AAWSAP DIRD, Cockpits in the Era of Breakthrough Flight, November 2010

This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, dated 1 November 2010 and numbered DIA-08-1011-002, was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Defense Warning Office. It is one of a series of advanced technology reports produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications program. It draws mainly on the book Frontiers of Propulsion Science and speculates about breakthroughs such as control of gravity and inertia and faster-than-light travel. It then proposes a provisional cockpit design with six-degree-of-freedom controls, virtual displays and no windows.

From the source: Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 11/1/10, 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 examines how cockpit design might change if future aerospace vehicles were ever to achieve major propulsion breakthroughs such as control over gravity and inertia, “propellantless” flight, or faster-than-light travel. The report does not describe an existing or emerging vehicle class. Instead, it asks what such hypothetical capabilities would mean for piloting, displays, controls, and human factors, and it argues that the biggest design challenges would come from full six-degree-of-freedom motion, operation across multiple flight regimes from near-surface flight to orbit and deep space, and the possible separation between the craft’s actual motion and the crew’s internal physical sensations. It combines those assumptions with established human-machine-interface principles and with maturing inputs such as gesture, voice, and brain-machine control to outline a provisional cockpit centered on intuitive displays, stress-tolerant physical controls, and a virtual surround display.

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experience. If the gravitational environment outside the craft is 1 g, that same 1 g is
expected inside as well. Similarly for accelerations, the entire mass of the vehicle,
including its occupants, will experience the same inertial reactions as the vehicle
accelerates.
Upon the advent of breakthrough propulsion, mastery over gravitational and inertial
forces will have been achieved. This implies, for example, that it is possible for a vehicle
to accelerate at extreme g's while its crew remains within survivable limits or that,
while cruising in deep space (absent of any acceleration or gravitational field), the crew
can enjoy the familiar, constant 1 g upward.
Because such possibilities run so contrary to established experience, it is difficult to
comprehend how such things can be achieved and then contemplate the consequences
that these advances impose onto other systems of the vehicle-in this case, how they
affect cockpit designs. Not all known approaches to propulsion physics evoke the need
for a double hull. 2 Versions that simply suggest a new thrusting mechanism and
reaction mass would only need the double hull if also addressing how to provide a safe
acceleration environment for the crew. As stated earlier, however, the most significant
possible impacts are considered for this study. Therefore, two examples are described
next for how breakthrough propulsion would require this provisional double-hull
configuration.
Why Double-Hull Needed: Example 1 (Warp Drive)
The Alcubierre warp drive, which uses the physics from the Riemannian geometry of
Einstein's general relativity, creates a "warp bubble" around the cralt, and then this
bubble of space-time is moved through the surrounding space-time . This effect is
created (in theory) by expanding space-time behind the vehicle and contracting space
time in front. The vehicle within the bubble feels no acceleration forces. As illustrated
in Figure 4, 3 the high peaks represent expanding space-time, while the low peaks
represent contracting space-time. Note that the inner region is flat (meaning that the
vehicle does not experience any acceleration forces), that the region far from the
propulsion effect is also flat, and that these two regions are separate.
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