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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Jack Crossfire on December 9, 2008 at 3:07pm

Time to hang up my transmitter & stick to Java standards outsourcing.

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by wayne garris on December 10, 2008 at 10:14am

I saw a video exactly like this years ago.they said it was part of the remnants of the "star wars" program if i recall . it was made to fly a satellite the "vehicles" where supposed to be other satellites

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Sgt Ric on December 10, 2008 at 11:24am

That this project was meant for space certainly makes sense; thrusters are not the most efficient method of hovering, but would be suited to station-keeping and manuevering in orbit.

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by wayne garris on December 10, 2008 at 11:18am

here is the old video

nothing new

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Permalink Reply by Rory Paul on December 10, 2008 at 12:06pm

it's glide slope sucks... ;)

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Sgt Ric on December 10, 2008 at 1:02pm

Now that's funny.

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Jack Crossfire on December 10, 2008 at 3:26pm

It seems intended for close quarters urban combat & not the advertised purpose on Google. A missile payload can't change its trajectory with divert thrusters & doesn't need enough power to hover. Maybe another corporation can provide better search results.

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Permalink Reply by Rory Paul on December 10, 2008 at 4:12pm

If I remember correctly is was part of a kinetic energy weapons system to target missiles /warheads at high altitudes. However you could see this technology been employed against massed armor in combination with some type of shaped charge munitions. Then again if they really made it sophisticated it could bounce around an urban environment and take out multiple targets passed to it by some 18 year old with a tablet pc. Scarry stuff...

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Sgt Ric on December 10, 2008 at 4:31pm

Imagine something like this popping up from cover and letting loose on a squad before they even knew what hit them.

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Permalink Reply by Doug H. on February 24, 2009 at 4:13pm

The idea of close quarter fighting is interesting, however there is not enough flight time for "urban combat." MKV truely was designed for the SDI program and the techies have been waiting decades to see the unclassified movies now being shown on YouTube videos. (Get your hands on one of the original floppy discs from when President Reagan put out the call to begin the Strategic Defense Initiative program and you'll see devices depicted that meet this mission description.)

The original design shows a ring of dozens of thruster nozzles around the middle. They are for course correction and have been designed for kinetic-kill trajectory changes (death by collision). In space, a little course change is all you need to keep narrowing down the angle of intercept while a kinetic-kill vehicle moves forward to smash into the target. The main thruster provides the momentum required to meet oncoming missiles, the attitude thrusters match trajectory, and VOILA! A tragedy is avoided.

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Permalink Reply by MattTay on December 10, 2008 at 6:02pm

This is really cool. It's kind of getting close to that hovering ball thing they used for light saber training in the first star wars.

If you could accurately squirt some starting fluid/ether into a thruster and spark it electronically, I wonder if you could build your own. Works well for shooting potatoes.

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