade having little or nothing to do with the stated objective (war on terror) other than refocusing the terror in Iraq from Saddam Hussein onto ourselves and a hundred competing local factions.

But I digress...yes, it would be better if the advances could be accomplished directly rather than through the military/industrial complex, but that mechanism has been pretty firmly established since at least the time of the Roman Legions, so won't probably go away soon. We just have to continue to make the best of a less than optimal situation, and overcome by adaptation.

Actually, that country is the US at 623 Billion dollars; China is at 65 Billion dollars and Russia is at 50 Billion dollars. The world military expenditures are at 1100 Billion dollars. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spending.htm. Can you imagine if even half of this were used to provide health care and other technologies to advance humanity? We should be questioning why our tax dollars are not benefitting us directly!

Does anyone have any accurate figures to the ratio of military spend compared to the GNP to the respected nation?

And what are the expeditures on each nations healthcare? with the ratios to the GNP?

As editor of an agricultural equipment trade journal, I can attest that much of the new technology used in agriculture today -- from GPS to tracked tractors to less vulnerable tires -- was first developed for the military. Makes me wonder what other military technology will be transferrable to agricultural applications.

Don't forget multi-spectral imaging from low-Earth orbit... Identification of plant diseases, stresses such as drought, areas needing fertilization, all beamed in from a satellite!

The trouble with this 'New materials' song is that it is set against the infantryman who is faced with carring this 'body armour', sometimes bloody-armour, which gets heavier as the balistic threat increases. The composits then change and the armour gets thinner again and so the cycle goes on, until we have stail mate. That is body armour having to stop kevlar tipped armour pearcing rifle rounds. Not including the 80 lb + backpack, rifle, rounds, food etc,. Come-on wake up.

Exactly - and now they're designing power-assisted body armor suits. Think 'knights in shining armor' meets Sigourney Weaver's wearable forklift from the movie Alien 2. Not such a new idea though. It was a science fiction staple after Keith Laumer introduced the concept (PAPA - Power Assisted Personal Armor) back in the 1960's.