From: Michael M. Butler (butler@comp-lib.org)
Date: Mon Dec 31 2001 - 19:45:19 MST
Let's see it fly in icing conditions and land in gusty crosswinds.
It's a combination teleoperator and player piano, not a true robot.
But we lost that distinction at the '38 World's Fair.
MMB
"J. R. Molloy" wrote:
>
> U.S. military tests new robot attack plane
> http://www.nandotimes.com/healthscience/story/206710p-1995152c.html
> Initial taxi tests for the first robot plane designed specifically to carry
> weapons into combat have been completed and a maiden flight is planned for
> early 2002.
> Other unpiloted aerial vehicles, or UAVs, have been modified to carry and fire
> weapons, most recently in Afghanistan, but the Boeing X-45A is the first such
> drone being designed to do so from the start.
> The recent taxi tests showed the sleek, blue-and-white UCAV - the C stands for
> "combat" - can operate both when controlled remotely and while using a series
> of preprogrammed directions. More tests will be conducted at Edwards in 2002.
> The Y-shaped, tailless plane is 27 feet long and sports a 34-foot wingspan. It
> weighs about 8,000 pounds and can carry 3,000 pounds of weapons.
>
> --- --- --- --- ---
>
> Useless hypotheses, etc.:
> consciousness, phlogiston, philosophy, vitalism, mind, free will, qualia,
> analog computing, cultural relativism, GAC, Cyc, Eliza, cryonics, individual
> uniqueness, ego, human values, scientific relinquishment, malevolent AI,
> non-sensory experience, SETI
>
> We move into a better future in proportion as science displaces superstition.
--
MMB<==butler a t comp - lib . o r g Wm. Burroughs said it best: "After a shooting
spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it."
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