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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of conceptual maps. Numerous templates for these tools are readily available and
many are adaptable to gesture-based interaction .22
Color
Color is convenient for labeling different categories of information, providing status
indications, and for adding redundant (corroborating) information to minimize errors.
Humans mentally process color information first and do so more accurately and with
less effort than when distinguishing shapes or alphanumeric indicators. The upper limit
on the recommended number of colors to simultaneously display is only about 4 to 12
colors. To augment this number, it is acceptable to adjust the saturation or brightness
of a given color to represent gradations, such as terrain height or the criticality of a
variable. 23
Although research has not progressed to the point where absolute recommendations
can be made for the use of colors, the tripartite system is a widely recognized and
easily discernable status indicator:
• Red = danger.
• Yellow = caution.
• Green = safe to proceed.
Conveniently, fewer pilots have colorblindness than the general public, and thus color
coded displays can be used more effectively than with the general public (data: 8% of
males and 0.4% of females are colorblind to red-green or blue-yellow distinctions). 24
Other lessons regarding the use of color include the following :25
• Use strong colors sparingly: strong colors draw attention, and too many of them can
overstimu late the user.
• Yellow is a rare color since it is simultaneously soft and intense.
• The color of objects is more discernable than the color of text or lines.
• Use soft colors (grays, pastels) for backgrounds and large areas.
• A good color choice is one where that color is not conspicuous.
• Use soft contrasts or graduated contrasts between areas, since hard contrasts can
appear to vibrate.
• Avoid having the color white next to strong colors since it is too much of a contrast.
• Avoid framing a box of text since that creates clutter. Instead, place the text in a
box with a different fill color.
• If needed to strengthen boarders between softly colored areas, frame the area with
a darker shade of its fill color.
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