The military is cutting the budget of its blue-sky research arm to pay for school books. No, this isn't some hippie bumper-sticker, come to life. According to Defense Department documents, it's a Pentagon decision that an extra $65 million is needed "for critical educational requirements [including] textbooks purchases, summer school, bus... contracts, teacher professional development and technology support materials for DoDEA [Department of Defense Education Activity] instructional support program."
To pay for it all, the Pentagon is taking $10 million apiece from Darpa's "biological warfare defense," "advanced aerospace systems" and "electronics technology" programs. Another $20 million is being drained from the agency's "tactical technology" account, which pays for research into hypersonic fliers, drone-killing robots, and sensors that could see people inside buildings, among other things. The cut is another example of the Pentagon cutting back on its plans for the military of the future, to fund soldiers' needs today.
In a separate move, Darpa's "Innovative Space Based Radar Antenna Technology" program has been killed off. The effort -- which aimed to build a folding antenna "similar to the height of the Empire State Building" -- is just one component in a larger push to put together a string of satellites that could see just about everything below, from planes to tanks to individual evil-doers. The program has not been going all that well, however. Funds have been drastically cut. And what little is left has been transferred to the classified side of the Pentagon's ledger.
