3 Military Inventions You Can Use Every Day

When you imagine new technology being developed by the military, you might think of more advanced weapons systems, improved ammunition, and more powerful war vehicles. But there have been many innovations born from armed conflict that you use regularly as a civilian. These innovative breakthroughs have easily made their way into the public sphere, and it’s hard to imagine life without them. GPS (Global Positioning System), electronic digital computers, and the internet you use every day are all products of military inventions.

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All of these inventions came out of necessity, one during World War II and the other two in the 1970s. Military researchers are always working to solve problems and help soldiers gain an advantage in battle. Fortunately, their hard work and determination have given us some truly amazing tools that have changed modern life. Although not every idea is a winner, as can be seen in the case of military technology, which is highly overrated.

There was a time when the only way to travel to unknown destinations was either with a big map or by asking a stranger for directions. Now, whether it’s a few miles away or across the country, your vehicle’s navigation system shows your location and provides turn-by-turn directions to your destination. According to GPSworld.com, “the U.S. economy alone is dependent on a free, government-provided service of 900 million GPS receivers for automotive navigation, general aviation, financial transactions, the electric grid, precision agriculture, surveying, and construction.” But without the U.S. Department of Defense and their Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), you’d still be trying to fold a paper map correctly.

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In 1978, NAVSTAR (Navigation System with Timing and Ranging) was initiated with the first satellite created for the system being sent into Earth orbit. Over the next fifteen years, DOD continued to expand the project and it was officially completed in 1993 with 24 orbiting satellites. While the technology was initially used only by the military for troop navigation, the Standard Positioning Service (SPS) was given the green light for public use and is still supported by the military. Not only driving directions benefit from this technology, you can improve your game on the 9 or 18 hole course with the best GPS golf apps for Android and iPhone.

PCs, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles and smart watches are everywhere these days. All of these devices can run multiple applications, process huge amounts of data and are getting better every year. However, without a device developed during World War II called ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), today it would be a very different story. While modern computers fit on your wrist or easily fit in your pocket, ENIAC was a huge piece of equipment, 27 tons, covering an area of ​​about 1,800 square feet.

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In 1943, the military needed artillery fire tables, which were complex charts that helped soldiers pinpoint enemy coordinates. A team of exceptionally intelligent women, called “computers,” calculated each scenario using adding machines and difficult mathematical formulas. The problem was that there were simply too many requests for ballistic charts for the team to keep up. Fortunately, in 1948, a new invention (ENIAC), which used vacuum tubes to transmit digital electronic pulses, essentially connected many calculators together. With multiple calculating devices that could communicate with each other, the tedious process of calculating things like initial velocity, trajectory, elevation, and wind was sped up considerably.

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It’s hard to imagine in today’s interconnected society, but there was a time when the internet didn’t exist. If it weren’t for a few brilliant scientists working with the DOD in 1969, you might not be reading this article. Communication methods and the amount of data computers could process were limiting factors that the brilliant minds at the U.S. Department of Defense wanted to fix. Yes, you could call your buddy, but wouldn’t it be great if you could easily exchange large amounts of data? Information sharing was especially important for research departments in academia, government, and military contractors. Computers were already impractically huge, taking up a huge amount of space, so wouldn’t it be beneficial to connect them together to get more processing power, rather than making them even bigger?

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It was from these ideas that ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) was born, which allowed computers to network and share data on a large scale. Initially, the system could only connect one computer to another, but as the technology improved, more and more network connections were made. This also made it harder for an enemy to target if they wanted to destroy communications. Once many computers were networked together through ARPANET, there was no longer a single command center that could paralyze communications and capabilities if it was destroyed. This was just the beginning of the evolution of the Internet, which led to where the technology is today.