Super soldiers: Army scientists in pursuit of the extraordinary.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Soldier Technology - Cover story

Combat uniforms made of light fabrics that are tougher than steel Batteries that last for days and fit in tiny pockets ... Bug-sized lasers that prevent fratricide and also function as voice radios ...

Short of calling Wayne Enterprises, it is unclear how and when the Army will turn these high-tech dreams into reality.

But it may not be as hard as most people might think, according to Army scientists. With a nearly $2 billion a year budget for scientific research, the Army's laboratories are actively partnering with universities and the private sector in hopes that soldiers one day can go to war with equipment that now only exists in superhero movies.

"We create the future for our soldiers, and we do that through strategic planning and investment in areas that we believe will provide our soldiers with extraordinary capabilities," says John A. Parmentola, the Army's director for research and laboratory management.

Many of the latest projects are directly influenced by the lessons of war, Parmentola says. "We've learned, I think, quite a bit from this recent engagement in Iraq."

Science has much to offer toward soldier protection, for example. "We're trying to develop new fabrics" that could make combat uniforms tough as steel, Parmentola says. The answer is in nanotechnology. At the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, scientists are trying to grow single carbon nanotubes to about a foot in length. "Once we start getting them in length, the hope is that we'll be able to spin them into fabric," he says.

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Carbon nanotubes--molecular-scale tubes of graphitic carbon--can be about 200 times the strength of steel at one-tenth of the mass, says Parmentola. They also have extraordinary conductive and thermal properties.

The potential is huge, although so far, the technology has developed at a slow pace because of the high costs.

"We've done some work which is promising," says Parmentola. The Army Research Laboratory, in collaboration with the University of Delaware, created stab-resistant materials. "We take a substance called a sheer thickening liquid, which is a thick syrup, and what we do is we put nano-particles of silicon in it," he explains. "We come up with what we call liquid armor ... You can take an ice pick and try to go through it and you can't."

Law enforcement agencies have taken an interest in this technology, says Parmentola. "It's not going to solve the immediate problem that soldiers have with large...