DARPA funds laser-guided bullets

In case you didn't know, part of DARPA's job is just to think up some totally outrageous stuff and then begin to throw money at it. Well, its brain-trust must be working overtime this month, because as a follow up to the invisible, shoot-through shield, we're getting laser-guided bullets. On the very same "budget item justification sheet" in which the aforementioned sci-fi shield is proposed, DARPA honchos "justify" the laser guided bullet project, which will fund research into a low cost, high performance solution for designing "new guidance technologies" that will enable steering of bullets in flight. The hope with this technology is that compact targeting systems (to be embedded in said projectiles) will enable "overmatching fire power" and increased "first shot effectiveness", in addition to potentially cutting down on friendly fire and collateral damage -- and retroactively making JFK's "one-gunman" assassination plausible.

[Via Wired]

[booyaka @ Jul 2nd 2007 4:35PM]

Now I can shoot ever iPhone visiable.

[Blake @ Jul 2nd 2007 4:36PM]

Just like the replay button on the ZF-1!

[shaun @ Jul 2nd 2007 4:39PM]

I do sometimes think that DARPA just has a playstation and gets their ideas from psuedo-science weapons in games

....the shoot through shield and the guidable bullets are both in Resistance Fall of Man, I'll bet there's loads of other projects that just happen to also be in games

[arthur barnhouse @ Jul 2nd 2007 4:48PM]

Well, you need to bear in mind that this is the same group that funded Gay Bomb and the isomer bomb. Compared to that crap, guided bullets are surprisingly reasonable.

[Big @ Jul 2nd 2007 5:38PM]

I am waiting for a space based ION CANNON so we can rain fire down on the heads of our enemies.

When people stand around the smoking crater, everyone will assume it was just an act of God.

[shaun @ Jul 2nd 2007 5:52PM]

are you being serious about a gay bomb and isomer bomb? what the hell do they do? I thought an isomer was a molecule with a different structure but same composition, how could that make a bomb?

[Andune @ Jul 2nd 2007 6:09PM]

@Big

Except for the cost an ion cannon would be a "wonderful" weapon. Nowhere to hide, no way to escape. Now all we need is an evil mastermind that gives the world a great reason to develop such a weapon...

[philadelphonic @ Jul 3rd 2007 2:41PM]

It's not so much that DARPA takes these ideas and turns them into actual working things, but they take what they have learned from these products and apply them to what we already have or are working on. Science fiction has always thought ahead of what is possible - in that way, it's purpose is the same as DARPA's. Again, very few of their things actually come to fruition, but many of the defense (and civil) technologies that we currently use owe their very existence to the craziness of DARPA.

[robot rock @ Jul 2nd 2007 4:42PM]

Gene Simmons was doing this years ago!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNEGa5i6r7s

[Mark @ Jul 2nd 2007 5:00PM]

My personal viewpoints on your statement aside, that post has nothing to do with this article.

[matt @ Jul 2nd 2007 5:21PM]

This is totally relevant... Considering the fact that DARPA is a Government agency, and many people are still in the dark when it comes to the real priorities of "the people who control" our government. Makes for a scary and less free future...

[TVGenius @ Jul 2nd 2007 5:22PM]

Hey, if they can put a GPS guidance system in an artillery shell and have it change target/correct trajectory in flight, why not?

[mrbutabara @ Jul 2nd 2007 5:23PM]

so are these bullets supposed to have some sort of propulsion engine on them to steer them in mid-projection? unless i'm mistaken, i clearly remember bullets are only able to travel in one direction unless an object strong enough is able to ricochet the bullet into another direction and the bullet hits the object at a certain angle. an energy based weapon is more plausible than a physical bullet.

[Big @ Jul 2nd 2007 5:35PM]

I think this is ridiculous for funding sakes. HOWEVER, if they were going to build guns (or rifles) with laser range finders which could somehow decrease or increase the muzzle velocity according to the distance of the target, I'd be all for funding that project.

Remember the OICW and how it has airburst grenades which detonate via rangefinding lasers and computer wound fuses? Well science can come up with some pretty interesting stuff.

Off course, I don't think many politicians would be safe from a weapon like this. If a bullet can change course in mid flight, it can basicaly make its way around barriers.


Don't count them out yet.
If I had a cartridge the size of a shotgun shell, fired from a large caliber rifle, you could concievably equipt that slug with a computer chip and some sort of accelerant (gunpowder) togive it a REACTION CONTROL SYSTEM.

YES IT IS POSSIBLE.

[logyk @ Jul 2nd 2007 5:37PM]

First Halo3 now the Fifth Element.. Darpa, what will you steal from next?

[logyk @ Jul 2nd 2007 5:37PM]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pxjnl1yuXk

[Don @ Jul 3rd 2007 4:46PM]

Actually, the first movie I saw that had guided bullets was "Runaway", a 1980's sci-fi flick with Tom Selleck starring alongside some robotic poison-injecting spiders.

[logyk @ Jul 3rd 2007 6:43PM]

@Don, oh yeah i remember that movie.. vaguely.

movies and wasted spending aside i think what they need to be doing is focusing on making the soldiers more efficient killers.. if your common private had the training of an army ranger he/she wouldn't need laser guided bullets, he/she would be a laser guided bullet.

[sendeth @ Jul 2nd 2007 5:49PM]

the oicw was a wicked weapon when paired with the airburst rounds. there was no hiding.

as for the guided bullets, did anyone ever see that old movie with tom selleck??? runaway i think it was called.

[Big @ Jul 2nd 2007 6:02PM]

take a look at the OICW. It delivered on its promises BUT, at a COST that made fielding units inefficient. Especially, considering regular grenade launchers are easier to build, maintain and afford.

America has got to stop simply throwing money at problems and do what Europe does, PERFECT the present technology.

[Gumby @ Jul 2nd 2007 6:04PM]

Actually, this is not just a pie in the sky. They probably will develop these things. We were working on some early prototypes and wind tunnel models in the lab I worked at 10 years ago. As electronics continue to get smaller, the idea becomes more feasible. The problem is how to fit a guidence system into something as small as a bullet. They already do it for bombs.

http://www.auburn.edu/administration/univrel/news/archive/5_97news/5_97smartbullets.html

[Allen K. @ Jul 2nd 2007 6:18PM]

Cool, does this mean I can convert my Sig 226 (pictured I believe) to a laser weapon?

[paul34 @ Jul 2nd 2007 6:31PM]

Ahh, now I get it. Guidance will become so advanced in the future to the point where someone fires a bullet, which then gets guided into the past and into JFK's body!

It all makes sense now. Now we *know* that it was a lone gunman!

[Chuckles McGee @ Jul 2nd 2007 7:32PM]

Boring powerpoint presentations (and presenters) beware!

[Snoobic @ Jul 2nd 2007 8:13PM]

Actually, I'm pretty sure Runaway(1984) was the first movie with guided bullets. Tom Selleck and Gene Simmons can't be beat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_%281984_film%29
http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/movie/decade/1980-1989/runaway/

[Snoobic @ Jul 2nd 2007 8:15PM]

Oh snap - I didn't see this. Haha, I just posted about this below too.

[robot rock @ Jul 2nd 2007 11:59PM]

I already mentioned Runaway!

[Don @ Jul 3rd 2007 4:47PM]

Me too... :(

[Mark @ Jul 2nd 2007 8:38PM]

Quoting 'justify' as if something as common as a budget justification is ironic seems a bit immature. Furthermore, the magic bullet theory was thoroughly debunked by a mainstream US news network when they discovered all previous analysis assumed that the two victims where sitting in perfectly aligned seats at the same height. In actuality the governor was sitting on a jumper seat which was lower and off-center from kennedy's (see numerous pictures); evidence,which when incorporated into the bullets flight,complete a straight, expected, and totally repeatable shot.

sry--got carried away--snarky comments are cool when their based on truth.

[jpwb @ Jul 3rd 2007 1:37AM]

Pretty sure Judge Dredd (the 200AD comic - not the Sly travesty) was using homing bullets (and heat seeking) a while before Runaway.

[cloud811 @ Jul 5th 2007 11:35PM]

possible to the point of curving the bullet left or right, like flying remote airplane, but less controll. It wont be able to turn corners. And assuming u can controll sharp corners nobody would be able to have fast enough reaction time to controll it, and if it did it'd be going to slow. If this thing works out to be what you think. It's not a bullet, its a miniture airplane that pierces