At the height of the Cold War, the Soviets were gaining on the US in terms of military might and technical superiority. When they launched Sputnik, the world’s first satellite, into orbit on Oct. 4, 1957, paranoia peaked in the West. Who knew what the Russians would do with “an eye in the sky”?
Sixteen weeks after Sputnik’s launch, Neil McElroy, Defense Secretary under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, issued a directive that created the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA).
The agency, now known as DARPA after adding “defense” to its name by 1972, was unusual in that it recognized the need to do away with the usual machinations of government bureaucracy. Now, on its 60th birthday, it’s a testbed futuristic technology that often end up in our favorite devices.
The many discoveries DARPA has presided over to date—including the internet, missile detection, GPS, and stealth aircraft, to name just a few—are done by a distributed network of scientists, mathematicians, engineers and other big thinkers. They work out of their own labs, many inside academic institutions, or within government contractors. Read More
Source : pcmag