DARPA's flying Humvee

Even when you are just minding your own business and trying to read something not related to the military industrial complex (MIC), the over whelming presence of the MIC makes itself known in the strangest places. Thanks to the book, The Complex, by Nick Turse, Il Principe is well aware of how far and deep the tentacles of the MIC invade our everyday lives.

The latest intrusion occurred on Tech Republic , a web site dedicated to IT professionals who want to keep abreast of all the latest IT developments. Mixed among articles talking about Smart Phone applications, how to tweak a Windows 7 computer and a holiday gift guide for the computer geek in your family, was an article about a DARPA program that wants to give a U.S. Army Humvee the ability to fly.

If you are not too familiar with DARPA, it is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Created in 1958 as a result of the United States being surprised by the October 1957 launch of the basketball sized Sputnik satellite, the Defense Department authorized the creation of new agency headed by a former Nazi rocket scientist and SS officer Wernher von Braun. While the agency was given the mandate to ensure the United States forever maintained “ a lead in applying state-of-the-art technology for military capabilities and to prevent technology surprise from her adversaries”, since the end of the Cold War and with no major super power challenging the United States, billions of dollars has kept flowing into DARPA. All behind a wall of secrecy with little to no accountablilty and oversight as required in the U.S. Constitution for public expenditures. Like the budget for the CIA the budget for DARPA is classified but is estimated to be in the nieghborhood of around 3 billion dollars a year.

Instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars to develop an American made high speed train or other products the United States could export to foreign markets, the latest DARPA project is just the latest example of corporate welfare for politically connected defense corporations. According to the story,

Six companies got contracts for the first phase, which lasts for 12 months, including AAI Corporation and Lockheed Martin Company, which are the prime system integrators; Carnegie Mellon University and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, which will develop critical enabling technology; and Aurora Flight Sciences partnered with two Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) recipients — ThinGap, and Metis Design Corp.

While it was encouraging to read most of the reader comments in the story were against the research into developing a flying Humvee, that will undoubtedly be another colossal waste of tax payer money, the funding for another weapons project hidden behind a wall of secrecy will continue. Perhaps one of the comments by one of the readers was the most insightful and a spot on analysis of what recently happened in Iraq and the IED.

One more waster of billions by some clown in DOD who said, Wonder if they can make us a $$$$$$$$$$$? Cost of this stuff is frightening. We will soon go broke shooting $500K PLUS rockets from drones at guys with not much more then AK or RPG's as at some point we simply can no longer afford the luxury of this overly expensive technology. Folks, in case none noted, USA is broke.