The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs

It is easy to form the opinion nowadays that government bureaucracies become entrenched, that keeping power once it is gained is the way to play the game, and that red tape keeps agencies from doing their jobs. It might be true in some parts of government, perhaps many. Thus it is all the more important to examine the parts of government for which it is not true. There's one that has produced world-changing benefits, and it is the subject of the engrossing book _The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs_ (Harper) by Michael Belfiore, which is not so much a summary of the remarkable things the agency has accomplished but a look at just what it is doing now. Much of the work is secret; after all, DARPA is the _Defense_ Advanced Research Projects Agency, even though its projects have plenty of civilian overlap. Some of what Belfiore has to tell us is how difficult it was sometimes to get admission to see projects in action or to get the DARPA eggheads to chat. He is an accomplished writer on technological themes, though, whose previous book _Rocketeers_ was about entrepreneurs and private space travel, and he got access. The resulting report is an invigorating look at tomorrow's technologies being born. DARPA didn't originally have that "Defense" D in front of it (that came in 1972). ARPA was born from the shock that came from the 1957 launch of Sputnik. ARPANET was originally a network of a small number of computers at universities and research labs which had to share data about seismograph readings quickly, and electronic transfer was much faster than sending tracings in the mail. Along the way, ARPA funded research about analyzing the data, which turned into fundamental starters toward artificial intelligence and neural networks. Working on data input, DARPA invented the computer mouse. DARPA sparked an early version of the Global Positioning System. The old joke goes, "But what have you done for me recently?" For DARPA, that's antiquated; Belfiore's book answers the question "What are you going to do for us in the future?" They have been working on the perfect artificial limb, controlled by brain signals, powered by a battery that will last and last, and light in weight. DARPA is thinking about a "Trauma Pod", an automated, self-contained surgical suite. Buddies would load a wounded comrade into the pod and the hatch would close. As the pod was loaded onto a helicopter or truck, the robots inside would do MRI scans and perform basic stabilizing surgery to keep life going until arrival at the main hospital, which (at least nowadays) has human surgeons for detailed work. If you don't want a robot surgeon, how about a robot chauffeur? DARPA has sponsored contests for teams that make robot cars. The teams build upon systems already in place, like GPS and lane guidance, but let the car make decisions on the systems, without human intervention. The cars had to stop a

I had no idea how many creations that we use today began as a DARPA projects. That office truly is a land of visionaries and a national treasure! The book is well written, easy to read and is full of fascinating information. I enjoyed every page!

A number of years ago for an online encyclopedia, I wrote a definition for something rather mysterious called "DARPA" (and then another definition for its earlier name, "ARPA"). Most people familiar with IT history know that this U.S. government agency was the instigator of what we have come to know as the Internet. But few of us have known much else. Now, with Michael Belfiore's new book, I was able to learn just how important the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is. Since the agency's projects are typically secret, the author shares with us the challenges he faced in gaining access to the information the agency was willing to reveal. Because the projects are farmed out and scattered geographically, the book also reads somewhat like a science travelog. And this is what we learn: even though their primary mission is to serve the U.S. military, DARPA and the people they hire are responsible for perhaps a third of the technological breakthroughs that change our world. Belfiore takes us into the laboratories and workshops where artificial arms are being developed with microdevices implanted in existing muscle that communicate wirelessly with chips in the prosthetic, where robots are being built that may do life-saving operations on the wounded as they are being transported to hospitals, and where vehicles with visual systems can move without a human driver. From DARPA came the stealth aircraft that changed politics as well as warfare; today, DARPA is working on hypersonic aircraft that can travel at many times the speed of sound, perhaps someday available for civilian transport. Work on reducing the size of batteries for soldiers in the field and for solar resupply is leading to blends of material that will convert the sun's energy to electrical energy much more efficiently than at present. Non-food bio-fuels are being developed as a substitute for petroleum. All projects that, while immediately addressed to solutions for the military, portend benefits for everyone. In writing the book, Belfiore interviewed many of the companies and people who work for DARPA, all of whom seem to sense the importance of their work for the future. The reader also learns where scientific and technological breakthroughs come from and why so many of them come from DARPA. Both private industry and university researchers tend to be forced to invent for the short term. DARPA's project managers while driven to come up with solutions that are urgently needed are also allowed to take the chance to fail and to entertain bigger leaps of the imagination. For anyone interested in what wonders DARPA will bring us, this is the book to read.

Michael Belfiore, author of the trail-blazing insider's view of the "NewSpace" industry Rocketeers: How a Visionary Band of Business Leaders, Engineers, and Pilots is Boldly Privatizing Space and its extraordinary and occasionally self-funded entrepreneurs, has now produced something similar for the hidden world of DARPA. I've read many articles on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, but this author walks with us down these paths to see how these extraordinary projects come to life, the amazing characters who pursue them, and their powerful outcomes in terms of societal benefits. Belfiore has a special talent for explaining technology development in the context of a compelling tale that is wonderful. He makes these technical advances not only accessible, but truly fascinating and that works like a black hole pulling the reader into another world. If you want to understand how almost impossibly advanced technologies are actually being developed behind the scenes, read this book.