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 operating the vehicle and carrying out the mission. It is functionally similar to the "flight management system" 49 of commercial aircraft. The pilot needs critical information in real time that can be easily interpreted. If anything goes wrong, the pilot needs to know the options and probable consequences of each option. A simplified depiction of the nature of the emergency is also critical. Predicted consequences and risks of each response option should also be succinctly displayed as part of the adaptive display options. The pilot also needs to know, unambiguously and quickly, how to select any option. The envisioned functions include the following: • Automated assessment and display of the overall vehicle operational status. • Automated assessment and display of pilot's health and functional status. (If the system detects that the pilot is incapacitated, it automatically engages the "get medical assistance" emergency response mode.) • Provide short-list of anomaly/emergency response options • In emergency, time-critical situations, the system will automatically choose its top recommended response if the pilot does not enter in a command within the required time. • Checklists for various procedures (e.g., pre- and post-flight or diagnostics). • Monitor progress relative to mission goals and timeline. • Provide access to other databases (e.g., something akin to an Internet search). • Provide the option to project a larger version of the display on the virtual surround, whereupon gesture-based commands can be used. When designing this panel, the lessons discussed in Chapter 2 regarding adaptive displays and graphical and alphanumeric representations should be followed. This includes hierarchical organization, limit of displayed choices of four to seven, simultaneous display of the current mode of the display relative to a model of the system, and sound and verbal accompaniment for displayed information. Additionally, the functions of the surviva l enunciator, flight mode panel, and emergency response panel are all tied into the flight assistant, but these fixed panels provide only the most critical alarm and response options. One of the emergency response panel buttons allows for selection of whatever response option is currently displayed on the flight assistant panel, while the other emergency response buttons are fixed functions. Survival Enunciator Panel On the left side of the flight mode panel, between the center and left main panels, is the survival enunciator. For this limited -size enunciator, only those alarms that are of a life-threatening nature are listed. Less critical alarms are either handled by the flight assistant or the side panels. Audio cues are also recommended for this enunciator, with the added feature that the direction of the source of the sound corresponds to the location of the alarm. UNCLASSIFIED/fFOA. OFFICIO ls. Plili ONls.¥ 36
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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.