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.
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• Grifantini, K. (2010) . GM Develops Augmented Reality Windshield. Technology Review, MIT, March 17.
Retrieved from
News note on an advanced version or next generation of heads-up display to outline the road, pinpoint
obstacles (people and signs), even in bad weather. Pertinent excerpt: "To turn the entire windshield into a
transparent display, GM uses a special type of glass coated with red-emitting and blue-emitting
phosphors--a clear synthetic material that glows when it is excited by ultraviolet light. The phosphor
display, created by Superimaging, is activated by tiny, ultraviolet lasers bouncing off mirrors bundled near
the windshield. Three cameras track a driver's head and eyes to determine where she is looking."
• Hall, Kenji. (2007) . The Big Ideas Behind Nintendo's Wii. Business Week . Retrieved from
News note on the development of the Wii gaming interface which is a device-dependant gesture-based
interface.
• Hoover, G. (1992). Stop Saturating Pilots with Alphanumeric Hieroglyphics. Aviation Week and Space
Technology, June. 15, 98-99.
Editorial (2 pg) Asserting opinions by an accomplished researcher on what pilots need versus what flight
instrument designers were providing at that time. In short, with the advent of computer capabilities, many
displays were simply providing data in numeric form rather than in some form of interpretable graphic
format: "Nature does not use symbols, letters or numbers to convey information. As a result, the human
being has evolved as an effective differentiator, but a poor integrator."
• Joels, Kennedy, & Larkin. (1982). The Space Shuttle Operator's Manual, New York, NY: Ballantine Books.
Book (179 pg) Public oriented book illustrating the displays and controls of the Space Shuttle, which itself
is tightly coupled to the legacy aircraft methods.
• Johannesen, L. & Woods, D. D. {1991). Human Interaction with Intelligent Systems: Trends, Problems and
New Directions. In Conference Proceedings 1991 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and
Cybernetics, 1337-1341.
Article (5 pg) Examines lessons and trends and emphasizing the need to have a visual model for the
process being monitored.
• McCandless, David . (2009) . The Visual Miscel/aneum . New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Book (255 pg) Illustrating numerous ways to graphically convey complex information in readily
interpretable forms.
• Millis, M. & Davis, E. (Eds.) . (2009). Frontiers of Propulsion Science, Volume 227 of Progress in Astronautics
and Aeronautics, Reston, VA : American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).
Book {739 pg) First scholarly textbook about the physics issues, progress, and next-step research
regarding such game-changing advances as control of gravitation or inertia, propellant-less space drives,
faster-than-light travel, and related energy requirements. Includes physics regarding the quantum
vacuum, space-time warping, quantum non-locality, cosmology, and others. Includes chapters to clearly
document null-results of commonly recurring proposals, and a chapter about how to conduct such
revolutionary research in contemporary circumstances.
• Moravec H. (2000). Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind . Oxford University Press .
Book (240 pg) Fitting introduction to the notion of transhumanism, plus other predictions about the ascent
of artificial life. This is an updated version of his earlier seminal book, Mind Children : The Future of Robot
and Human Intelligence.
• Morgan, B. (1985) . DOD enlists voice control and expert systems. Electronic Products, Oct. 1, 65-67 .
Article (3 pg) Relevant in reflecting the early trends to actually apply voice control in military cockpits,
citing Wright-Patterson AFB as a leadi ng center.
• Moskowitz, 5. & Devereux, W. (1970). Navigational Aspect of Transstellar Space Flight. In F. Ordway III
(Ed .), Advances in Space Science and Technology. Academic Press, Vol.10, 75-126 .
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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.