Real accelerator suits are being made

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-04/building-real-iron-man

Highlights:

Utah. A secret mountain lab. Software engineer Rex Jameson backs into a headless metal suit that's hanging from a steel I-beam by a thick rubber cord. He clicks into the aluminum boots, tightens belts across his legs and waist, and slides his arms through backpack-like straps, gripping handles where hands would be. It looks as easy as slipping into an overcoat.

Then he moves, and the machine comes to life, shadowing his every motion. He raises his fists and starts firing sharp jabs while bouncing from one foot to the other. He's not quite Muhammad Ali, but he's wearing 150 pounds and he looks light.

He could easily knock a nearby coder to the floor, or fling one over a desk—but even more impressive, he could do it all day. To show off his superhuman endurance, he walks over to a weight rack and yanks down a bar loaded with 200 pounds. Then he does it again. And again. He stops somewhere around 50, but he's been known to rip through 500 reps in a row. Even then, he quits out of boredom, not fatigue.

Look, One Hand: Because a wearer of the XOS feels almost no strain, he could hold these 16-pound bowling balls for hours on end

In the past seven years, a handful of engineers have taken the military's 40-year-old fantasy of mechanically enhanced soldiers that can carry heavy loads and begun to make it real. Funded with millions from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), Jacobsen and others have finally begun marrying artificial muscles and control systems into suits that could soon be available to soldiers, firemen and the wheelchair-bound. There are still serious challenges—powering these wearable robots, for one—but Sarcos's XOS, the most capable full-body suit, one that moves seamlessly with its wearer, has even the comic's creators feeling like the real world is catching up to their vision. After Adi Granov, one of the main illustrators of the comic and a consultant to the film, watched a clip of the suit in action, he was startled. "I knew that's where we were heading, but I didn't realize we were this close," Granov says. Aside from the lack of flight and weapons, he adds, "that's Iron Man."

But Darpa's ambitious wish list read like something from a comic: a machine that would let the average soldier lug hundreds of pounds and hike for days without fatigue, handle weapons that normally require two people, and whisk the injured off the battlefield by tossing one or two men on his back. They asked for the suit to support more armor, rendering men impervious to enemy fire. They even wanted it to make soldiers jump higher. They wanted Iron Man.

How they fall short of what they movie portrays:

1. No high jumps
2. No independent power source yet
3. No super speed

I've actually raised my qualms about the suits elsewhere, but one I don't have is that they're too fantastical for a GI Joe movie- a real life version of the Joe team could have these in ten years if they keeping funding this project. But honestly, I think they're out of place in a Joe movie until we reach a point where they actually are known to be used by the military. But you can't say they're unrealistic. Being a sci-fi geek, one is used to real life technology being disappointing, so what these prototypes are capable of is very surprising indeed.

EDIT: And I wanted to add- you can't always reason with fans. GI Joe has always had more advanced technology than real militaries have (especially BATS). The sole reason I feel some fans hate the idea is because it is a new idea to Joe canon- if it was in the cartoon, there would be FAR less complaining. Even this article will not convince people it's not that stupid or far-fetched- and maybe the filmmakers should have recognized that a large portion of fans are unreasonable and went another way.

 

[Timstuff]

Given how much we can already do with our crude 2009 technology, the idea of something like the Accelerator Suits existing in 2020 as a top secret military weapon isn't really all that far fetched. Personally, I think the suits look pretty cool, and since GI Joe has made use of mech suits / walkers in the past they don't really seem out of place to me.

 

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

Given how much we can already do with our crude 2009 technology, the idea of something like the Accelerator Suits existing in 2020 as a top secret military weapon isn't really all that far fetched. Personally, I think the suits look pretty cool, and since GI Joe has made use of mech suits / walkers in the past they don't really seem out of place to me.

The pulse blaster guns bother me more- I don't see the government phasing out projectile handguns in the next 20 years.

By the way, I didn't really allow my glee to come across in my post: everytime I read that article, I'm like "THAT'S F***ING BADASS!!" and I get really excited.

 

[Timstuff]

The pulse blasters do sound a little iffy to me, but from the looks of it the Joes still use good ol' bullets, and Cobra has pulse blasters as an homage to the 80's cartoon. As long as they're not over-using them and they don't become an excuse to tone down the violence (like in the 80's where lasers never kill anyone), I'm OK with it.

 

[M.E.H.Z.E.B]

I really don't think people were complaining about the fact that the accelerator suits were unrealistic. No sir. It was because they could not relate the suits to GI Joe. Big difference. So, it really doesn't matter whether "real accelerator suits are being made" or otherwise. The main gripe people have with Stephen Sommers' production is the fact that he used something "cool" to tweak an element of the Joe myth which really did not need to be messed with.

Example - why not give Spider-Man a metal suit made of nanobots? Yes, nanobots are cool, and they exist in this day and age. It could be possible in the years to come, and the idea was explored in Spider-Man 2099. All the justifications that the pro-suit fans point out. But, will the mainstream audience accept it? I say nay.

 

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

I really don't think people were complaining about the fact that the accelerator suits were unrealistic. No sir. It was because they could not relate the suits to GI Joe. Big difference. So, it really doesn't matter whether "real accelerator suits are being made" or otherwise. The main gripe people have with Stephen Sommers' production is the fact that he used something "cool" to tweak an element of the Joe myth which really did not need to be messed with.

Example - why not give Spider-Man a metal suit made of nanobots? Yes, nanobots are cool, and they exist in this day and age. It could be possible in the years to come, and the idea was explored in Spider-Man 2099. All the justifications that the pro-suit fans point out. But, will the mainstream audience accept it? I say nay.

I DID say in the OP that he should have left them out to placate the fans even if it kept with the "Military hardware of the next 10-20 years" theme, and I've read more than enough posts saying they look ridiculous and are a stupid idea. But that's kind of vague when they say it. I have no problem with someone saying they're sort of out of place in a GI Joe film (which I said I sort of agreed with). But this is for all the people who say these things will never exist(which I have read enough to feel justified in writing this).

I will say that if there is a fan who wants BATS but not this, then that's kind of hypocritical, but I haven't read that exact statement anywhere.

 

[FCEEVIPER]

I agree with M.E.H.Z.E.B here.

The accelerator suits just look stupid, but these were cool...

 

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

SO just to be clear, you're saying you dislike the designs of the suits and that's your main problem with them?

 

[FCEEVIPER]

That's what I stated above.

 

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

That what I stated above.

That's a good reason to dislike them, I'll grant you that.

 

[Shaolin Kenobi]

I'm laughing out loud.

 

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

I'm laughing out loud.

Yeah, yeah, I know. The guy posts art of a BAT that's not exactly stellar and a beyond clunky diver/space suit and says those are cool and the accelerators suck, and I seemed to not get the joke. I'm aware that was most likely a joke, but with genre/comic fans, you can never be too sure.

 

[TripXyDE]

"Real accelerator suits are being made"

meh

and they're developing actual Voltron robots too while they're at it

 

[TripXyDE]

even if theyre developing actual suits in real life, it isn't gonna change the fact that the movie will suck BIGTIME

 

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

"Real accelerator suits are being made"

meh

and they're developing actual Voltron robots too while they're at it

I didn't post a picture and article detailing a prototype lion robot that can link with five others to form one giant robot, but I DID post pictures and an article that the government is making suits that are surprisingly close to what the suits in the movie are.

Your grasp of logic is magnificent.

 

[FCEEVIPER]

even if theyre developing actual suits in real life, it isn't gonna change the fact that the movie will suck BIGTIME

Sadly true.

Sorta like this thread.

 

[M.E.H.Z.E.B]

Settle down, guys.