As a global force, the U.S. military is called upon to conduct missions that subject its platforms to extreme operational environments and structural loads. The endurance and performance of future Department of Defense platforms may call for the availability of materials with structural properties that significantly surpass the limits of what is achievable with current technology. Material properties include strength, density and stiffness, among many others.
DARPA’s Materials with Controlled Microstructural Architecture (MCMA) program seeks the capability to develop materials with properties tailored to meet specific mission requirements. For instance, DARPA has developed lightweight materials that can absorb energy without failing, or breaking. As shown in this video—previously released in conjunction with a journal article on ultralight metallic microlattices (see https://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6058/962.full)—the nickel microtruss structure can achieve a 40% strain level without collapsing; in fact, it fully recovers its form. DARPA is exploring how much strength and energy absorption can be combined in the same material without damaging it.
For more information on what MCMA research involves, see: https://go.usa.gov/P7w.
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In 1979, the U.S. Customs Service reported that 87% of all marijuana seizures in the U.S. were made in the South Florida area. Due to the region’s 5,000 miles of coast and coastal waterways and close proximity to the Caribbean and Latin America, South Florida was a pot smuggler’s paradise. In sharp contrast to the brazenly violent cocaine cowboys of the 1980s, Miami’s marijuana smugglers were cooler, calmer, and typically nonviolent. Square Grouper paints a vivid portrait of Miami’s pot smuggling culture in the ’70s and ’80s and its major players: the smuggling Black Tuna Gang, the pot dealing Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church and the tiny fishing village of Everglades City.
MPAA Rating: R