Few civilians know just how much a low-profile Department of Defense research agency has influenced their lives for the better, and fewer still realize how much more influential it could become.
My forthcoming book on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, will be the first to show how this collection of mavericks and dreamers maintains its autonomy within the larger military establishment, and how it directly affects our lives.
Created by the administration of President Eisenhower in 1958 in response to the Soviet Union's launch of the first satellite, DARPA's continuing mission is to get the drop on America's enemies with the latest in sensors, computing power, exotic weapons, robots, access to outer space, and more.
A funny thing happened along the way, though. DARPA ended up funding some of the most amazingly useful technologies of all time--including the computer network on which this page resides.
Today the agency funds work on bionic arms that move, sense, and wear like native limbs, cars that can drive themselves through traffic, air-breathing engines capable of flight six times the speed of sound, ultra-efficient solar panels, jet fuel made from vegetable oil, and other technologies that, if successful, could improve the lives of millions of people and the health of the planet.
Look for my new book from Smithsonian Books in 2009. Meantime, keep up with my research in the laboratories and workshops of DARPA researchers around the country on my blog and in my newsletter.
