What is "DARPA hard"? (Entered: 2007/01/24 18:48:04)

I had to find this for work, and thought it was interesting, so I'll post it here... it is all copied and paraphrased from various on-line sources, search google for "DARPA Hard" for links....

"DARPA hard" is shorthand for something considered extremely hard to achieve. The implication is that only resources of the scale available to DARPA's would be required to crack the problem. "We’re looking for things that are ‘DARPA Hard.’ We’re about long term, high risk, high pay-off projects that enable operational dominance." Is it DARPA-hard? That is, does it present a high chance of failure? Forget the sure bets; that’s not our business. If it’s not DARPA-hard, let someone else do it. Now you may be saying XXXX has gone off the deep end. Everyone knows those things can’t be done. You know how we react when we hear, ‘Everyone knows’? Great ideas (break-the-mold ideas) always look implausible, impossible, and just downright crazy. That’s why they’re DARPA-hard. That’s why we’re here. “We want innovative ideas that are “DARPA Hard” – where the feasibility hasn’t been proven yet and that fit the mission of DARPA.” That mission, “to solve national level problems, with high-risk, high payoff technologies, and enable operational dominance” is consistently driven through every program supported by DARPA’s SBIR and STTR programs.

Few organizations in the world look as far into the future as DARPA. It regularly thinks 20 and 40 years out and invests its research dollars accordingly. President Eisenhower created DARPA after the shock of Sputnik in 1957; the agency's whole point is to "accelerate the future into being," according to its strategic plan. DARPA invests 90% of its $3-billion-a-year official budget outside the government, mainly funding universities and industry researchers who work at the forefront of the barely possible. By the time a technology is far enough along to attract venture capitalists, DARPA is usually long gone. Its program managers—it has about 140, mostly MDs and Ph.D.s—seek problems they call "DARPA-esque" or "DARPA-hard." Those are challenges verging on the impossible. "We try not to violate any of the laws of physics," says Steve Wax, a DARPA official. "Or at least not knowingly," adds Michael Goldblatt, his ex-boss, "or at least not more than one per program." http://www.mindfully.org/Technology/2005/Perfecting-The-Human30may05.htm

New Programs

• Must result in or point to a new military capability
• Must be about removing a technological barrier, not a policy barrier
  • Problem must be “DARPA-hard”; typically 10x improvement
  • Barrier to capability must be primarily technical, not policy
• Must start from a specific new immature technology idea or ideas
  • Specific = must be identified at the program approval phase
  • New = typically based on work that is < 5 yrs old

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-- BenBurnett - 24 Jan 2007