DARPA PLAN: SOLDIERS — BLOOD OPTIONAL

Darpa, the Pentagon’s research arm, has already started to inves­ti­gate ways for sol­diers to fight with­out sleep or food. Now the agency wants to see if G.I.s can carry on with­out most of their blood.
“The vision for the Surviving Blood Loss (SBL) Program is to develop novel strate­gies that delay the onset of irre­versible shock and allow an injured warfighter to sur­vive with sig­nif­i­cantly reduced oxy­gen deliv­ery for extended peri­ods of time,” a Darpa solic­i­ta­tion reads.
It’s all part of a larger effort to shore up what the agency sees as the “weak link” in the military’s chain: the frag­ile human being.
If all goes accord­ing to plan, phase one of the SBL effort will crescendo with a group of rats being able to live with 60% of their blood removed for three hours. Darpa wants to see a sur­vival rate of 75%. Proposals are due by next February.

April 16th, 2004 | Uncategorized | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.