Super Underwater Navy Robot Planes
Written by Dr. Jeffery Herman // December 6, 2011 // Enviroment, Technology // No comments
Well Super Underwater Navy Robot Planes may not be technically accurate.
Gliders are a closer description, according to the EurekAlert! press release, ONR helps undersea robots get the big picture.
I think it would be pretty cool if they offered rides too. Actually, probably knowing the mission of these gliders is to survey the massively unexplored ocean, then probably any ride would actually be excruciatingly boring, but this technology is pretty cool.
Still in its infancy stage, the Navy developed and tested new software, which ultimately made their robots smarter, allowing them to more effectively map out the ocean.
Now why is this important?
Well, for one thing, approximately 71% of Earth is covered by water, and we have successfully only explored about 5% of the oceans. While movies and pop-culture have always portrayed the exciting new frontier of exploration as space, SeaQuest, a science fiction show from the nineties, dared to portray the importance of sea exploration. How can we expect to begin to truly understand the many new extraterrestrial planets we are discovering, if we do not yet even fully understand our world. Maybe we will find a massive amounts of new species, incredible earth formations, sunken treasures thought lost to the elements, or maybe we will find signs of early civilizations (as in ruins which were retaken by the ocean and not weird magical alien beings that had landed on earth a million years ago that drove humanity into slavery, only to eventually die off. If these underwater gliders found proof of this, I’d admit that would be cool, but don’t hold your breath.) This technology might even be able to map out our massive amounts of lakes and rivers too. The possibilities are endless.
Of course, with this coming from the navy, then we have to expect a militarization of this technology. Since in the next ten years the military plans to have an army of undersea, surface and air robots, you wonder what type of science fiction movies will our future turn into. I’m all for defense, but let’s keep massive amounts of fire power away from one of our most precious resources.
If the ocean dies, we die.
