When the world was first introduced to Star Trek—the TV series—in 1966 and then the Star Wars films, starting with A New Hope in 1977, the world did not have killer lasers in addition to drones/robot weapons and Internet cyber warfare.
The laser/energy weapons, and the droids and robots in those early Star Trek and Star Wars films have now become a reality, because in 1999, the Department of Defense (DoD) formally recognized lasers as future weapons and began research and development (R&D).
Now, the R&D has resulted in headlines like Lockheed laser weapon hits its mark again – cnet.com
“Against rockets and missiles, laser weapons work by fixing a high-energy beam on the side wall of the projectile for several seconds, heating it up enough to rupture the skin.”
Killer Robots – Drone Strikes of the future? Young Turks
Another headline says, Military drone with no human control – Smart Planet.com
“The X-47B is a completely unmanned drone. Meaning, not only no pilot but no human control from the ground. Its missions are initially planned by humans but once these things are airborne they are guided and controlled by on-board computers.”
And Popsci.com reports about A Working Assault Rifle Made with a 3-D Printer
“HaveBlue then decided to push the limits of what was possible and use his printer to make an AR-15 rifle. To do this, he downloaded plans for an AR-15 receiver in the Solidworks file format from a site called CNCGunsmith.com. After some small modifications to the design, he fed about $30 of ABS plastic feedstock into his late-model Stratasys printer. The result was a functional AR-15 rifle. Early testing shows that it works, although it still has some minor feed and extraction problems to be worked out.”
With weapons like the few mentioned in this post, how long before there is no safe place on the Earth and the entire world—including your home—is a battlefield or are we already there?
Continued on June 19, 2013 in Lasers, Drones and Killer Robots – Part 2
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Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran.
His latest novel is the award winning suspense-thriller Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.
And the woman he loves and wants to save was fighting for the other side.
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You might also like Sting of the Drone by Richard Clarke (http://www.amazon.com/Sting-Drone-Richard-A-Clarke/dp/1250047978) and “Bullets and Train” written by Pakistani author Adeerus Ghayan ( http://www.amazon.com/Bullets-Train-Adeerus-Ghayan-ebook/dp/B00LJK7KZ8 ) . Latter is available for free download at Amazon Kindle and looks at the matter from a purely Pakistani point of view. It is interesting how authors from two different parts of the world convey the same message that drones are fuelling terrorism.
Thank you for the recommendation. I checked the book out on Amazon and the plot sounds interesting. Right now the West has the upper hand technologically with drones and other robots as weapons but this can’t hold forever.
For instance, the Chinese held the upper hand in weapons technology for centuries. They invented the stirrup and that introduced the horse as a more efficient weapon–until the other side also had the stirrup. The Chiense invented gunpowder and rockets and used those in battles to their advantage—until the other side had the same weapons. The Chinese invented a crossbow that operated like the modern machine gun—until the other side had the same weapons. In fact, it was the mechanics of the automatic crossbow that was used to create today’s modern day machine guns. The Chinese invented a form of jellied gasoline—what we call napalm today and that helped them keep the upper hand—until the other side also had the same weapons.
It’s only a matter of time until the extremist enemies of the U.S., Europe, Russia and even China have the same weapons and use them against the people of those countries and their leaders at home. Of course, the U.S. has developed a laser weapon that is capable of shooting missile and drones out of the sky. The day may come when all of America’s leaders and wealthiness citizens have houses protected by laser weapons capable of detecting incoming drones and knocking them out of the sky before they hit the target.