Noah Shachtman's Blog

The New York Times Magazine’s “Year in Ideas” issue is online. And I’ve got a story in it. Not about military technology, this time. About a Japanese inventor, and the machine he claims ages wine, in a couple of seconds.

This teeny-tiny piece had more than its fair share of hilarious research moments. The best of ‘em had to be when I stumbled across this zany Japanese promotional video for the wine-ager. Behold, as a cuter-than-cute cartooon grandpa gets his drink on, while a little girl blinks her giant eyes, and gets all golly-gee. Complete with an overdub that would make Godzilla proud.

Like the old man in the video says, “Mmmm. Well, let’s start the consumption.”

A few other interesting tidbits in the ish. Defense Tech pal Clive Thompson takes a look at the Boomerang ‘Bot — and eats a little DT dust in the process (which is fine, considering I wrote up one of his ideas last year). Jonathan Shainin takes note of the CIA’s “Ziggurat of Zealotry,” and the infamously-fictional “Rods from God” space weapon concept.

Heads up, Navy scientists! If you want to perform “severe or unusual intrusions, either physical or psychological, on human subjects,” you’re going to need approval from the Under Secretary of the Navy.

According to a memo unearthed by Secrecy News, that goes for “consciousness-altering drugs or mind-control techniques,” as well. Ditto for experiments on “prisoners” — even though the document says earlier that “research involving any person captured, detained, held, or otherwise under the control of DoD personnel (military and civilian, or contractor employee) is prohibited.” The UNDERSECNAV’s thumbs-up is also required for human trials involving “potentially or inherently controversial topics (such as those likely to attract significant media coverage or that might invite challenge by interest groups).”

On the other hand, the Director of Defense Research and Engineering makes the call on “all proposed research involving exposure of human subjects to the effects of nuclear, biological or chemical warfare agents or weapons.”

So keep that in mind.

In science fiction, holograms are realistic, moving three-dimensional images. (Remember Arnie being spooked by his mirror self in Total Recall, and the priceless line “Watch out, he’s got a hologram!”). In the movies, if they flicker a bit (“Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi…”), it’s just so the audience realises it’s a hologram and doesn’t get confused. Real life holograms are a lot more limited, so I was interested to see this study carried by Dr David Watt on Holograms As Nonlethal Weapons for NTIC, the Nonlethal Technology Innovations Center in New Hampshire.

This is a serious look at the technical possibilities for holograms. It’s a far cry from blue sky fantasies like the Air Force 2025 Airborne Holographic Projector which ”displays a three-dimensional visual image in a desired location, removed from the display generator” or the even more wildly optimistic “Hologram, Death: Hologram used to scare a target individual to death.”

Real holograms will not fool people at short range and they do not move, nor can they be ‘projected’ into a remote location. But they might still have their uses.

One of Watt’s suggested applications is ‘deception in an urban environment’. Take a shop window and replace it with a hologram of a window display, and you have an apparently innocuous space where troops can be stationed without any hint of their presence. A vehicle (a car or bus) could use similar trompe l’oeil effect.

There is the possibility of using holograms to create ‘virtual forces’ or ‘virtual obstacles’, but the problems are all too apparent. The situation is much better indoors where the optical environment can be controlled. Dr Watt suggests installations could have virtual doors, walls and windows as ways of confusing or misleading intruders.

A more unusual approach is using a speckle hologram as ‘virtual smoke’. This type of hologram produces an image that appears to be in front of its real surface, and this could ‘project’ a confusing image of three-dimensional spots before their eyes, making it impossible for viewers to judge what is in front of them and how far away it is.

The human eye is difficult to fool, notes Dr Watt, but infra-red sensors are much less sophisticated – there is no need for the same level of colour fidelity. An infra-red hologram of a vehicle could make a very convincing decoy. Automated systems (such as missile guidance) with no humans to spot the flaws should be particularly easy to fool. However, as Watt points out the technology does not yet exist to create infra-red holograms.

It is the third dimension that makes holograms uniquely different to other means of camouflage and potentially valuable. During WWII, circles of black cloth were used to give the impression of bomb craters on runways after air raids, but these would not stand up to close inspection. Holograms would allow you to put realistic-looking ‘holes’ or craters on any surface and confuse any possible damage assessment.

Watt’s conclusion is “Fascinating, but…” –- there are just too many limitations at present. Size limits and material restrictions are a real problem, and

“Most NLT [non lethal technology] applications rely on psychological predisposition of belligerents.”

In other words it will take a certain amount showmanship to set the illusion up in the first place; this may be feasible in Las Vegas, but not on the battlefield.

But perhaps the biggest stumbling block at present is the cost of holograms large enough for practical applications. Watt quotes $10,000 for a one metre by two hologram, or a hefty $200k for one metre by six metres, which is a lot of money – especially if the bad guys decide to test whether one is real by putting a bullet through it.

– David Hambling

Throughout the ages, bad guys have loved bunkers, whether they’re in Nazi Germany or Jihadist Iran. With good reason: the suckers are hard to find, and even tougher to blow up. Even the most bleeding-edge, experimental bunker-busters can penetrate, at most, 10 meters down.

Which is why the Air Force is considering a new approach: teams of foot-long “subterranean vehicles” with new-fangled ways to dig.

A subterranean vehicle could engage these types of targets in an effective manner, avoiding both collateral damage and unnecessary risks to our troops. It could be deployed a safe distance from the target and autonomously navigate itself to the target while detecting, identifying, and then avoiding buried obstacles such as pipes, wires, boulders and even other buildings. This vehicle would be able to penetrate the surface either through deployable techniques or on its own.

But “conventional digging techniques” will not get the job done, the Air Force warms. “It’s more likely that a revolutionary approach to digging, involving biologically inspired and/or unconventional physical and chemical approaches, would provide better results.”

General Dynamics, for one, already has a digger, derived from nature: the Worm, a 30-inch long, two-and-a-half-inch-wide “combination of hydraulic packers and cylinders” designed to inch its way through soil. It’s made to wiggle through 500 feet on earth in about 20 hours.

The Air Force thinks “a system of vehicles” could prove to be a better solution, however, with “each [machine] performing a different task.”

Phase I of the “Subterranean Warfare” effort “should establish the ability to penetrate the surface and continue to navigate at least one meter below the surface.” After that, it’s time to “develop, test and demonstrate an operable prototype.”

UPDATE 10:38 AM: Now, of course, conspiracy theorists and comic book fans will tell you that such diggers are almost laughably redundant. To fight underground, all you have to do is find one of the secret passageways to the Hollow Earth, they’ll say. And bring enough troops to deal with the Mole Men, naturally.

UPDATE 2:54 PM: Some of those kooky types might believe in Hollow Earth theories, David Hambling sniffs. But as any real, serious Mulder-in- training will tell you, the Air Force “already operates its own fleet of underground tunnelling machines, digging out all those secret bases to store all the UFOs and stuff.” Why, just look at the evidence, to the left. I mean, there’s no chance it could have anything to do with item #4 on this list.

“Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy — almost impenetrable forests of marijuana plants 10 feet tall.”

“The challenge is that marijuana plants absorb energy, heat very readily. It’s very difficult to penetrate with thermal devices. … And as a result you really have to be careful that the Taliban don’t dodge in and out of those marijuana forests,” General Rick Hillier said in a speech in Ottawa, Canada.

One soldier told him later: “Sir, three years ago before I joined the army, I never thought I’d say ‘That damn marijuana’.”

Saddam loved his defense technology — the wackier, the better. Take “Baby Babylon,” for instance: “an artillery piece so powerful that it could not only shell his enemies in Tel Aviv and Tehran but also fire a projectile into orbit,” the Times reports.

“I would say that Saddam’s regime was not a model of rationality,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington-based organization that has studied Mr. Hussein’s weaponry. “He did in some respects share Hitler’s fascination with wonder weapons…”

Mr. Hussein’s scientists could not satisfy his craving for wonder weaponry, although they tried often enough.

There was a reported program to create a “rail gun,” in which electromagnetic pulses would accelerate a projectile to high speeds, research on elaborate multistage rockets and re-entry vehicles, and, before 1991, endless tinkering with weird biological agents. None of it produced anything particularly useful…

Perhaps strangest of all were little Russian armored reconnaissance ground vehicles, somehow evoking Jetsons-style spaceships, made for just one occupant.

And let’s not forget the blinding lasers or the attempted anti-satellite weapons, either.

(Big ups: Xeni)