Knight Ridder News Service March 7, 2002
War on terrorism gives birth to innovative new weapons
By Robert S. Boyd
WASHINGTON _ Every major war is the mother of new weapons: the English longbow against 14th-century French knights, World War I's tanks and airplanes, World War II's aircraft carriers and atomic bombs.
This war is no exception. The 21st-century battle against terrorism is being waged with innovative robotic airplanes and smart bombs. American scientists and engineers are providing ingenious new devices to foil further terrorist attacks.
The idea is to use this country's overwhelming lead in science and technology to defend the nation at home and crush its adversaries abroad with minimum risk to American lives. John Pike, a military analyst and director of GlobalSecurity.org, a high-tech research center in Alexandria, Va., said the combination of advanced technology and military muscle gives the United States a towering advantage on the battlefield.
"No other country has a fraction of either the brains or the brawn that the United States has," Pike said. "It's without precedent in human history that a single political entity has such a disparity in power."
OFFENSE:
Two novel weapons systems are the stars of U.S. offensive operations in the Afghan war:
_ The Predator, a remotely controlled, unmanned aerial vehicle recently modified to find and attack hostile forces.
_ JDAMs (Joint Direct Attack Munitions), precision bombs guided by lasers and global positioning satellites.
First used only for surveillance in Bosnia and Kosovo, the Predator is now equipped with "Hellfire" missiles that it can fire at a target almost as soon as the Predator spots it.
In an unwanted demonstration of its prowess earlier this month, the Predator's video camera beamed back to military commanders in Tampa, Fla., live pictures of a U.S. Navy SEAL who'd fallen from a helicopter and died in the mountains of Afghanistan.
JDAMs, in 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound versions, can be launched from Navy or Air Force jet fighters and bombers in any kind of weather and at a safe distance of 15 miles from their target.
The speed and accuracy these systems provide allows a single air wing of 80 planes to strike 700 to 1,000 targets per mission, compared with fewer than 170 during the Persian Gulf War a decade ago, according to Adm. Robert Natter, commander in chief of the Atlantic Fleet.
Another new weapon used for the first time in Afghanistan is the "thermobaric" bomb, a 2,000-pound fire-breathing monster that sucks the air out of caves and tunnels and incinerates anyone inside.
Hoping to widen America's technological lead, the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the U.S. Special Operations Command have invited 200 scientists and engineers to a meeting Monday through Wednesday at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington to solicit innovative ideas for future weapons.
"Twenty-first-century warfare requires our agency and others in the Department of Defense to think out of the box," said Harry Schulte, chief acquisitions officer for the Special Operations Command. "We're looking for the best scientists in America to help develop technology relevant to the mission."
Technologies of interest to DARPA include laser guns, remote sensors, underwater communications, advanced computer networks, artificial intelligence programs and robotic scouts.
One current project is the Organic Air Vehicle, a tiny aircraft that weighs less than 5 pounds and is smaller than a foot in any dimension, which is supposed to detect enemies hidden in a forest or behind buildings or hills.
The Hummingbird, an unmanned helicopter that can carry a 300-pound load 2,500 miles and stay aloft for 40 hours, passed its first flight test in January. The Global Hawk, a successor to the Predator, flew nonstop from California to Australia last year.
The Pentagon has chosen four contractors to develop an Unmanned Ground Combat Vehicle that can fight battles by remote control without endangering human crews.
"The autonomous robotics technologies being developed today will allow future war fighters to accomplish their missions more effectively with less risk of casualties," DARPA Director Anthony Tether told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee at a recent hearing on the Pentagon budget.
DEFENSE:
In the war against terrorism, defense is as important as offense. The government is enlisting scientists and engineers to help.
For example, a space agency researcher who was developing sensors to detect possible life on Mars has switched to working on devices for spotting anthrax in post offices and office buildings here on Earth.
"We need to detect anthrax spores rapidly in the air and not wait for symptoms to develop. That may be too late," said Adrian Ponce, a biochemist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
David Franz, an expert on bioterrorism at the Southern Research Institute in Birmingham, Ala., said the government will spend almost $11 billion this year on biowarfare defense alone. Five years ago, such programs cost only $150 million.
Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Md., has been assigned to develop a "strategic plan" to defend against infectious smallpox, one of the most feared weapons of biological warfare. The first step was to stretch the nation's limited supply of 15 million doses of smallpox vaccine by diluting it five or 10 times.
"The dilution was successful," Fauci said. "We now have 75 to 150 million doses."
In addition, since the existing smallpox vaccine kills a small number of the people who receive it, researchers are rushing to develop a new, nontoxic vaccine. A separate vaccine for Ebola, the almost always fatal African virus, will begin human tests this year, Fauci said.
Stephen Johnston, the director of the Center for Biomedical Inventions at the University of Texas Medical School in Dallas, has a DARPA contract to make vaccines against anthrax and plague from fragments of DNA. He called his process "genetic immunization."
Claire Fraser, the president of The Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, Md., said her laboratory had identified subtle differences in the DNA of the various strains of anthrax that killed people in Florida, Washington and New York. She said the research was helping to narrow the hunt for the person who mailed the anthrax spores last fall.
Thanks to the deciphering of most of the human genome last year, "we can more readily detect an attack and develop drugs and vaccines," Fraser said.
New technologies also are being applied to air-travel security.
A facial scanner that automatically matches travelers' faces to a database of suspected terrorists was tested this winter at Fresno-Yosemite airport in California.
The Sand Dragon, a 4-foot-long, 80-pound robot developed at the Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M., sniffs out hidden explosives. It was used last month at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
Another Sandia invention, the PAN (Percussion Enabled Non-Electric) Disrupter, disables a bomb without blowing it up so it can be analyzed for clues to its maker. The Disrupter was used to disarm the explosive in attempted-bombing suspect Richard Reid's sneaker on a transatlantic flight in December.
Looking to the future, DARPA is seeking devices that can identify traces of nuclear or chemical weapons on a suspect's hair, skin, clothes or bodily wastes. It is studying "voice prints" that could locate and track terrorists from a recorded message, such as the videos made by Osama bin Laden.
Summing up the military's call for innovative technologies, DARPA deputy director Jane Alexander told a news briefing: "We want to tap new resources to help us in our fight against terrorism. These scientists can bring a lot to the table."
For more information on high-tech weaponry on the Web, go to www.darpa.mil or to http://globalsecurity.org
Copyright 2002 Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
