GPS parachutes delivering blood to front lines in the coming years
By Darren Murph 
posted July 13th 2010 4:08PM
posted July 13th 2010 4:08PM
GPS-guided parachutes are nothing new -- in fact, we're guessing that a few are being dropped somewhere in this wide world right now -- but a new deal between the Armed Services Blood Program and US Joint Forces Command will allow these devices to start saving even more lives in 2011. As the story goes, a cadre of air-dropped 'chutes will be sent to the front lines of the battlefield in order to deliver vital blood to medics. For those unaware, blood loss is a major cause of death in war, and by skipping over the lengthy process that's currently in place for delivery, the powers that be feel that more soldiers can be saved. Reportedly, the JPADS system "is a family of guided parachutes that can carry payloads ranging from about 150 to 60,000 pounds," and at a predetermined altitude, a "parafoil deploys and a GPS-device steers supplies to an exact target." The new system, however, will rely on ultralight versions of the aforesaid JPADS in order to sneak into locations that were previously thought impossible to penetrate. 'Course, all of this will be a moot point once the robot armies rise to power and start pulverizing each other with scrap metal, but hey...
I don't care. I want the one with the bigger geebees.
@FrankDTank
yeah
So I guess we can count on the war continuing.... great, how pointless.
If it bleeds, we can kill it.
@Putzy
nope, you blew it.
@Putzy Let's just hope that Apple wasn't responsible for the GPS antenna design.
Very strange. When reading the article text above I could swear the parachute medibox pic keeps moving slightly. Must be the drugs kicking in.
I want to see scrapheap challenge done in a military scrapyard. If it shoots, weld it on.
This could be pretty usefull but what applications does it have outside of wartimes?
@shadowmance22
I think it could maybe be useful for some natural disasters and such.
@shadowmance22 "outside of wartimes" never happens
@shadowmance22 If you shoot it you get one hell of a bloody firework
Heh. My high school nurse used to say "All bleeding eventually stops".
@Plazmic Flame As long as there are human beings on this planet there will be war. Sucks, but that's how we roll.
Airdropping MRE's for the cast of Twilight-- just follow the sparkles!
Also more prey for the predator hunt. :)
for the press:
-a new gps parachute that deliver blood.
but in reality they want:
-a gps bomb to deliver napalm.
@magallanes
They could do that already. They can control parachutes now too, so they can deliver carefully poisoned rations to the enemy without crushing the loaves of bread in the process.
"blood loss is a major cause of death in war"
Actually, I think being shot with guns is probably the cause of death most of the time.
@weatherman Everyone dies of cardiac arrest.
I built an I7 desktop last week. Best got damn processor EVAR!!!
I give it to intel. I remmeber back when AMD was running laps around intels pentium architecture. I was all about AMD & ATI. Then my priorities shifted to intel & nvidia. You really cant go wrong with a setup like that
@FrankDTank
Sorry, wrong thread
Dropped by a unmanned plane that can stay up in the air for four days and protected by Robots.
the biggest cause of death in war is war
They better have some sort of Friend or Foe system or I see ordinance delivered by the same method.
Strike that, I can see ordinance delivered the same way regardless.
Sooooo, basically it's going to rain blood from the skys?
They should make these things so they burst open when the hit the ground, load them with pig's blood and GPS them into Al-Qaeda strongholds.
GPS parachutes sound awesome! reminds me of the opening scene of Predators....
"blood loss is a major cause of death in war"
invading foreign countries is a major cause of blood loss.
how about solving the problem and not just treat the symptoms ...
Does anyone else find dropping blood from the sky creepy as hell?
@Caullen Yes I find it a morbidly essential task.
It's the Weighted Companion Cube!
Great, first we had to worry about terrorists, then we had to worry about robots with a mind of their own, and NOW we're going to war against vampires. When will it end? Zombie apocalypse?