HADRON COLLIDER

# The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a gigantic scientific instrument near Geneva, where it spans the border between Switzerland and France about 100 m underground. It is a particle accelerator used by physicists to study the smallest known particles – the fundamental building blocks of all things.
# It will revolutionise our understanding, from the minuscule world deep within atoms to the vastness of the Universe.

# Two beams of subatomic particles called 'hadrons' – either protons or lead ions – will travel in opposite directions inside the circular accelerator, gaining energy with every lap. Physicists will use the LHC to recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang, by colliding the two beams head-on at very high energy.
# Teams of physicists from around the world will analyse the particles created in the collisions using special detectors in a number of experiments dedicated to the LHC.

There are many theories as to what will result from these collisions, but what's for sure is that a brave new world of physics will emerge from the new accelerator, as knowledge in particle physics goes on to describe the workings of the Universe.
# For decades, the Standard Model of particle physics has served physicists well as a means of understanding the fundamental laws of Nature, but it does not tell the whole story. Only experimental data using the higher energies reached by the LHC can push knowledge forward, challenging those who seek confirmation of established knowledge, and those who dare to dream beyond the paradigm.

BIG DOG

# BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics robots. It is a rough-terrain robot that walks, runs, climbs and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by an engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system.
# BigDog has four legs that are articulated like an animal’s, with compliant elements to absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next. BigDog is the size of a large dog or small mule; about 3 feet long, 2.5 feet tall and weighs 240 lbs.
# BigDog's on-board computer controls locomotion, servos the legs and handles a variety of sensors. BigDog’s control system keeps it balanced, navigates, and regulates its energetics as conditions vary.
# Sensors for locomotion include joint position, joint force, ground contact, ground load, a gyroscope, LIDAR and a stereo vision system. Other sensors focus on the internal state of BigDog, monitoring the hydraulic pressure, oil temperature, engine functions, battery charge and others.
# In separate tests BigDog runs at 4 mph, climbs slopes up to 35 degrees, walks across rubble, climbs a muddy hiking trail, walks in snow and water, and carries a 340 lb load. BigDog set a world's record for legged vehicles by traveling 12.8 miles without stopping or refueling.
# The ultimate goal for BigDog is to develop a robot that can go anywhere people and animals can go. The program is funded by the Tactical Technology Office at DARPA.

FLYING AIRCRAFT CARRIER

# Airborne aircraft carriers are aircraft which can launch other aircraft. These typically are large aircraft that launch fighter-interceptor planes.USS Macon (ZRS-5) was a rigid airship built and operated by the United States Navy for scouting. She served as a flying aircraft carrier, launching Sparrowhawk biplanes. In service for less than two years, in 1935 Macon was damaged in a storm and lost offCalifornia's Big Sur coast, though most of her crew were saved. The wreckage is listed as USS Macon Airship Remains on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

# Less than 20 ft (6.1 m) shorter than Hindenburg, she and her sister, Akron, were among the largest flying objects in the world in terms of length and volume. Although the hydrogen-filled Hindenburg was longer, the two sisters still hold the world record forhelium-filled airships.

NEXT GENERATION BUNKER BUSTER

# The Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) GBU-57A/B is a project by the U.S. Air Force to develop a massive, precision-guided, 30,000-pound (13,608 kg) "bunker buster" bomb. This is substantially larger than the deepest penetrating bunker buster presently available, the 5,000-pound (2,268 kg) GBU-28.
# In 2002, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin were working on the development of a 30,000-lb (13,600 kg) earth-penetrating weapon, said to be known as "Big BLU", although funding and technical difficulties resulted in the development work being abandoned.
# Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, analysis of sites that had been targeted with bunker-buster bombs revealed poor penetration and inadequate levels of destruction. This renewed interest in the development of a super-large bunker-buster, and the MOP project was initiated.

# The U.S. Air Force has no specific military requirement for an ultra-large bomb, but it does have a concept for a collection of massively sized penetrator and blast weapons, the so-called "Big BLU" collection, which includes the MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Burst) bomb. Development of the MOP is now underway at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Munitions Directorate, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. Design and testing work is also being performed by Boeing. It is intended that the bomb will be deployed on the B-2 bomber or B-1 bombers, and will be guided by the use of GPS.

# Northrop Grumman announced a $2.5-million stealth-bomber refit contract on July 19, 2007. An undisclosed number of the U.S. Air Force's 20 B-2s will be able to carry two 15-metric-ton MOPs.

ROCKETS BALLS(SECRET WEAPON)

# Rocket Balls are the latest Pentagon secret weapon to be splashed over the Internet. The idea is that you take a hollow sphere with a hole in it, made of rubberized rocket fuel. When lit, the rocket balls get very hot inside, and eject a high temperature exhaust through the hole.
#  Then, they propel themselves every which way, bouncing off hardened walls and breaking through doors into whatever they can get into.

# The key element is that they are not intended as explosives; it's the "rocket exhaust" that matters. The burning gas that propels the rocket balls will quickly heat the interior of a building or a bunker to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, destroying the contents.
# The inventor, Kevin Mahaffy, worked as an engineer at Air Force Research Laboratory's Rocket Propulsion Division, and then spent three years as the Chief of the Motor Branch overseeing solid and hybrid rocket propulsion.
# The random nature of the motion makes rocket balls ideal for destroying the interior of a structure. This might be your preference when taking out a chemical or biological warfare facility. Rather than blowing it up, and spreading deadly agents over the countryside, the building interior could be destroyed.

THE MOLE PEOPLE

# Life on the street is tough, but what options does a homeless person have when the busy, unforgiving city is becoming too much for them to handle? Why, they just go underground! Underground: Where no cops or street-punks will hassle you. Just mole rats and the lava people...
# Beneath the casinos and the flashing neon lights of the Las Vegas strip lies a labyrinth of tunnels that were initially built to protect the city from flash floods. But now they've become a place where the homeless live sheltered from the weather, rent free.
# There are over 200 miles of tunnels under the city and any trip down into them reveals a vast network of homeless shelters. We aren't talking cardboard boxes here, either: They have some pretty sophisticated homes.

# New York City also has abandoned tunnel systems that the homeless have found shelter in. The AmTrak Freedom Tunnel was built in the 1930s but, as it served no real purpose, it was quickly abandoned. For over 30 years, it acted as a shelter for huge tribes (that's what you call groups of hobos, right? Or is it a gaggle?) of homeless people. But it wasn't just sleeping in the dirt: They formed complex societies complete with mayors and elaborate social structures. They were so resourceful that many of them even siphoned water and electricity from the city and built ad-hoc underground, multi-story homes out of whatever was available.

MISSILE SILO SECRET PROJECT

# An ICBM launch facility (LF) is an underground vertical cylindrical container for the storage and launching of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). They typically have the missile some distance under the surface, protected by a large "blast door" on top. They are usually connected, either physically or electrically to a launch control center. ICBM Launch facilities are synonymous with the term missile silo, used in common nomenclature.

# The silo has remained the primary basing system for land based missiles since that time. However, the increased accuracy of inertial guidance systems has since rendered them somewhat less protected than they were in the 1960s. The U.S. spent considerable effort in the 1970s and 1980s designing a replacement, but none of the complex systems were ever produced. China, the USSR and the U.S. all developed mobile ICBMs:

• DF-31 (CSS-9): a Chinese road mobile ICBM (China also two older mobile IRBMs)
• Mobile Protective Shelters (MPS) plan, in which 200 Peacekeeper missiles would be shuttled around between 4 600 soft shelters.
• Midgetman missile
• One version of Topol-M
• Launch Facility (LF) configuration varied by missile system. Titan II (deactivated) ICBMs were in a one launch control center (LCC) with one LF configuration (1 X 1). Titan missiles (both I and II) were located near their command and control operations personnel; access to the missile was through tunnels connecting the Launch Control Center and Launch Facility
• The LGM-30 series Minuteman I,II, III and Peacekeeper ICBM configurations are one LCC to that controls ten LFs (1 X 10). 5 of LCCs and their 50 associated LFs make up a Squadron. 3 of the Squadrons make up a Wing. Measures were taken such that if any one LCC was disabled, a separate LCC within the squadron would take control of its 10 ICBMs.
  # The LGM-30 LFs and LCCs would be separated by several miles, connected only electronically. This distance insures that a nuclear attack could only disable a very small number of ICBMs, leaving the rest capable of being launched immediately.