The Defense Advanced Research Program Agency (DARPA) is now trying to create aircraft that will stay aloft for as long as five years. According to the manager of the program, Daniel Newman, “We want to completely change the paradigm of how we think about aircraft.”
It is a wonderful example of jumping the curve. If one understands the advances occurring in fields such as nanotechnology and hydrogen fuel cells, it is easy to envision how we might soon have aircraft which can stay afloat for five years at a time. (One immediate application is that the U.S. military might be able to patrol areas in Afghanistan easily and relatively inexpensively.)
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