Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the organization that brought stealth, night vision, micro-UAVs and driverless vehicles careening through the desert, is looking for new program directors. The main thing you need for the job is “a radical idea,” DARPA recruiters said. Preferably, it should be something so different that if it works, it will change the way the military operates.

Always on the verge of a seeming comeback, airships are back in the spotlight, touting new technologies. The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency recently announced funding for an innovative, ballast-free airship technology created by Aeros Aero­nautical Systems, based outside

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is predicting that in the future "virtual satellites" circling the globe will peer down on enemy forces. Instead of one expensive 10,000-pound spacecraft, the spy camera will float alone, unattached to other components. The onboard processor and communications node, for example, will orbit nearby and the three building blocks in this system will be linked wirelessly.

"Oh, the humanity." When these three words were uttered by aghast radio journalist Herbert Morrison -- as the LZ129 Hindenburg airship crashed and burst into flames in New Jersey in 1937 -- it was seen as the end of airships. The other remaining Zeppelin-class dirigible, the Graf Zeppelin II, was destroyed by the Nazi administration who felt the materials could be put to better use with more conventional aircraft.