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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a single joystick with six degrees of freedom, some sort of gesture-based system, or
one that has those degrees of freedom dispersed across multiple pilot inputs (e.g ., head
motion, legs and feet, and arms and hands) remains open for future study. As a
provisional baseline, th is report chooses the option of having a pair of six-degree-of
freedom joysticks, one for both the left and right hands and located at the edge of the
cockpit chair's arm rests.
Th ree equally avalla ble recti linear axes of motion Three equally available rotational axes of motion
Figure 1, Six Independent Degrees of Freedom. [Graphic : A. Szames] Note : the vehicle shown is strictly
hypothetical and is a combination of three 1960s science fiction vehicles: Seaview submarine, Galileo shuttle, and
Amtronic car.
Simi lar to requiring new control methods, new display methods are also required to
convey more information than in legacy cockpits. In addition to the complete six
degrees of freedom, these motions will take place near the Earth's surface, in orbit, and
in deep space. A key difference spanning those regimes is the traditional role played by
a gravitational field as a reference for orientation and motion. Since a gravitational
reference will not always be present, and yet is extremely important when it is present,
the new display system must accommodate all regimes in a way that feels natural to
the pilots. These particular challenges are addressed in the section on Mixed
Operational Regimes.
Separation of Internal and External Environments
Probably the most significant and perplexing difference for breakthrough-era cockpits is
that the sensations of motion inside the vehicle will not necessarily match the motion of
the vehicle itself. This is both a consequence of the method of propulsion as well as
cockpit features designed to ensure crew survival.
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