Such broad uses of Department of Defense equipment and money, however, may have already run their course, Spindel warns. As its budget has shrunk, the military has stepped back from many initiatives. The U.S. Navy's budget, for instance, is half of what it was at the height of Ronald Reagan's administration. And, unlike some military research, it has proven impossible to wring any kind of peace-time use from existing bombs and weapons technology. There are some swords that will never be turned into plow shares.
Opportunities continue to change.
Just last year, an Applied Physics Laboratory group led by Peter Kaczkowski conducted a pilot project that advances the use of pulses of electromagnetic energy to detect and describe metal objects in the ground. Finding the best ways to discern shell fragments from unexploded ordnance such as bombs, mortars and mines is a key to cleaning up military installations that have been used for testing weapons and training troops, Kaczkowski says. The island of Kaho'olawe, the eighth largest of Hawaii's islands, is but one of 900-plus sites needing to be cleared. For 50 years the island was used for bombing, rocketry and gunnery practice. Most of these items detonated as intended, but not all.