back to article Bringing Iron Man to life: Exoskeletons, armour and jet packs

Radiation that gives you super-strength instead of disfiguring or killing you, spider bites that empower you to fight crime instead of threatening your life with a potentially fatal allergic reaction: when it comes to superheroes we need to suspend a decent amount of disbelief. But what about Marvel's The Avengers, the United …

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  1. Anonymous Custard

    Hawkeye

    As it's said there were 6 in the team but only 5 were named, allow me to add the 6th.

    That said he is a fairly forgettable character, at least in the movie.

    1. Lamont Cranston

      Re: Hawkeye

      Giving him back his purple costume would have made him far more memorable.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Hawkeye

        Indeed, Jeremy Renner did complain that his character was under-used in The Avengers Assemble.

    2. PatientOne

      Re: Hawkeye

      I'd say they had a choice between Black Widow and Hawkeye for a lot of the plot and Widow won because she is the only woman in the team, has some sex appeal, and it made more sense for Loki to think he could manipulate her where as Hawkeye's just a guy with a bow.

      Widow and Hawkeye are also the only two characters without their own films, which didn't help. In fact, they're introduced more as government/SHIELD agents than heroes (super or otherwise). However, of all the characters in the team, they are also the easiest to replicate in real life: Trick arrows are possible, and the gadgets Widow uses aren't that far fetched.

      They are not, however, 'Super'.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      How would you power it

      A virtual power pack perhaps or a mini nuclear reactor?

      James Bond has a jet pack, lasted all of 20 seconds before it was out of fuel.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The Americans actually believe Iron Man and his suit are real.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Yeah, but they also believe in God.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Devil

          Yeah, but they also believe in God.

          Hands up for the deity in the passing parade of eternity, that YOU like.....

          898,372,197 and counting.... deities that is.

          Satan, because she rocks.

          1. JDX Gold badge

            Re: Yeah, but they also believe in God.

            British people believe in God/gods too... the majority of them in fact. Wonderful how two people in a row make such brain-dead comments in an attempt to make other people look stupid.

    5. Bush_rat
      Unhappy

      Re: Hawkeye

      Agreed, it's rather depressing to think Aquaman is more memorable than Hawkeye...

  2. Andus McCoatover
    Windows

    Batttery on the HULC goes flat? One hour??

    You're basically legless.

    Plus the problem of leaving it for enemies (You're gonna carry that back to base???Plus whatever else you were carrying?), who'd delight in reverse-engineering it.

    Nah.

    1. dogged
      Holmes

      Re: Batttery on the HULC goes flat? One hour??

      Maybe that's what it's for. Then your enemies spend millions on useless junk while you train men and buy guns.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Batttery on the HULC goes flat? One hour??

      But you can carry 200lb of spare batteries to get you home.

    3. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Batttery on the HULC goes flat? One hour??

      IIRC, the HULC and similar current designs are intended for rear area duties, such as loading supplies into choppers and shells into howitzers, and as such shouldn't be wandering too far from a recharge.

      1. Seanie Ryan
        Childcatcher

        Re: Batttery on the HULC goes flat? One hour??

        "are intended for rear area duties"

        oh sir !!!

    4. Thomas 4

      Re: Batttery on the HULC goes flat? One hour??

      True but I'd suspect that you can't reverse engineer it in a cave with a box of scraps.

      1. Dave 126

        Re: Batttery on the HULC goes flat? One hour??

        Sgt Apone: I don't know, is there anything you can do?

        Lt Ripley: I can drive that loader. I've got a Class Two rating.

        1. Dave 126

          Re: Batttery on the HULC goes flat? One hour??

          >True but I'd suspect that you can't reverse engineer it in a cave with a box of scraps.

          B. A. Baracus could.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Batttery on the HULC goes flat? One hour??

            I pity the fool who tries to do this - I pity the fool!

  3. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Happy

    Cap's shield is pretty tame.

    The fun bit with vibranium is it is supposed to absorb impacts, which implies it converts the energy into another form. Seeing as heat seems to be the easiest way for nature to dump energy, you would have to assume Cap also has asbestos gloves to stop the shield frying his hands!

    Of course, compared to some of the major suspensions of reality required for some superheroes, old Cap's shield is pretty tame. Our Marvel UK equivalent, Captain Britain, was a sometimes unhappy hybrid of Iron Man's suit, the Hulk, and was a half-alien child of some mystic land of Merlinian magic, endowed with flight with no visible means of propulsion at all!

    1. annodomini2
      Joke

      Re: Cap's shield is pretty tame.

      Curry? ;)

      1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: Re: Cap's shield is pretty tame.

        "Curry? ;)" Well, I was going to suggest Cornish pasties, but his powers once cut out completely whilst in the West Country.

    2. Dave 126

      Re: Cap's shield is pretty tame.

      >child of some mystic land of Merlinian magic

      What amuses me is that in some of the Marvel mythos, wormholes that connect to different universes are situated in... Gloucestershire. And in Buffy the Vampire slayer series, one of the women goes on a witch training course in... Gloucestershire.

      Which is of course nonsense. Anyone who has stood on the edge of the escarpment looking West over the horseshoe bend of the Severn knows that Gloucestershire is the Shires, the Forest of Dean is Mirkwood, and Wales is Mordor.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Cap's shield is pretty tame.

        "Anyone who has stood on the edge of the escarpment looking West over the horseshoe bend..."

        ...is probably dogging at the Birdlip car park.

        Just sayin'.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Cap's shield is pretty tame.

          >...is probably dogging at the Birdlip car park.

          Stroudie!

    3. Mike Moyle
      Boffin

      Re: Cap's shield is pretty tame.

      "The fun bit with vibranium is it is supposed to absorb impacts, which implies it converts the energy into another form. Seeing as heat seems to be the easiest way for nature to dump energy, you would have to assume Cap also has asbestos gloves to stop the shield frying his hands!"

      Actually, I've always rather assumed that Vibranium doesn't so much ABSORB kinetic energy as CHANNEL it. If it simply absorbed any impact, he couldn't ricochet the shield around when he flings it. Throw... hit... absorb impact *thunk*... fall to the ground. No; rather there must be something about the structure of the crystal that absorbs impact from one direction and ejects it orthogonally. This would also help to explain the 60-yard, multiple-ricochet throws -- it absorbs on the face but expels on the edge. (Maybe after a firefight where it took a lot of head-on impacts but didn't get thrown much, he has to dribble it edge-on like a basketball for a few minutes to bleed off the excess potential energy...)

      Why, yes... I DO have a lot of free time -- why do you ask...?

      1. Adam White
        Thumb Up

        Re: Cap's shield is pretty tame.

        >>> (Maybe after a firefight where it took a lot of head-on impacts but didn't get thrown much, he has to dribble it edge-on like a basketball for a few minutes to bleed off the excess potential energy...)

        I like it, put that in the next movie.

  4. Mayhem

    Iron man calling his attacks

    Actually in the earlier movies and previous versions of the suit Stark does indeed have to state what he wants the suit to do. "Flares" "transfer all power to chest" etc.

    I suspect the repulsor blasts are controlled by those things called "triggers" which we've known about for some time now. Put the hands in a certain position and flex a finger and boom.

    However going by the footage from Iron Man 3, he's now onto version 6 or so of the suit. That means he's had plenty of time to refine the AI and biomechanical interfaces to be more efficient and intuitive for him to use. Unlikely to be easily used by someone else, but that's half the point.

    Sure, the Arc Reactor is still a magic power supply in a box, but we've seen plenty of those in SF.

    I think that is part of the reason Iron Man has always been relatively popular along with Batman - Superman, the Hulk, Thor, they are all blessed with varying levels of Magic Powers, while at the end of the day Batman & Iron Man are just rich intelligent people with good R&D and an exercise program.

    1. Psyx
      Thumb Up

      Re: Iron man calling his attacks

      "Batman & Iron Man are just rich intelligent people with good R&D and an exercise program."

      And one of them is an angsty pillock who is pathetically hanging on to a couple of deaths forty years ago instead of appreciating his good fortune. What's the point of being a multi-billionaire superhero if you're always so damned miserable?

      Stark>Wayne.

      1. Mike Brown

        Re: Iron man calling his attacks

        Stark is an alcholic egomaniac, with a narsistic streek as big as the hulk buster. Wayne is a self controlled ninja, that thinks of himself as batman 1st and Bruce second, who fights crime becuase its the right thing to do, not to get the chicks.

        Wayne>Stark

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Iron man calling his attacks@ Mike Brown

          "Stark is an alcholic egomaniac, with a narsistic streek "

          Come off it, if you (or I) were that rich, under-employed, and had access to that sort of tech, I'm sure we'd do the louche, show-off playboy, replete with live-in PA. Becoming a depressive do gooder running around with my underpants outside my trousers with just another bloke for company just doesn't cut the mustard.

          Stark>>Wayne.

        2. BoldMan

          Re: Iron man calling his attacks

          > Stark is an alcholic egomaniac, with a narsistic streek as big as the hulk buster

          You say this as if it were a bad thing?

        3. Psyx
          Pint

          Re: Iron man calling his attacks

          "Wayne is a self controlled ninja, that thinks of himself as batman 1st and Bruce second, who fights crime becuase its the right thing to do, not to get the chicks."

          Except he does it so poorly, failing to solve the actual problem at the cost of countless lives due to a 'moral code' which is mere self-justification and self-actualisation. If he actually gave a damn about crime rather than himself and his own ego, he'd spend some of his vast swathes of money buying some better locks on Arkham's cells.

          Everyone's parents die. Wayne needs to grow a pair and get over it. Both characters are ultimately totally egotistical. It's just Stark is honest about it.

          Stark>Wayne.

          1. Lamont Cranston

            Re: Iron man calling his attacks

            Only one of them runs around with rubber nipples, yet still manages to be the idol of every boy (and an unhealthy number of grown men).

            Wayne>Stark

            1. Sir Runcible Spoon

              Re: Iron man calling his attacks

              One of them is actually quite amusing though, and doesn't need to hide his identity.

              Stark>Wayne

            2. Psyx
              Pint

              Re: Iron man calling his attacks

              "Only one of them runs around with rubber nipples, yet..."

              I'm pretty sure that's not the reason. If it were, fetish clubs would be very popular.

              At first glance Batman has it because Black>Red. But a brief look at their motivations, successes and general levels of happiness shows Stark to be far less deluded, miserable and criminally insane.

        4. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Iron man calling his attacks

          http://www.cracked.com/blog/if-avengers-were-10-times-manlier/

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Iron man calling his attacks

        One works in private enterprise and the other relies on govt. handouts (military/weapons contracts) for money.

        Wayne >> Stark

        1. wowfood
          Megaphone

          Re: Iron man calling his attacks

          Stark: Genius billionaire playboy philanthropist

          Wayne: Genius billionaire playboy philanthropist detective pilot escape artist master of disguise fluent in Japanese / Cantonese / Mandarin / Spanish / French / Latin / German / Russian, mastered 127 styles of martial arts including taekwando / judo / muay thai / karate / boxing / jujitsu / ninjitsu, degrees in criminal science / forensics / computer science / chemistry / enginerring / biology / advanced chemistry

          Wayne > Stark

          1. JDX Gold badge

            Re: Iron man calling his attacks

            @wowfood

            Because Stark isn't an expert when it comes to physics, engineering, chemistry and computer-science? Nothing like choosing the answer you want to come up with before you start... simply label Stark as 'genius' but list every manifestation of Wayne's genius as a separate thing to make the list look longer.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It always comes back to the power source...

    IIRC, a coke can sized lump of uranium has enough power to launch a space shuttle, if you could get at it safely....

    for me the 2nd biggest problem is the armour, there is no material I know of that can be so thin and withstand the impacts that his suit does (I could accept that some form of non-newtonian material protects him)...

    Now that all being said, I am off to my cave to start designing my own iron man suit....

    1. Measurer
      Terminator

      Materials?

      Carbon nanotubes rolled on the legs of Cuban virgins......

    2. Mike Brown

      So less Iron Man, more Custard Man?

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Paint it on?

      http://science.howstuffworks.com/liquid-body-armor1.htm

    4. The First Dave
      WTF?

      Power is one thing, propulsion is quite another. Basically, power means energy, but propulsion requires force, usually meaning mass, so how does the tiny Arc reactor actually provide propulsion?

      1. Mayhem

        Clearly he uses an Ion engine!

      2. Fibbles

        If he is flying in an atmosphere reaction mass shouldn't be a problem. I don't know about in the comics but in the films he doesn't seem to be able to operate in space for very long which makes sense.

    5. Thorne

      "for me the 2nd biggest problem is the armour, there is no material I know of that can be so thin and withstand the impacts that his suit does (I could accept that some form of non-newtonian material protects him)..."

      Actually it's the inertial dampners. It doesn't matter how tough the armour is, the stuff inside is still squishy.

      How can you fall/get thrown into the ground and leave a crater but not scramble the egg inside the shell?

    6. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      IIRC, a coke can sized lump of uranium has enough power to launch a space shuttle, if you could get at it safely....

      A "coke can sized lump" of ice has enough power to launch a space shuttle a few times over - about 3e16 N. (355ml times density a bit less than 1 g/ml for ice at 0C divided by 1000 for g/kg times 9e16 for E=Mc^2.) The two solid boosters for the shuttle put out about 3e7 N together, according to you-know-wikiwhat.

      It's just a matter of getting at it safely, by total mass conversion.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Surely the loader/exo-skeleton as seen in Aliens & Avatar shouldn't be that far away. And as they are both large, a self contained generator shouldn't add that much weight. Why go for small battery powered devices when you can super-size it and carry enough fuel for extended duration.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      " a self contained generator shouldn't add that much weight"

      A low powered generator might not, but then wouldn't deliver much benefit. For cargo loaders that might not matter - a walking forklift if you like, but (sadly) the idea of bouncing around the jungle at speed in a performance exoskeleton with some endurance seems a pipe dream using any currently feasible power source.

      Think of the performance you get out of a forklift - that's not exactly heart stopping, using engines in the range 30-150 hp. Now think of the size and weight of a small car engine (similar size and wieght to a forklift), add in the fuel tank and transmission (genny and motors). Not looking good for Colonel Quaritch in my view.

      1. fridaynightsmoke
        Boffin

        Forklift performance

        The poor acceleration of forklifts is due mainly to their enourmous weight- a '2.5t' forklift will weigh approximately 4 tonnes unladen. They do usually use small car engines, tuned for increased torque at low revs.

        The slow acceleration is also largely by design; you don't want >4 tonnes of iron with forks sticking out of the front doing any appreciable speed in your average warehouse, surrounded by meatbags and goods of varying fragility and monetary value. On the open road the rear-wheel steering also makes forklifts very unstable at speed (well, >10mph).

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Not really true. A forklift truck requires a heck of a lot of weight to act as counter to balance the load that would otherwise be way past its centre of balance, and the engine/transmission quite happily performs that function.

        Keeping the load max low and in towards the centre of balance (such as an unpowered human would) reduces the overall weight requirement down. Additionally, there are many high performance power to weight ratio generators available that wouldn't be cost effective in a commercial forklift. Gas turbine generators are small and pack a punch and would likely work well in such a device. There will be other design constraints a commercial forklift will have to adhere to which a Mil-Spec loader/ex-skeleton wouldn't have to worry too much about.

        1. Dave 126

          If the object is to allow a soldier to cover large distances quickly, then those designs that take their inspiration from kangaroos is the way to go, much like the 'Blade-runner' amputee athletes. The kinetic energy is stored in the spring (as it is in the tendons of kangaroos), and released again, so is a very energy efficient way of travelling, though not suitable for all terrains and hardly stealthy.

          I believe the Soviets experimented with a power-assisted version (with combustion-powered cylinders) that allowed soldiers to take strides ten yards long.

          If you want to your soldier to carry heavy equipment/supplies into hostile territory, then why burden the soldier with it and a HULC system? It's better to have a robotic mule carry the gear independently. Or, as was done in Burma in WW2, a real mule can be parachuted in.

          (A local farmer did this, and the next day Japan surrendered... nothing to do with an A-bomb at all, just the threat of Jasper on a donkey. Later on, when posted as a guard in the gardens of the Imperial Palace, the Emperor, under house arrest, politely approached him for a light... "You can fuck off" he responded)

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Whilst accepting that (and previous AC's) point, if you've got a loader then you'd need some counterbalancing for loads, so the performance point stands, and even if you overcome that and don't need the counterweight, the performance of a small family saloon weighing a tonne is nothing to get Quaritch into a sweat is it?

          "Gas turbine generators are small and pack a punch and would likely work well in such a device. "

          Not very fuel efficient, on varying loads though, which is why they've never had much use in ground transport. For the hypothesised exoskeleton from Avatar we'd be talking about something of the order of two to four tonnes weight to start with, and that implies (for a bit of spring in its step) around 800kW. A turbine gen set of that scale weights in at around six or seven tonnes, although you could reduce that if there's no silencing, enclosure, sled, and perhaps use a smaller set and run it more agressively (offsetting the life and service implications). And it'd use around a quarter of a tonne of fuel per hour, so for three hours endurance you'd have 0.75 tonnes of fuel. Say you over-rate a smaller turbine, and optimistically get a 6-700kW generating set at four tonnes, 0.75 tonnes of fuel, and the exo skeleton itself at three tonnes, throw in some weapons or load, and we're talking about a ten tonne vehicle with a p/w ratio of around 50hp/tonne.

          I do want one, I just can't see it happening anytime soon.

          1. Ignazio
            Pint

            Of course

            Now put this ten ton thingy on two feet and have it walk offroad. I'll be there with a chair and popcorn to watch it make its own version of quicksand...

            I'd say there is a name for a similar vehicle, however: they're slightly bigger and called tanks. What they share is the lack of subtlety, and lacking stealth if you are smaller than a tank and the enemy has any kind of artillery - does not sound like a great tactical advantage.

            1. Suricou Raven

              Re: Of course

              Avatar is a poor point to consider, as those suits weren't made for combat. The 'marines' weren't government, they were a private security force, equipped to fight off the very hostile animal life rather than wage war. Their suits were industrial in purpose, for servicing and loading mineing equipment. Their 'bomber' was an orbital transport shuttle with a couple of bundles of mineing explosive rigged to drop out the loading bay.

          2. annodomini2
            Boffin

            @AC 16:05

            You wouldn't need anything like that kind of power. 150-200KW would be more than adequate.

            Gas turbine is probably overkill and not the most practical solution, as has been stated for various reasons. Rotary engine may be more practical.

            The other benefit being a legged lifting device is that it can be lighter as the COG can be shifted as it's moving, compensating for the load. The lifting capacity would be limited by this capability.

            It would take more energy to walk rather than roll.

            You can implement regeneration with Hydraulics (most plausible actuation mechanism), reducing energy requirements.

            I think you'd be looking at 2-3 tonnes, but the range and longevity of operation would probably be reduced over a conventional forklift. As a result you'd have greatly increased fuel consumption.

          3. Psyx
            Pint

            "Not very fuel efficient"

            The military don't really give a crap, given that the Abrams uses 10 gallons of fuel just to start!

            Plus, Gas turbines can run on anything and are reliable.

  7. SirDigalot

    As much as I like our superheros

    I would love to be like stark or brucey (either of them to be honest) I think the future of warfare is more big honking robots, just because they are big and roboty and kick arse.

    Although I have the suspicion future superheroes are going to be more geeky and nerdy, we seem to be getting away from the "I have big rippling muscles" to I am an super genius with personality issues, and not allowed near razorblades or alcohol.

    Oh and apparently they are all socially inept too, I think watchmen is actually closer to reality...

    though I still want javis, that would be cool.

    1. Thorne

      Re: As much as I like our superheros

      The future of warfare isn't big honking robots. It's small cheap disposable robots.

      You have a mech warrior sized robot verses a swarm of cat sized robots. The small robots hide / bury themselves. When the big robot comes alone they attack and climb it. Get to a knee / hip joint and detonate. Crawl to weapon ports and blow them too.

      A squad of human soldiers come into their area and they hunt them like velociraptors on crack. Gut them and vanish again.

      Take the robots to the Nth degree and you have the nano swarm that eats the big robot and builds a second swarm out of it's corpse.

  8. dotdavid
    Thumb Up

    I think even exoskeletons that you needed to frequently recharge would still be useful. Thinking of elderly relatives that have trouble getting around, for example. Inductive charging while in bed or in a chair and it would be pretty lifechanging I think.

    1. SirDigalot

      I can see the law suits/reg headlines now

      Granny Cooked In Hot Bed shocker!

      Rise of the machines - again!

      I think there would be more lawsuits about cancer and stuff even though they have one foot in the grave and the other on a bar of soap...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Seem to recall the Japanese have some sort of powered "granny" lifter.

  9. P_0

    I am beginning to feel like exoskeletons will be redundent before they are available. Be it the Iron man suit, or the lifting exoskeletons from Aliens, or the ridiculous battle exoskeletons from Avatar, I don't see the point of putting a human inside them at all. (I'm not criticizing the films for what they are - enjoyable, just extrapolating them into the real world).

    For example, in Aliens they used exoskeletons for moving heavy loads around the cargo bay. Since they already have well-functioning AI (Aliens not Alien), why didn't they have a strong robot to do the lifting? Maybe costs? Maybe humans just want to do some hard work and don't want to rely too much on AI.

    Anyway, the bigger problem as I see it, is Iron Man. AFAIC he doesn't need to be inside the suit at all. Why not sit in a room with a good wireless connection to an empty suit (or just a robot) and control it from the safety of the room? Bringing this line of thinking into the real word, why put people inside super-strong suits for either combat or heavy-lifting, when we are approaching the technology to do both with robots? If you can make a suit carrying a gun that can be controlled by a man-inside's "brain waves", then why not take the man out of the suit in the first place, and remote control it with the same brain waves?

    1. Lee Colclough

      He does...

      ... In the book The Armor[sic] Trap, a remote controlled suit is tested and used in the opening chapter.

      So there!

    2. Roby

      I totally agree. Wars of the future will be fought by drones, either with their own AI or controlled remotely. There's no point in putting a human life in danger when a skilled operator can be safely in a bunker or nearby hidden armoured vehicle.

      1. Psyx
        Stop

        "There's no point in putting a human life in danger when a skilled operator can be safely in a bunker or nearby hidden armoured vehicle."

        One could argue that the point of putting a human life in danger is the prevention of trivialisation of warfare.

        When one side has literally nothing to lose, it has no reason not to wage warfare.

        1. P_0

          One could argue that the point of putting a human life in danger is the prevention of trivialisation of warfare.

          When one side has literally nothing to lose, it has no reason not to wage warfare.

          True. But it's already happening anyway. That's why militaries all over the world are spending billions on UAV/UCAVs. You could say that is trivializing war. Then again, a pilot flying thousands of feet above his target, with little chance of being shot down, while he drops bombs, could also be trivializing war. Or a medieval knight in inpenetrable armour riding around a battlefield stabbing poorly armed, untrained peasants willy-nilly is kind of trivializing war. I guess where I am going is the comical/tragic future of war could be humans sitting around in armchairs, letting drones and robots do the fighting for them. In which case, why have the war in meatspace at all? Put it in cyberspace, if that is possible. Of course one side would blame all their defeats on lag.

          I've often thought it would be ironic if, in the future when our troops are running around in mech suits, the enemy launched a surprise attack on the mech suit factory, causing the troops to have to fight to defend the factory without wearing their protective mech suits. Surely one of the soldiers would see the futile irony of being slaughtered to defend the factory that makes the suits to prevent them from being slaughtered.

          Or it could be that one mech suit is valued at much more than one human life, in which case giving one to a soldier would be pointless, or at least he should be the one to guard the suit. Anyway, just random thoughts.

          1. Psyx

            "True. But it's already happening anyway. That's why militaries all over the world are spending billions on UAV/UCAVs. You could say that is trivializing war."

            And that's partly why they are doing it. But not every military is going down that path: Only the 'civilised' ones who worry about a free press reporting bodycounts and want to operate without public backlash. It's not a positive trend. If every drone strike directly resulted in a dead US soldier, they wouldn't be happening.

            "Or a medieval knight in inpenetrable armour riding around a battlefield stabbing poorly armed, untrained peasants willy-nilly is kind of trivializing war."

            Not really, because someone still has to go and formally murder someone in person. There are still 'friendly' casualties (physical and psychological) and people still come back and say "Y'know what: That was fecking horrible, and we shouldn't do it."

            "I guess where I am going is the comical/tragic future of war could be humans sitting around in armchairs, letting drones and robots do the fighting for them."

            It won't. They will never fully supplant infantry. For two reasons. Firstly that any army entirely dependant on an electromagnetic link is going to find that Achilles heel exploited and the transmissions jammed at some point.

            The second is that only infantry can take and hold ground. End of story, really. Nothing else can fill that niche.

            " In which case, why have the war in meatspace at all?"

            Because that's where the prizes are. Warfare is fought for very physical reasons. It all comes down to patches of dirt.

        2. Ignazio
          Devil

          Will someone...

          ... think of the bills?

    3. Dave 126

      > why didn't they have a strong robot to do the lifting?

      "Humans are cheaper" is a possible answer in sympathy with the distopian tone of the film. Aliens might have a few plot holes (Why does Burke want Ripley to come along, when she is opposed to his aim of bringing back 'samples'?) but they are very easy to over look compared to those in Prometheus (that movie is little BUT plot holes. A shame, because the bits with David studying Peter O'Toole's Lawrence of Arabia ("a man serving two masters") are superb... the DVD release needs an 'anti-directors cut')

      Guilty pleasure: Starship Troopers 3, with battle-suits. It revives the tongue-in-cheek attitude of the first film, and the ropey special effects are a hoot. Exploding heads, nudity, far-right Christianity replacing fascism... a kiss set against the backdrop of a planet exploding... what's not to like?!

    4. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: P_0

      "..... with a good wireless connection...." And there's why - just imagine the problems of trying to fight a fast moving combat in Afghanistan, as Iron Man does in the first movie, with the lag of a link back to the States. Shooting slow moving cars with seeking missiles from a drone is one thing, having to respond quickly to new threats is quite different. That's even if you have a satellite in position you can use to get line of sight, otherwise your suit speeds off too far and you will lose control of it. And what if the enemy jams your link?

      1. P_0

        Re: P_0

        "..... with a good wireless connection...." And there's why - just imagine the problems of trying to fight a fast moving combat in Afghanistan, as Iron Man does in the first movie, with the lag of a link back to the States. Shooting slow moving cars with seeking missiles from a drone is one thing, having to respond quickly to new threats is quite different. That's even if you have a satellite in position you can use to get line of sight, otherwise your suit speeds off too far and you will lose control of it. And what if the enemy jams your link?

        It's a fair point, but if we are in the movie, where Stark pretty much bends the laws of physics anyway, a stable, fast, secure connection is believable. Or as believable as everything else.

        In reality, yeah a fast, stable, secure connection is much more difficult to make. I would say the drone would have to be given a certain amount of AI to avoid danger, repel attacks.

        Oh, and if the enemy jams your link, you lose a suit, not a life.

        1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: Re: P_0

          "......Oh, and if the enemy jams your link, you lose a suit, not a life." Yes, but if the suit/drone/fighter-jet has a human pilot then neither the suit or pilot are lost, the pilot simply completes the mission and flies the craft home.

  10. Tomislav

    Sending e-mails?

    "Perhaps one day we’ll all be thinking emails directly to one another - hopefully with hilarious results."

    Lets just hope the autocorrect technology keeps up with this one. :D

    1. Johan Bastiaansen
      Angel

      Re: Sending e-mails?

      Autocorrection can bite you in the arse. Don't get me started.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    batteries won't be an issue

    I belive a Garfield solution to how to operate a full-size food-stuffed fridge when on the outing with Jon was simple - take the cord, 300 miles of.

    1. Dave 126

      Re: batteries won't be an issue

      >I belive a Garfield solution to how to operate a full-size food-stuffed fridge when on the outing with Jon was simple - take the cord, 300 miles of.

      Added advantage: enemies need physical access to the cable if they want to jam/overide communications with the device.

    2. Psyx
      Thumb Up

      Re: batteries won't be an issue

      I thought it was a Microwave?

      Garfield Goes Camping or similar, right?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    interesting

    Would have liked to have seen an update on deep sea suits.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Olaf Zipser

    Is building a suit or capsule or something with which he hopes to emulate Felix Baumgartner. It will use rockets to boost him up into space whereupon he will then return in his suit that will have built in heat shielding. His proposals can be listened to here, provide you can pickup on podcasts.

    http://llnw.libsyn.com/p/7/c/6/7c6fea0583b10a49/sr174_06_27_12.mp3?s=1357587320&e=1357596063&c_id=4655567&h=e8dca8aa394bb1699e91d90bc0456f36

  14. rav

    Captain America is a juicer...

    Captain America didn't go to the gym. He just got shot up with more steriods than Lance Armstrong.

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