Thursday, April 9, 2009

another kind of spider

I have now been working on a military weapon system for three weeks. I have been getting up to speed on the Spider minefield munition control system. It is an updated weapon system to replace landmines. I have always had negative thoughts about landmines and how they have killed so many innocent people. I have read a lot about why they are controversial and agree that they seem pretty unethical. The updated Spider system eliminates the concerns that people had with landmines. A person is required now to detonate anything in the system to avoid killing innocent people. Also, the new mines expire/sterilize and quite working after 30 days if left unattended. This didn't happen with old landmines and some of them are still exploding 40+ years later. There are lots of plans to develop nonlethal options for border and perimeter control which sound very useful to me. Spider would be used to scare and injure intruders instead of killing people.

This is still not work I dreamed of doing but it is getting more fascinating and challenging. I feel like I should stick it out and do this work for now, in the hopes of doing work that I love in the near future.

I think it is interesting that I got placed on probably the most controversial weapon that ATK creates. It is definitely challenging my ethical and moral dilemma with war and weapons.

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