National Geographic-Inside America's Secret Weapons - DARPA

Rare access to a highly classified division of the Defense Department reveals the latest generation of defense technologies, including unmanned aerial vehicles and hypersonic aircraft.

The Defense Advanced Research Agency, or DARPA, is a U.S. Department of Defense research and development agency. If you have a problem that's impossible to solve, then it's a problem for DARPA to tackle.

Housing no laboratories or fabrication plants of its own, DARPA contracts other research centers, such as military, university, and private research centers, to work on their internally conceived projects. About half of all DARPA projects are secret. A program manager at DARPA will only serve a term of four to six years in order to keep fresh ideas within the agency.

DARPA-funded technologies have not only advanced the U.S. military, but also have been put to commercial use, including the technologies behind the Internet, GPS, GPS receivers, robot surgical systems, and speech recognition software.

DARPA's headquarters occupies an unmarked commercial office building in Arlington, Virginia.

The President of the United States appoints the director of DARPA.

DARPA's current projects include programs to secure America's energy supplies with fuels made from renewable sources and high-efficiency solar cells.


http://rapidshare.com/files/173905763/Inside_Americas_Secret_Weapons.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/173919995/Inside_Americas_Secret_Weapons.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/173934328/Inside_Americas_Secret_Weapons.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/173893131/Inside_Americas_Secret_Weapons.part4.rar