Besides the internet and GPS, what other DoD inventions

[Zywiec]

do you use on a daily basis?

:shrug:

[krispos42]

1. Google Earth, perhaps n/t

[Hassin Bin Sober]

2. Aqueducts?

[Zywiec]

4. Umm, I think this was invented a few thousand years earlier. n/t

[Warren DeMontague]

12. Okay, but aside from the water, sanitation, roads, wine, and public safety

what have the Romans ever done for us?

[Zywiec]

13. LOL

Even as a failed empire, it is surely wonderful to walk through Rome.

Just as I'm sure it will be to walk through Washington forever more.

[Yurovsky]

3. What, nobody uses an M-16 to kill their dinner?

I thought Ted Nugent told us that's why Americans need automatic weapons.

[Zywiec]

6. Maybe not a M-16, but an AR-15

that was also developed for the DoD.

[ixion]

5. The Interstate System was initially military

I don't know if that's quite what you mean, though.

[Zywiec]

8. Yes, General Eisenhower started a lot of this

The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly called the Interstate Highway System or Interstate Freeway System, and colloquially abbreviated "the Interstate", is a network of limited-access roadways (also called freeways or expressways) in the United States. It is named for President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who championed its formation.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System

[krispos42]

7. Probably satellite communications n/t

[Motown_Johnny]

9. kinda depends on what innovations in weather predictions the DoD

contributed to


I'm betting there are some

[Zywiec]

10. How about all of the advances in medicine? n/t

[Statistical]

11. Countless including the method you used to send your question.

Internet -> Offshoot of ARPANET program.

Geoimaging sats (like google earth) -> Offshot of military spy sats

Communication/telecom sats -> Offshot of project SCORE (first military communication sat)

Commercial Avaiation Control System -> Derived from military radar and control nets

Anything involving spaceflight -> Derived from US Army Rocket and ballistic missile research

Cellphones -> Based on packet radio research by DARPA

Integrated Circuits -> Early funding for transistion from transistors to integrated ciruits was VLSI program.

Just some examples. Now one can argue that it wasn't the MOST effective method to fund these inventions but military has been a source of funding for breakthroughs which otherwise wouldn't be backed by commercial ventures due to risk, unknown commercial application, and timeline.

[lumberjack_jeff]

14. The spring.

[Johnny Harpo]

15. How About Velcro.....n/t

[spin]

16. I wear a tritium watch ...

Tritium for American nuclear weapons was produced in special heavy water reactors at the Savannah River Site until their close-downs in 1988. With the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (SART) after the end of the Cold War, the existing supplies were sufficient for the new, smaller number of nuclear weapons for some time.

The production of tritium was resumed with irradiation of rods containing lithium (replacing the usual control rods containing boron, cadmium, or hafnium), at the reactors of the commercial Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station in 2003 - 05 followed by extraction of tritium from the rods at the new Tritium Extraction Facility<11> at the Savannah River Site beginning in November 2006.<12>

***snip***

Self-powered lighting
Watch with tritium-illuminated face
Main article: Tritium illumination

The emitted electrons from the radioactive decay of small amounts of tritium cause phosphors to glow so as to make self-powered lighting devices called betalights, which are now used in firearms night sights, watches (See Luminox for example), exit signs, map lights, and a variety of other devices. This takes the place of radium, which can cause bone cancer and has been banned in most countries for decades. Commercial demand for tritium is 400 grams per year<3> and costs approximately $US30,000 per gram<17>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium

This watch is very easy to read in total darkness. If you use such a watch on a tactical mission in the military, you have to cover the watch face or risk being a sitting duck.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

17. Composites and other high strength matierals came from the DoD

so everything you drive. For that matter so did glow sticks, SAR radar, lasers, software engineering, water purification, robotics...its one helluva of a long list.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Velcro

Yes the innocent velcro

[opihimoimoi]

19. for the monies spent....we got robbed....

[davidthegnome]

20. Am I missing something?

I thought it was CERN that invented the internet.

[SmileyRose]

21. Titanium knees.

[Angleae]

22. I just nuked something in the microwave.

[formercia]

23. Cell Phones

The DoD funded the miniaturization technology that made cell phones possible.

[Vickers]

24. An A-2 flight jacket. n/t