Bestselling author Mary Roach explores the science of keeping human beings intact, awake, sane, uninfected, and uninfested in the bizarre and extreme circumstances of war.Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier’s most challenging adversaries—panic, exhaustion, heat, noise—and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them. Mary Roach dodges hostile fire with the U.S. Marine Corps Paintball Team as part of a study on hearing loss and survivability in combat. She visits the fashion design studio of U.S. Army Natick Labs and learns why a zipper is a problem for a sniper. She visits a repurposed movie studio where amputee actors help prepare Marine Corps medics for the shock and gore of combat wounds. At Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, in east Africa, we learn how diarrhea can be a threat to national security. Roach samples caffeinated meat, sniffs an archival sample of a World War II stink bomb, and stays up all night with the crew tending the missiles on the nuclear submarine USS Tennessee. She answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks? How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit? Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks? Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you’ll never see our nation’s defenders in the same way again.

Product Description: According to recent reports, the United States currently accounts for less than one-third of global research and development spending, and it is projected that this fraction will decline to 18% by 2050. These statistics, compounded by the recognition that the United States no longer maintains technological superiority across all research fields, highlight the need for the U...read more

Product Description: This book examines emerging defense technologies such as directed energy weapons, nanotech devices, and bioscience applications that have the potential to dominate international relations in the future, just as nuclear weapons and space infrastructure-assisted conventional weapons do now...read more

Product Description: During the past decade and a half, the National Research Council, through its Committee on National Statistics, has carried out a number of studies on the application of statistical methods to improve the testing and development of defense systems...read more

Product Description: Armor plays a significant role in the protection of warriors. During the course of history, the introduction of new materials and improvements in the materials already used to construct armor has led to better protection and a reduction in the weight of the armor...read more

Foreword by Jacques F. ValleeIntroduction by Burt RutanCommentary by Tom ClancyA never-before-heard firsthand account of a government insider's experience on the cutting edge of UFO exploration While still on active duty in the U.S. Army during the 1980s, Colonel John B. Alexander, Ph.D., created an interagency group to explore the controversial topic of UFOs. Participants came from the Army, Navy, Air Force, CIA, NSA, DIA, and the aerospace industry. All members held Top Secret clearance. What they discovered was not at all what was expected. UFOs covers the numerous cases they saw, and answers questions like: • What was really in Hanger 18? • Did a UFO land at Holloman Air Force Base? • What happened at Roswell? • What is Majestic 12? • What is the Aviary? • What does the government know about UFOs? • What has happened with disclosure in other countries? • Has the U.S. reverse engineered a UFO? • Why don't presidents get access to UFO info? UFOs is at once a complete account of Alexander's findings, and a call to action. There are no conspiracy theories here--only hard facts--but they are merely the beginning. Serious research is needed in order to understand and anticipate the workings of UFOs, and John Alexander is leading the charge.

Product Description: The commander of Army Materiel Command (AMC) ordered the establishment of a U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM) to consolidate the research and development (R&D) organizations in AMC under one commander...read more

Presents an overview of the efforts of government and corporate researchers to develop the next generation of military weaponery together with an analysis of their political and financial motives.

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Product Description: This monograph summarizes a quick-response analysis done for the 2001 Army Science Board Summer Study on Objective Force Soldier. It assessed technology options for future dismounted soldiers that could improve mission effectiveness and reduce casualties...read more

Product Description: The Arroyo Center has developed a methodology to identify opportunities for the Army to use collaboration with industry to more effectively achieve its research and development goals. The framework prioritizes technologies by Army utility and by market breadth, and it allows superimposition of different management approaches...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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Product Description: This report addresses the post-Cold War use of traditional U.S. strategic nuclear forces (nuclear-armed long-range bombers, ICBMs, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles) from three perspectives: top-down (strategies to tasks), bottom-up (technological opportunities--today and tomorrow), and policy (how policy can affect R&D, acquisition, and counterproliferation strategy alternatives)...read more

Product Description: After reviewing Army "combat developments," with special reference to the 1962 U.S. Army Tactical Mobility Requirements Board ("Howze Board"), this report argues that the Army could improve combat developments by closer connection and interaction between its model building and testing activities...read more

Product Description: Two momentous events have reshaped the way the Department of Defense (DOD) conducts its business. The first, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, perhaps the most significant event of the past decade, changed the mix of technologies DOD needs to execute its mission...read more

Discusses scientific secrecy and how it is counterproductive to American interests in a time when economics has come to define national security (view table of contents)

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