Over the last 50 years nothing has driven technology innovation like the military industrial complex. Sure, academic institutions, independent researchers, and private industry have achieved many things, but for sheer volume nothing can touch what the United States military technology research behemoth has accomplished. For researchers, this is where the big money lies and we’re talking about projects in areas beyond armaments and weapons like networking science, trauma medicine, communications, materials sciences, robotics, and transportation. Behind this is DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is the central force behind the Department of Defense research initiatives that we usually hear about after they are no longer relevant. Their motto is “Bridging The Gap,” which may be a stretch. Regardless, DARPA is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and along with that celebrating 50 years of technology innovation… some of which is not actually used to kill people.
Oddly silly promotional video for DARPA’s 50th:
Found this video via Ares.
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August 16th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
And don’t forget of course that DARPA’s Robert Taylor along with Larry Roberts from MIT played a huge part in the birth of the internet. ;-)
August 16th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Yes, and then there’s the creation of what would ultimately become the internet. Thanks for bringing that up and highlighting the reality that most people probably do not realize the internet was born out of the need for a decentralized (nuclear war resistant) communications system. DARPA met that need, and began addressing it, I believe, as far back as the 1970’s.