Real-life 'Iron Man' suit commissioned by US military

rickymouse
I wonder if anyone in government is even questioning the money spent on these projects.

Nah they don't worry about it and they explained all the funding issues in the movie Independence Day.

President Thomas Whitmore: I don't understand, where does all this come from? How do you get funding for something like this?

Julius Levinson: You don't actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?

rickymouse
I wouldn't want one of those suits. Too hard to go to the bathroom.

Totally off topic, this is why communal wet suits are always a bad idea in the service.

Urinophoria happens to us all.

reply to post by Bassago


Once Petman get a gun and becomes fully fieldable, power suits will become a moot point anyway.
Move over iron man here comes terminator.

www.bostondynamics.com...

The problem is cost. Regardless how much they can replicate human behavior and even withstand a certain level of shots to the head, they will still cost more than any human soldier. The idea behind robots though is to be able to make them cheaper than humans since it takes a lot of money to train, pay for school, and even maintain their equipment and ammunition. A robot that has pin-point accuracy on the battlefield would cost less for ammunition, especially if they shoot an RPG with $50,000 rockets at maximum effectiveness.

But even still, the most worrisome moment is when humans are no longer needed on the battlefield and the battlefield becomes a place where government vs its own people. With robotic overlords you could practically tell them to fight citizens without remorse. Human soldiers on the other hand would not listen to a government that said such a thing.

The cool factor is there for these robots, but the more tyrant the government becomes, the scarier it is for them to poses this type of technology.

reply to post by Em2013


I'm sure the early versions will be extremely expensive in low numbers but when mass production kicks in and the newness of the tech wears off, cost will come down.
I think when this tech is field able I see them as more of a remotely operated system (the movie Surrogates comes to mind), the human element is still in the mix as are all drones tasked to kill today. The human always has the finger on the button/trigger to take a human life.
Eventually down the line this may change but by that time it may be difficult for us to be able to separate the humans from the machine as we will slowly become one in the same thing.

reply to post by Sammamishman


So basically all of those hours playing Call of Duty will finally pay off as a career choice? :O nice!

reply to post by Em2013


Eventually....yes. The military already actively search for and recruits gamers for their growing drone fleet. With the increased hand eye reaction times and integrated systems immersion ability of a modern gamer, It will be the same for ground combat drones of the future as well.

projectvxn
....But power is an issue here. A soldier needs to be able to sustain operations 24 hours a day. The power source would need to provide power for at least one day worth of combat operations. I simply don't see that happening any time soon.

Battery technology is limited by its use. Constant combat operations would severely limit the use of these suits. Unless I'm missing something here, this power suit is simply not currently practical from a power consumption standpoint.

I've heard that the suit will feed on the souls of those it's kills, that will be more than enough power.

More useless paper money down the drain.