Prototyping Future Weapons

Today we're going to turn this space over briefly to Jamais Cascio, who makes some very important insights in this article from his Open the Future blog:

An unrelated pair of reports about unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) -- also referred to as "drones" -- should be looked at together. On July 14, an Israeli warship was hit by what was reported to be a cheap UAV outfitted with explosives, operated remotely by Hezbollah. Although subsequent reports attributed the blast to a conventional anti-ship missile, military analysts note that Hezbollah has been testing UAVs for just this sort of attack. Around the same time, New Scientist reported that Lockheed-Martin's new "Polecat" UAV, designed as a technology demonstrator, consists largely of parts printed in a 3-D printer.

The technique is widely used in industry to make prototype parts - to see if, for instance, they are the right shape and thickness for the job in hand. Now the strength of parts printed this way has improved so much that they can be used as working components.

About 90 per cent of Polecat is made of composite materials with much of that material made by rapid prototyping.

"The entire Polecat airframe was constructed using low-cost rapid prototyping materials and methods," says Frank Mauro, director of UAV systems at the Skunk Works.

You can see where I'm going with this. As the costs of 3D printing technology continues to plummet, and the capabilities of fabber systems continue to improve, we're heading into a world in which 4th Generation Warfare groups don't have to rely on shipments of weapons such as attack UAVs, but can simply print up a batch themselves. [CRN] has written some important essays on the question of the intersection of molecular manufacturing and military capacity. What the combination of stories about possible Hezbollah UAVs and Lockheed-Martin 3D-printed UAVs is that we won't have to wait until the advent of nanofactories to see what this problem looks like -- or to start thinking about ways it can be handled.

Well said, Jamais.

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Comments

[Brian Wang]

Something to take note of. All of the leading work and all of the leading capabilities in the enabling technology is in the US or with its close allies.

best aeronautics - USA, Europe, Russia
printer technology - USA, (HP in particular)
Advanced Lasers - USA, europe, russia
making planes from mostly composites- USA, boeing (this is not trivial, notice the delays and problems that occur here.), Europe, Russia

3D printing industry
Mostly US companies, but also leaders in europe and Israel. Some companies in Japan, Korea, China and Singapore

Having more capital and a technological lead that is probably widening still matters.

Everyone has guns and bombs but those with better guns, gear and precision bombs win. Everyone will have UAVs but they will not equal either (quality and/or quantity).

[Brian Wang]

correction: I should have said almost all. Russia is not a close ally and neither is China. Although they are not sworn enemies at this point either.

[mova afghani]

Can "cheap" UAVs be used in a kamikaze mission against commercial airplanes? It'd be scary if it does.

Mova

[brian wang]

sure UAVs can be used against commercial planes, but why? If the UAV can carry missiles it can use those.

[Tom Craver]

A kamikaze UAV might be smaller (harder to detect) and cheaper (to design and build in large quantities) than a smart UAV with missiles. It might rely on the jet sucking it into the engines, rather than the high-energy, high intelligence approach of missiles. Maybe nothing more than a "nanotube silk" balloon?