Iron Man-inspired, jetpack-powered exoskeleton wows military leaders

WaTimes: Eighty years after Superman arrived on Earth, Bruce Wayne first donned his cowl and Steve Rogers transformed into Captain America, the boundless imagination once confined to the pages of popular comic books has become a bottomless well of inspiration to real-life military researchers around the world.

The cutting-edge science and otherworldly gadgets that have been integral to the rise of iconic American superheroes — and helped fuel their unprecedented success at the box office and fan conventions over the past two decades — can no longer be considered purely science fiction, insiders and analysts say.

The most recent example: an Iron Man-inspired, jetpack-powered exoskeleton that has caught the eye of military leaders on both sides of the Atlantic. Pentagon officials say the idea as they originally envisioned has been tabled, but Britain’s defense chief recently marveled at the technology and spoke publicly about how it would aid his soldiers in combat.

“It’s fantastic,” U.K. Defense Minister Gavin Williamson said this month after seeing a demonstration of the suit, which is under development by the British firm Gravity Industries.

Should it come to pass, the Iron Man suit would join a growing list of superhero-inspired weapons, vehicles and artificial-intelligence-driven equipment seemingly pulled straight from the pages of comic books. The technology ranges from the practical — exoskeleton-style armor, unmanned tanks, a new generation of night-vision goggles and Batmobile-style patrol vehicles — to the unbelievable, including gene editing research that eventually could form the foundation of a new breed of “supersoldier.”

While many of the wildest products remain firmly in the research and development phase, analysts argue that human engineering has progressed to a level where the line between fantasy and reality is being adjusted on a near-daily basis.  more