Sarcos' military exoskeleton becomes a frightening reality
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted November 25th 2007 4:02AM
posted November 25th 2007 4:02AM
posted November 25th 2007 4:02AM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
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Engadget, what are you doing up past your bedtime?
But I'm glad they did... That was a great video!
oh HELLS ya
Where do I sign up to get my Mark I MJOLNIR armor?
lol i know right!
did anyone notice at about 2:25 (in the clip) that one of the soldiers looked like a marine from halo?
It's gonna be a while until we'll see those uber super suits from Crysis.
Thats what i was just thinking - those things are hardly bulky at all and just look bad ass - this thing looks really massive...
i gotta get one of those.
i do like that master chief cover they had on display. walk around like a total bamf.
That was exactly what I was thinking...
Better yet, when are they going to come out with anything like they had in Aliens?
They already have those things...they're called steady-cam mounts. Been around since the Rocky 1.
I think Nate was referring to the power loader Ripley used against the Queen alien, not the smart gun (steady-cam thing). Am I right, Nate?
@ nate i went to seattle to be with family over thanksgiving break, so whale i was up there i went to the sci fi museum near seattle center. and they had the exo-skeleton there. needless to say, it was awesome! oh and they had the queen alien right next to it, but the security guard stopped me before i could get a picture with my phone.
When are they gonna come out with that robot-loader that Ripley uses?
Yep, Halo .01
Pfft. Halo my butt.
Starship Troopers 0.1
If you're going to make a reference, go back to one of the canonical references of the genre, not some trite video game.
you're kidding right? Starship troopers invented the genre? haha.
OUCH.
That was like a drive by shooting. An Ice Burn even.
If I was KJMoon I'd change my name to something else or go to some other tech website.
Wow. I'm still stunned.
Yes, a book is much more canonical with reality than a videogame.
The earliest fictional powered armor is NOT Starship Troopers, good as that novel is. E.E. Smith came up with it in 1937, in the Lensman books. Go bother someone else John, you parade-rainer.
Sorry to rain on your attempt to be a smart ass Blake Bowen, but the first true sci-fi reference to powered armor comes from the grandfather of sci-fi, H.G. Wells in "War of the Worlds". The Martians all wear powered armor. In fact the Martians had be using powered armor for so long they could barely do anything without it.
Get your facts straight before you attack someone else
I never said Starship Troopers invented the genre,I said it was one of, if not the, canonical references of the genre. There's a world of difference between them.
Halo, however, is just riding on the coat tails of TONS of other works in the genre.
- One part of Wikipedia says "The first citable examples of powered suits were the Fat Man underwater suits (with mechanical pantograph arms and a propulsion system), which debuted in Tom Swift and His Jetmarine (1954)".
- And another part of Wikipedia says: "Powered armour as popularised in Starship Troopers can also be traced back to The War of the Worlds; indeed, Heinlein's novel can be seen as a response to Wells'".
- So, either Wikipedia is inconsistent (shock, horror!) or powered armour isn't a powered suit.
- I just out-geeked myself and need to now visit the real world, get a girlfriend/life, etc...
lol John:
John is master chief's real name...
Doesn't Starcraft predate Starship Troopers? Cause I'm getting a mega-firebat vibe from this suit.
Tim: I don't think Starcraft was around in 1959, no. :-)
now if only Engadget would give away one of *these*..
now it just needs giant claws and a bright yellow coat of paint
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6819944270491169097&hl=en
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.
It's more like Alien than Terminator at the moment, then it'll be more Halo, before it'll become Terminator.
Mind you, it sounds like it's built (at the mo) for the exact same reasons as the Alien missile loader.
I agree, this seems pointless for soldiers on the battlefield at the moment -- see the pic of the guy holding the gun? How awkward would it be to use the arms with that gun there? And what would you need the arms for?
Cargo loading and hauling, however, would be a great application for this...
well think about it, if it reduces fatigue then if soldiers wore it on the battle field they could run harder and faster for longer, maybe even have faster reaction time (if the machine helped you move quicker than one normally could) obviously its just a prototype so it will most likely be changed a lot. but it would prove useful even if it saved one person. right?
sure, it's only a first step, but the artificial intelligence the military is developing in a separate project will be able to complete the necessary R&D for a terminator much quicker than puny human scientists. i think they'll thank us for having invented most of the basic technologies for them, and then walk on our skulls.
Hey, pete. It's just a mockup, as they said, the arms float, and could probably be covered in bulletproof armor on top of that to allow additional cover.
On top of that, you could have the gun set so that it clips directly into the robot arm, and this would buffer you from the recoil as well as allowing you to carry even heavier guns with a more damaging payload. You could practically have one of these things armed with antitank or anti aircraft missiles.
Yeah - all they have to figure out is a portable power supply to get rid of that HUGE umbilical cord currently attached to it and this could actually be of some military use. Fat chance. So really, this thing could be useful anywhere they've never heard of a fork-lift truck...
well like they said in the video, you could find plenty of work for a machine like this on an aircraft carrier.
well, as you might have heard in the end, the cord isnt for power. its a safetycord.
I think that the the tether was not just for safety. Seems it may be for power and possibly a link back to a computer.
They didn't mention when these are first gonna come out. My guess is that it'll be at least 1 or 2 years. There's gonna be alot of 'bugs' in the beginning. For them to become durable, stable, mainstream, it will take at least 5 to 10 years. What's the best time to start buying Sarcos shares? How far is SKorea with their developments? These are interesting times! There's alot of money to be made :)
Too late, Sarcos got bought up by Raytheon this year.
you've got it all wrong Joshua, these are what we'll be using against the inevitable robot invasion.
Just strap a couple miniguns to it with back mounted ammo? HOLD THE DOCK!!
Cool indeed, if thought of in any positive, say non combat use. But indeed, as Engadget says....has anyone of you thought of the implications of these things being in use and your house gets raided by them (in autonomous mode) in say, twenty years?
Time for those robot laws to be set in!
I'm from Texas. If an autonomous robot busts into my (no doubt flying, since this is the future) house, then I'm gonna blow it's CPU off with my heavily armed home-defense E-Frame. :D
Just fricken awesome!
scary
Humans + 20 years = Terrans.
Think we'll make up with the Russians by then so they can drive our battlecruisers?
Russians piloting Battlecruisers? Only if we can get the rednecks to drive the siege tanks.
Oh yeah and we better get started on researching the Yamato Gun at the Physics Lab now.
Yamato Gun? omg, I had no idea there was anybody else who would remember that reference :)
You mean the wave-motion gun?
haha whatever, push that guy on his back and watch him try to get up
you guys have to much imagination, this is far off from being little more than a portable forklift, give it a couple years they might have something to show by then + saying it can run is stupid, I jog faster than that
Chur to the Churr
-Stevie