Student entrepreneur aims to help soldiers run faster by means of a jetpack.
What if every soldier could run a four-minute mile? That's the goal behind 4MM, or 4 Minute Mile, a student project to create a wearable jetpack that enhances speed and agility. Working with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and a faculty mentor, Jason Kerestes is the mastermind behind 4MM. He built a prototype of the jetpack and is now testing and refining his design to be as effective as possible.
[Video]: http://vimeo.com/98084869
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Jetpack Helps Soldiers Run Faster
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 36 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday September 13 2014, @08:43AM
What if every civilian could run a four-minute mile? Why should be soldiers so special to think of them first?
Why plenty of research seems to be geared toward military first? (yeah, its rhetorical: the milind complex has lotsa money, they ain't going away any time soon, better sell them something)
Laser grown on a chip? "has application in numerous military and civilian electronics"
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday September 13 2014, @09:02AM
What if every soldier could run a four-minute mile?
Well, that would probably be good for them, since they would be able to get themselves out of zones of danger at a greater speed.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Saturday September 13 2014, @09:13AM
Can't stop of thinking the cheapest solution to get the soldiers out of danger zones is to not send them there in the first place.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Geotti on Saturday September 13 2014, @09:29AM
Thanks!
Imagine there's war and everyone stays home.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Saturday September 13 2014, @09:55AM
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday September 14 2014, @11:27AM
Err ... Carl Sandburg [wikipedia.org] was a bit earlier than John Lennon.
Although he didn't use the word "Image"; his sentence was: "Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come". I guess Geotti back-translated the popular German translation "Stell dir vor, es ist Krieg, und keiner geht hin" ("Stell dir vor" = "Imagine").
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday September 14 2014, @12:13PM
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Saturday September 13 2014, @11:54AM
It's called drones.
See also the Star Trek episode "a taste of Armageddon"
"Death, destruction, disease, horror. That's what war is all about, Anan. That's what makes it a thing to be avoided."
(Score: 2) by cykros on Sunday September 14 2014, @03:27AM
Indeed. Didn't see the Trade Federation worrying about making sure they had soldiers on board for a separatist war with the Republic. They used an army of droids, which was only able to be beaten by an army of genetically engineered clones that were highly trained and perfectly obedient (on top of political restructuring the hand supreme executive power over to Chancellor Palpatine).
And sure, while our present day earth drones still need a pilot (at least for anything declassified), you can cover a lot more ground militarily now with a lot fewer people. And the fewer people you need, the easier it is to bribe or otherwise manipulate them. I don't see everyone hippying out stopping war anytime soon.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Monday September 15 2014, @06:31PM
How... vacuous.
It can be interpreted as either pro-war or anti-war.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Monday September 15 2014, @11:23PM
I think the term you were looking for was ambiguous, but please do describe how this statement can seriously be interpreted as pro-war. I'm genuinely interested.
I'd be totally pro-war, if it means that everyone stays home and the result is that the people responsible for the situation deal with it themselves (as in meet in a field and shoot each other into oblivion). ; )
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday September 16 2014, @11:32AM
Suppose the war is to stop a tyrannical power from mistreating its subjects. If no-one turns up (from either side), the tyrannical power continues business as usual.
If it's a war over bullshit like trivial territorial disputes, that's another matter, but the anti-war interpretation assumes that there is no righteous cause at stake, i.e. that there's nothing worth fighting for.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Tuesday September 16 2014, @12:26PM
Wouldn't that be a revolution or uprising, or do you mean an external power interfering in a conflict?
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday September 17 2014, @01:12PM
The latter. The existence of a just war in which the 'good guys' win, and in which the harm done by the war is outweighed by what is gained, disproves the suggestion that it is always better for neither side to fight the war.
Proof-by-contradiction, assuming the existence of such a war (whether historical or hypothetical).
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Wednesday September 17 2014, @06:08PM
I'm not sure that is justifiable in a strict sense, though.
If an external power interferes* in a conflict, it has to act out of purely altruistic reasons, which is (unfortunately) nearly unimaginable in our world.
*interferes in the sense of skewing the balance towards a side, e.g. by military, economic, political, etc. What could be "more" acceptable is getting the suffering civil population out of the conflict zone and similar "support."
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday September 18 2014, @10:11AM
Overthrowing a dictator: hard.
Evacuating the millions of people he keeps underfoot: essentially impossible.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Thursday September 18 2014, @03:46PM
But, overthrowing a dictator: none of your business, unless UN mandate.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Monday September 22 2014, @05:59PM
One way to look at it. Not convincing that it's categorically a net evil, though.
Real-world politics aren't the point. What we're discussing is really just a thought-experiment. Anyway, the opinion of the UN does not decide morality.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Monday September 22 2014, @10:49PM
Anyway, the opinion of the UN does not decide morality.
That's true, the UN basically just absolves the participating/deciding/voting nations of a single target for blame (in the sense that everyone had something to do with it).
What I meant was that a dictatorship should still be respected as a legitimate government (for the values of dictatorships, where they are, or became legitimate), unless the whole world agrees that the government has to change. I took the UN as an example, because that's the (only) institution we have that has been granted the right to decide on such issues by the majority of world governments.
In effect, I believe that -of course- each person should be able to decide for him/herself what he can do and what to believe in. So what would be ethical for me would be going in and granting them the security to decide for themselves, whether to stay or leave. Deposing the powers, however, is overstepping the boundaries and opening doors to conflicts of interests, greed, corruption, etc.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday September 23 2014, @08:59AM
I don't get this. This cannot be done without a foreign occupation, correct?
Dictators don't generally just stand by and watch as their subjects escape. Imagine trying to do that in North Korea. The cost in lives would probably be even worse than just crushing the regime outright.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Wednesday September 24 2014, @01:09PM
Yes, it's quite unrealistic, but what I had in mind is that the occupation would have to be so overwhelming that the local forces would be unable to work against them. Along the lines of disabling any weaponry, how unrealistic that may sound. Like an energy shield
The external forces should then give the users a choice without interfering in the decision process, form a "humanitarian corridor" and leave the country once it's done.
This should be, of course, be done for purely altruistic reasons, without any attempt at swaying the opinion of the people, taking over infrastructure, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 13 2014, @09:59AM
> Laser grown on a chip? "has application in numerous military and civilian electronics"
Laser grown on a shark? "has applications in numerous military and criminal electronics"
(Score: 4, Informative) by iwoloschin on Saturday September 13 2014, @11:50AM
Why does the average civilian need to run a 4 minute mile? I can think of two reasons.
1) They're an athlete, professional or not, and running is a big part of many sports. Sports are also tests of *human* strength/endurance/agility/etc, so adding in an artificial jetpack would not be allowed.
2) They don't.
Now, I'm not saying I don't think having a personal jetpack to run to work in 7 minutes wouldn't be awesome, I just hardly see the use case for most civilian purposes, beyond entertainment. For the military though, different story, *every* soldier could benefit from increased speed/stamina/agility/etc, because those all make you better than the enemy, and therefore more likely to come home. There's money to be made there, as well as "good guy" lives to be saved, so it's a win/win if it works.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Saturday September 13 2014, @12:20PM
To run from a soldier? Naah.
Yeap, one needs lotsa stamina to carry the propulsion fuel for the jetpack all the way until needing a boost for 4 minutes. Some agility too to keep those jets properly oriented. Isn't a scooter or a motocross cycle better?
The only part that loses are the civilians. You know? The ones who pay for those toys in taxes.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 13 2014, @04:01PM
You should be glad the milind complex exists; without it, you wouldn't have an internet on which to bitch about it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Saturday September 13 2014, @10:01PM
You really think networked services wouldn't emerge without milind? Think again [wikipedia.org]
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SlimmPickens on Saturday September 13 2014, @11:35AM
I struggle to believe this thing can have any practical application without wheels, especially for someone already carrying alot of kit. I'd love to try one with roller blades however.
Here's [youtube.com] an even more absurd pulse jet powered bicycle.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday September 13 2014, @09:49PM
Imagine a beowulf cluster of soldiers with jetpacks, bunny-hopping towards you. You quickly go from disbelief to laughter, start missing shots and bang they are over you. Game over.
The thing has potential.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 13 2014, @12:05PM
do you have to use this thing just to end up with a net effect of zero after you've accounted for weighing down soldiers with yet another piece of weighty gear?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 14 2014, @12:51AM
Exoskeletons are just over the horizon; the jetpacks will go on those.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by gman003 on Saturday September 13 2014, @02:39PM
You need to get a soldier somewhere a mile away in under four minutes? It's called "get in the Humvee". Or the Black Hawk, or the Abrams, or "literally any vehicle that can reach 15MPH". That's the entire reason we have vehicles. You could probably reach this goal with just bicycles. Or shit, bring back horse cavalry.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Silentknyght on Saturday September 13 2014, @02:45PM
Sure, you're carrying a bit more weight, but the video trial showed a 5'20" time for a mile without the pack, and a 5'02" time, with.
(Score: 1) by CirclesInSand on Sunday September 14 2014, @03:05AM
By who? By an unbiased judge, or by a member of the sales team?
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Monday September 15 2014, @06:39PM
Apparently (see 3:10) [vimeo.com] it's 11.2 pounds.
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Saturday September 13 2014, @05:58PM
Would it be possible using current and near future tech to make something that could help soldiers stay in "sprint mode" till its fuel runs out?
e.g. something to improve the ATP recreation in the muscles (or improve the lactate system). And maybe something to cool the blood[1] (stuff stops working so well if it overheats).
[1] http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/bemore.html [wired.com]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday September 14 2014, @01:16AM
Why go down this road at all? We have flying drones now. If we need drones on the ground, well, let's build them and deploy them as needed. No need for any of our guys to get shot. We could manufacture them by the thousand and have them controlled, squad style, by 13-yr olds. They follow orders and ask no questions.
Or, we could stop with the violence BS and grow the F*** up as a species. That would be my personal preference.
Washington DC delenda est.