Sci-Fi Superheroes

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http://www.alternet.org/story/20201/

 

Sci-Fi Superheroes

By Nicholas Turse, Tomdispatch.com

 

Posted on October 16, 2004, Printed on October 18, 2004

http://www.alternet.org/story/20201/

 

Even if you never read the comic book or watched the hopelessly

low-production-value 1960s cartoon, chances are you've at least seen

the image of Captain America – the slightly ridiculous looking

superhero in a form-fitting, star-spangled bodysuit. If you're still

hazy on " Cap, " he was Steve Rogers, a 4-F weakling during World War II

who, through the miracle of " modern science " (a " super soldier serum " )

became an Axis-smashing powerhouse – the pinnacle of human physical

perfection and the ultimate American fighting-man.

 

In the 1940s comic, Rogers had taken part in a super-soldier

experiment, thanks to the interventions of an Army general and a

scientist in a secret government laboratory. He was to be the first of

many American super-soldiers, but due to poor note-keeping methods and

the efforts of a Nazi assassin, he became the sole recipient of the

serum. Today, however, the dream of Captain America turns out to be

alive and well – and lodged in the Pentagon. The U.S. military aims to

succeed where those in the four-color comic book world failed. By

using high technology and cutting edge biomedicine, the military hopes

to create an entire army of Captain Americas – a fighting force devoid

of " Steve Rogers " or any other " Joe Average, " and made up instead of

super-soldiers whose human-ness has been all but banished.

 

24-Hour Soldiers

 

The military has long been interested in creating an always-on,

24-hour fighting man. During the Vietnam War, the Army undertook

extensive studies on the effects of sleep deprivation. At the time,

however, all the military could offer was copious amounts of

amphetamines to keep men wired for combat.

 

As in the Vietnam era, the military is again stretched thin and, with

National Guard recruiting having fallen 12 percent below goal in the

first three quarters of 2004, in need of troops. What better way to

forestall future manpower crises than by creating

two-for-the-price-of-one soldiers who never need to sleep?

 

To this end, the Department of Defense's blue-skies research outfit,

the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), currently has a

" Preventing Sleep Deprivation Program. " Its aim is to work on ways to

enable a pilot " to fly continuously for 30 hours, " Green Berets to

carry out 48-72 hours of sustained activity, or " advancing ground

troops [to] engage in weeks of combat operations with only 3 hours of

sleep per night " – all without suffering from cognitive or psychomotor

impairments.

 

Scientists in the military-industrial-academic complex are hard at

work for DARPA on this line of research. At Wake Forest University,

for instance, researchers are studying a class of medicines known as

" Ampakines " which are thought to be protective against the cognitive

deficits ordinarily associated with sleep deprivation. At Columbia

University, new imaging technologies are being employed as part of a

program to study the " neuro-protective and neuro-regenerative effects "

of an anti-oxidant found in cocoa. (In low-tech World War II, they

just gave the grunts chocolate bars.) Who's conducting this line of

research for DARPA? Why, researchers at the Salk Institute and also at

that all-chocolate-all-the-time company Mars Inc. – yes, the folks who

bring you M & M's and Snickers!

 

At the same time, the Air Force Research Laboratory's Warfighter

Fatigue Countermeasure program is looking into a drug known as

Modafinil which can reportedly keep people awake for up to 88 hours

without sleep; while researchers at the Naval Health Research Center

(NHRC), the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR), the

Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and the U.S. Army Aeromedical

Research Laboratory, among others, are working on sleep-

(or-lack-thereof)-related projects.

 

Major Morality, You're Demoted

 

Sleepless soldiers are all well and good while the fighting goes on;

but how does one prevent sleepless, anxiety-filled nights after those

missions end? Once upon a time, it seems, most soldiers had a great

revulsion against close-quarters killing. During World War II, it has

been estimated that as few as 15-20% of American infantry troops

actually fired their weapons at the enemy. By the Vietnam years, the

military had managed to bring that number up into the 90-95% range!

Obviously, the armed forces had found ways to turn American men into

more efficient killers. But how to deal with the pesky problems of

regret, remorse, and post-traumatic stress disorder?

 

Well, last year, writing in the Village Voice, Erik Baard raised the

specter of the creation of a " guilt-free soldier, " noting that

researchers from various universities across the U.S. (including

Harvard, Columbia, NYU, and UC-Irvine) were working on various methods

of fear-inhibition and also memory-numbing by using " propranolol

pills... as a means to nip the effects of trauma in the bud. " He

further reported that at Columbia, the lab of Nobel laureate in

medicine Eric Kandel had " discovered the gene behind a fear-inhibiting

protein, uncovering a vision of 'fight or flight' at the molecular

level. " When asked by Baard if he was funded by DARPA, Kandel

answered, " No, but you're welcome to call them and tell them about me. "

 

Will DARPA take Kandel up on his tacit offer? It seems only natural

that a soldier unburdened by morals, ethics, or remorse would be the

military's dream. But for now, DARPA seems fixated on another

long-term project – creating cyborg soldiers – which might make an

anti-morality morning-after (combat) pill superfluous.

 

Remote-Controlled Soldiers?

 

As noted recently in the pages of the New Yorker, searching for perks

to retain troops, the military is offering free cosmetic surgery

(funded by taxpayer dollars) to " [a]nyone wearing a uniform. " So right

now " bigger breasts " are the type of implants the U.S. military is

specializing in. (Military doctors performed 496 breast enlargements

between 2000 and 2003.) However, if DARPA scientists have their way,

the implants du jour of the future may be the product of the " Brain

Machine Interface Program " which seeks " new high-density interconnects

for brain machine interfaces that will allow [researchers] to monitor

the brain patterns associated with a wide variety of behaviors and

activities relevant to DoD [the Department of Defense]. "

 

Monkeys, with electrodes implanted in their brains, have already been

taught to use thought-power to do such things as move a robotic arm.

But why stop there? A few years back, DARPA scientists succeeded in

creating a " ratbot " – a living, breathing rat with electrodes

implanted in its brain that could be controlled using a laptop

computer. Today, DARPA researchers, not exactly heading up the

evolutionary scale but evidently proceeding toward larger sized

natural fighting machines, are working on a remote-controlled shark.

And how long will it be until some researcher gets the bright idea of

a remote-controlled soldier; short-circuiting free will altogether?

The technology isn't there yet, but what happens when it is?

 

DARPA already has all sorts of programs designed to use high-tech

means to prevent humans from " becoming the weakest link in the U.S.

military. " Take the " Neovision Program " whose goal is " using synthetic

materials for a retinal prosthesis to enable signal transduction at

the nerve/retina interface " ; that is, creating devices to

technologically-enhance or even re-conceptualize human vision as we

know it. Or how about the Biologically Inspired Multifunctional

Dynamic Robotics (BIODYNOTICS) Program, which aims to develop " robotic

capabilities, " inspired by biology -such as the movements of arms and

legs – " for national security applications. "

 

Foodless Fighters? Water-free Warriors?

 

But what good is an always-on, morals-free cyborg soldier if s/he's

caught in the classic quagmire of having recurring desires to eat and

drink which simply must be met? How pathetically human! Not to worry.

Today's soldiers might complain about choking down MREs (Meals Ready

to Eat) but, if all goes well, tomorrow's might not have such worries.

 

Typical adults require about 1500-2000 calories per day, but Special

Forces' troops may require as many as 6,000-8,000 calories per day

while in the field. Taking time to eat, however, cuts into time that

could be spent identifying targets or killing people, so DARPA's " Peak

Soldier Performance Program " is investigating ways of " optimizing

metabolic performance " to achieve " metabolic dominance " and so to

allow future soldiers to operate at " continuous peak physical

performance and cognitive function for 3 to 5 days, 24 hours per day,

without the need for calories. "

 

At the same time, the DARPA crew has instituted a " Water Harvesting

Program " which seeks to " eliminate at least 50 percent of the minimum

daily water supply requirement (7qts/day) of the Special Forces,

Marine Expeditionary Units, and Army Medium-Weight Brigades " through

initiatives such as deriving " water from air. "

 

And when it comes to their meals, perhaps someday soldiers will be

able forgo water altogether for long periods of time thanks to the

efforts of the Combat Feeding Directorate of the US Army Soldier

Systems Center in Natick, Massachusetts. Yes, the lab that created the

" indestructible sandwich " (which boasts a three year shelf life) has

now come up with a dried-food ration that troops can hydrate by

urinating on it. And you thought military food was piss-poor to begin

with!

 

Super-Suits: Can I Get This in Star-Spangled Spandex?

 

What can you say about Captain America's outfit? While certainly

distinctive, his red, white, and blue threads were always a bit light

on function. So what can we expect for the real Captain Americas of

the future? They won't be clad in jingoistic jumpsuits. The Army's

Natick Soldier Systems Center is currently supervising a seven-year,

$250 million " Future Force Warrior " program, set to be rolled out in

2010, which will outfit soldiers with new, lighter body armor, an

on-board computer, " e-textile " clothing (with wiring for computer

systems woven into it), and a helmet with built-in night-vision, a

computer screen monocle, and bone-conduction microphones. Add a decade

onto the Future Force Warrior and the military aims to be rolling out

" The Vision 2020 Future Warrior system, " an all-black, sci-fi,

storm-trooper outfit that looks like it came from a B-movie prop

trailer. But both may seem so last year before they ever have a chance

to encase a military body!

 

Earlier this year, Dr. Steven G. Wax, the director of DARPA's Defense

Sciences Office (DSO), addressed members of the academic, corporate,

and military communities and told them that the mech-suit worn by

Sigourney Weaver in the movie Alien was fast becoming a reality. While

various clunky exoskeletons have been produced since the 1960s, Wax

indicated that " breakthroughs in structures, actuators and power

generation – with a bit of help from advanced microelectronics " left

DARPA capable of creating a workable " external structure that can move

unobtrusively with a soldier and still carry more than 100 pounds with

no effort by the wearer. " And through its " Exoskeletons for Human

Performance Augmentation " program, DARPA claims to be en route to

creating even more advanced " self-powered, controlled, and wearable

exoskeleton devices and/or machines " specifically designed, of course,

to " increase the lethality " of U.S. soldiers.

 

Food for Thought

 

In a world where many still lack access to adequate clothing, despite

it being decreed a basic human right in 1948, DARPA is pouring massive

sums into building costly robotic suits. In a world where 800 million

people suffer from malnutrition and 1 billion lack access to potable

water, food and water are only made " sexy " when DARPA researchers

figure out how a few (well armed) people in the global North can do

without them on military missions (generally in the global South).

There's no DARPA-esque organization involved in actually solving the

most pressing problems in the world. And yes, while some in the

developing world could benefit from possible DARPA spin-off,

trickle-down innovations like futuristic prosthetic limbs, many, many

more could benefit from low-cost, low-tech public health initiatives.

Of course, many would have no need for high-tech prosthetics if, for

so many years, the U.S. military hadn't pumped so much money into

weapons, especially landmine research and production. (In Vietnam, for

instance, as many as 3 million landmines and " 800,000 tons of war-era

ordnance " may still lie in the ground.)

 

DARPA's chunk of the vast Pentagon budget is a cool $3 billion, a

sizeable hunk of which is now being devoted to creating real-life

Captain Americas or, more accurately Captain DARPAmericas. Like so

many DARPA projects, the agency's efforts to craft the super-soldiers

of tomorrow typify the ultimate in sci-fi thinking. What was once the

stuff of comic books and futuristic movie serials is now assumed to be

America's military future.

 

In reality, however, most DARPA projects fail to meet their ultimate

goals. During the Vietnam War, massive amounts of money, firepower,

and high-tech weaponry proved unable to stamp out an enemy that

regularly used punji sticks (sharpened bamboo) as a weapon. Today in

Iraq, billions upon billions of dollars in military and intelligence

spending for satellites, state-of-the-art surveillance devices,

stealth bombers, fighter jets, tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles,

Humvees, heavy weapons, night-vision devices, high tech drones,

experimental weaponry and all the trappings of Technowar, though

capable of killing large numbers of people, are again unable to stop

resistance fighters who lack heavy armor, airpower, spy satellites,

body armor, or high-tech gear and fight with AK-47s – a rifle designed

in the 1940s – pickup trucks, and bombs detonated by garage-door

openers. Captain DARPAmerica – an always on, never hungry or thirsty,

morality-free, remote-controlled soldier – is a frightening prospect;

but odds are, even if such DARPA projects pan out, the high-tech

super-soldier of our future will fail too, due to underlying

conceptual flaws and the ceaseless hubris of U.S. military planners

that typified the American experience in Vietnam and continues to do

so in today's war in Iraq.

 

Further, DARPA imagines the future through the lens of the present.

Its projects are largely typified, at their core, by the very opposite

of blue-sky thinking, being mired in the mindset and premises of today

(or even yesterday). Where Pentagon seers envision an Army of

unstoppable comic-book heroes, they may well find over-wrought,

strung-out soldiers, suffering from the still unknown side-effects

that are sure to come from interfering with basic human functions like

sleeping and eating. They will be clad in temperamental gear that will

prove vulnerable to yet undeveloped, but sure to be cheap, crude, and

effective jamming devices and counter-measures. Odds are, the Pentagon

would be better off investing in Captain America outfits. Not only

would it be infinitely cheaper, but who's gonna mess with a platoon

clad in star-spangled spandex?

© 2004 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/20201