Documents / Official release
This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, DIA-08-0911-016, is dated 14 December 2009. It was prepared by the Defense Warning Office's Acquisition Support Division at the Defense Intelligence Agency and is one of a series of FY 2009 advanced technology reports under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications program. It is a primer on programmable matter and smart materials such as quantum dots, metamaterials and liquid crystals, and on how they could manage heat and energy and provide camouflage on spacecraft. It concludes that the possible gains would be significant and well worth pursuing.
From the source: Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 12/14/09, Las Vegas, Nevada. Released with redactions. This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed. This DIRD describes “programmable matter” as smart materials whose properties can be changed on command, potentially allowing spacecraft components to change function through software updates rather than physical repair or replacement. The report suggests that such materials could someday enable adjustable sensors, smart windows, heat control, energy collection, active camouflage, and systems that switch between different functions, making spacecraft more flexible and adaptable. At the same time, it presents the idea as highly speculative and emphasizes major technical obstacles, including manufacturing at extremely small scales, shielding against radiation and electromagnetic interference, managing temperature effects, reducing component failures, and preventing hacking or malicious control. Overall, the document presents programmable matter as a promising long-term concept over the next 50 years, while judging that simpler near-term uses such as smart windows and energy-saving surface materials are far more realistic than the more ambitious aerospace applications.
UNCLASSIFIED/ /P:eR errtCIAE USE OHLf Quantum computing is another possibility. Qbits were first demonstrated in 1995 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, and by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Because computing power increases exponentially with the number of qbits (versus linearly with the number of binary bits), a 64-qbit computer is roughly 18 billion billion times as powerful as a 64-bit binary one. In a quantum, programmable world, the concept of "operations per second" as a computing bottleneck may simply vanish. Opinions vary widely on how smart or intelligent or conscious a machine can ever be, but as IBM's chess champion Deep Blue demonstrates, even a stupid machine can appear brilliant if it runs fast enough. This is known in industry as "weak AI," but with the power of quantum computing behind it, the results could in fact be extremely powerful. Scenario for Possible Applications Imagine a space station in low-Earth orbit. It is in darkness, its running lights blinking, but as it clears the terminator and swings around into full sunlight, we can see that its surface is one big, dead-black solar collector. Its exterior drinks in sunlight, taking some of it as stored heat and pumping the rest into electrical wires, which shuffle it off into a bank of capacitors. If we could see through the hull, we could watch the capacitors swelling-literally growing larger as more energy becomes available and more of the station's mass is allocated to storing it. But we cannot see through the hull, there are no windows, and the station would be completely dark inside if not for dim little nightlights glowing here and there, lighting the way in case someone visits the galley in search of a nighttime snack. Beneath its layer of solar collectors, the hull is one big, opaque insulator, keeping the cold, bright "morning" of outer space at bay. Then, suddenly, the clock strikes 0600 Houston time, and an arrangement of diffusive portholes and mirrors gradually fades into existence, waking each of the station's inhabitants with the gentle morning sunlight. These fenestrations are not stationary; they crawl across the walls as the station moves in its orbit and changes its orientation to the sun. Greeted by the soft voice of the station's central computer, our astronauts awaken. While the astronauts eat their breakfast in a bright little galley, more portholes appear, looking down at Earth and at points of interest in the black sky above it. However, the crew's comfort and privacy are not compromised; through the mirrored glass, ground based and space-based telescopes cannot see inside the station, and the amount of reflectivity is constantly controlled, balancing the needs of daylighting, solar heat gain, and the aesthetics of a good view. In a pinch, the station can even turn "invisible," taking light and heat from one side and emitting a matching signal on the other side. After breakfast, some of the crew settle into office niches to check their email, voice, and video messages. Almost any surface in the station can serve as a desk, keyboard, computer screen, video camera, or drafting table. Others proceed to scientific experiments and routine maintenance activities throughout the station. Portholes and skylights follow them around, but now they are looking out mainly from the station's UNCLASSIFIED/ /liQR QFFHiiilil'lk Miili G•lkY 13
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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 20 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.