Posted on 11/24/2012 5:16:24 PM PST by Olog-hai
The Pentagon is hoping to one day be able to patrol the seas with unmanned submarine drones, according to website RT.com.
The website reports that the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded a contract valued at more than $58 million to Science Applications International Corporation of McLean, Va. to perfect similar technology for the sea that has proved so successful in the air. …
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Now THAT could get VERY interesting. With ‘nuke’ power, they could stay at sea for a century(or more?).
Don’t think I would like the idea of a drone ‘Boomer’. That’s one sub that I’d damn sure want HUMANS on.
I forgot.... Doesn’t even nuclear powered craft need to be refueled every 20 or so years?
What an incredibly incompetent article (well, Newsmax is citing an incompetent article.)
SAIC’s ACTUV is an unmmaned autonomous SURFACE vessel, designed to trail submarines.
http://investors.saic.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=193857&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1757399
Also, it’s not going to be nuclear-powered. There’s zero chance the US will ever put an unmanned nuclear-powered vessel in the water (not even one powered by radioisotopes, rather than a reactor.)
Current designs, yes. A century design is certainly possible.
Nuclear warheads need periodic maintenance as well.
Targeting will need updates (Who were we at war with 100 years ago? Spain was it?).
Zero chance?
How many things have happened in the last few years that you would have said had zero chance of happening in America just ten years ago?
Maybe slightly longer than that, but it depends on how hard you run 'em. Besides they aren't really refueled anymore since that would involve cutting into the pressure hull. They just de-fuel and scrap them when the reactor cores wind down.
I worked on one of the industry teams that lost the competition for ACTUV Phase II, and I currently work with a lot of former nucs and submarine captains.
Given that the USN is currently constrained from practicing with active sonar because it might hurt the whales, there is no possibility we’re going to have an unmanned nuclear reactor or radioisotope source just sailing around. I can’t conceive of circumstances that would change that.
Had better hope we don't run into a situation where we could have brought a bunch of ships out of retirement, because we need every one that we can get our hands on. That's no worry though, since it isn't 1912.....
That makes them NewsMini.
About time.....
Not easy to communicate with things under salt water.
Depth is limited, speed and bandwidth limited.
Need to come up for orders (like, oooops, Iran bringing it home).
tomorrow’s wars will not be fought by you cadets, but instead, off in distant places, by robots. and it will be your job to control and maintain those robots. /simpsons
With a gift ribbon and all.
by FedEx?
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