Documents / Official release
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.
UNCLASSIFIED/ ,'FOR OFFI@IAI:: ~SE OPtl::Y transitions into and out of orbits, and long-duration sustained cruising in a 0-g environment. As alluded to earlier, this deviates from prior displays where the Earth's gravitational field is available from which to gauge orientation. Similarly, the notion of an altimeter takes on a whole new meaning in this context. While visual cues for "up" are instinctively clear near the surface of the Earth (or even in closed rooms where 1 g is present), for a true breakthrough vehicle, these will be special conditions amongst a greater span of possibilities. A particular consequence of these added operational regimes is that unfamiliar situations are presented that must be made easy for the pilot to comprehend. Human instincts of motion and perception are honed from living in a 1-g environment with the majority of motions constrained to the (comparatively) two-dimensional ground. Also, lacking eyes in the back of our heads, our natural sense of attention is focused forward. While these instinctual characteristics serve well in travel near the ground, they do not apply to orbits or to deep-space flight. Orbit Orbits around the Earth-or any gravitating body, for that matter-present stable, constant energy situations. Orbits are convenient parking locations. A vehicle does not need to expend energy to stay in orbit indefinitely (unless drag forces from the atmosphere or long extensions of the vehicle come into play). Orbits, therefore, are common trajectories to select when loitering near gravitating bodies. But so far in the course of human evolution, developing an innate sense of placing a vehicle into an orbit does not exist. Although a human can instinctively run at just the right speed and direction to catch a ball thrown toward them, such natural instincts do not apply to placing a vehicle in orbit. Therefore, display systems will be required to provide readily interpretable cues for the pilots to transition into orbital flight. This implies presenting the natural relations between orbital altitude and orbital speed. This challenge is compounded since such cues must naturally blend with the motion cues used when flying near the surface. Deep-Space and Interstellar Flight Deep-space flight adds yet another challenge; namely, the almost total absence of familiar cues for motion, position, and orientation. Given the extremely large distances between astronomical objects and that relativistic effects do not become significant (>1% distortions) until reaching beyond 10% of light speed, the view outside the craft will appear stationary-even when traveling at 60 million miles per hour (9% c). The display systems that are tied to the navigation references (to be discussed later) must convey motion to the pilots in a natural manner despite the absence of familiar human cues. Compounding the absence of a sense of motion, there is an absence of orientation. There is no dominant direction for "up" during deep-space flight. If some form of artificial or synthetic gravity is provided for long-duration crew health, then that internal 1 g will create the most dominant sense of "up" for the crew, and the display UNCLASSIFIED/fFOA. OFFICIO ls. Plili ONls.¥ 11
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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 57 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.