- Overview
- Essay
- UT and Los Alamos
- The UT/Lockheed Martin Bid Team for Los Alamos
- Democracy in Nuclear Decision-Making
- Factsheets on UT and Los Alamos
- UT Watch articles on LANL
- Los Alamos Taskforce
- Los Alamos National Laboratory memorandum
- A Primer on the DOE Nuclear Weapons Labs Bidding Process
- Atkinson to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce
- The Los Alamos 'Criminal Culture'
- Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
- UC President Robert Dynes Speech, 04/29/03
- Renewable Energy Programs at Other Texas Schools
- Biological
- Total Information Awareness at UT
- UT's DoD contracts
- Federal Grants to Science and Engineering
- More money for research
- UT Guns for Sandia Nuke Labs
- The Socio-Economics of Conversion from War to Peace
- University Research, Industrial Innovation, and the Pentagon
UT Weapons Research
Smaller versions of the gun are slated to be incorporated into the army's lightweight Future Combat fighting forces. On-going UT-CEM research in the army's Focused Technology Program indicates that the gun will become part of an all-electric tank which includes electric armaments. In this concept, electric flywheel batteries (also being developed by UT-CEM) could be used to provide the power supply for all of the vehicle's operations. This streamlining will help to meet the army's goals for Future Combat Systems.
As any good public relations firm would advise, UT-CEM and their IAT counterparts emphasize the "non-military" applications of their research. One such application is the use of electromagnetic propulsion by NASA to launch a shuttle into space. However, even research into "non-military" applications done by UT-CEM could be responsible for tying up crucial loose ends for military planners. A major weakness in current U.S. plans to militarize space is inadequate propulsion technology. Electromagnetic propulsion would assist NASA in getting bigger payloads out of the atmosphere to enable Space-Based Lasers, large spy satellites and the use of space-stations mounted with Electromagnetic Guns.
Furthermore, the "non-military" distinction is an artificial one. The same launch technology has been promoted by the UT research team for use in future Naval designs to "increase lethality" and bolster "rapid response to regional crisis situations. The fact that EM launchers could send chimps into space to come back with a cure for cancer does not change the UT conclusion that the same system "can launch very large numbers of guided weapons at a low cost."
An intimate relationship with the Department of Defense is nothing new at UT. The Applied Research Laboratories evolved from two defense-oriented research laboratories established by the University during World War II. The Defense Research Laboratory, established in 1945 and the University's Military Physics Research Laboratory merged in 1964. The University of Texas has long been a leader in SONAR and undersea surveillance systems as well as Global Positioning System (GPS) research. UT conducted far more SDI research than any other Texas school in the 1980s. In the last year the ARL:UT has received nearly $60 million in research grants.
UT researchers include some of the Department of Defense's heaviest hitters. Harry D. Fair, director of UT's Institute for Advanced Technology, initiated the United States national program on electromagnetic weapons. He also initiated and directed the Advanced Kinetic Energy Weapons program for the Department of Defense Strategic Defense Initiative Organization.
Hans Mark, former chancellor of the UT System and current professor of Aerospace Engineering, served as Director of Defense Research and Engineering in the Clinton administration. In this capacity, Mark oversaw the priorities and strategies of the Defense Department's research programs. Any futuristic weapon you can name, UT professor Mark probably had a hand in developing it.