Is There a Real Life Iron Man in the U.S. Military's Near Future?

Is There a Real-Life Iron Man in the US Military’s Near Future?
by Chris Vegvary

In a world where there’s no such thing as people who possess the ability to fly without the use of a machine, or people who are invulnerable to any kind of pain or disease, it seems like the government has realized that the closest thing we might get to a real-life superhero (using that term as defining a person with extraordinary or supernatural powers) is the Marvel Comics character, Iron Man. To that end, there appears to be a project in the works for the US Military to start making suits based on the Iron Man suit, but unfortunately, it will not be able to fly anytime soon. Even though it can’t fly, just the thought of our armed forces out there being protected by suits based on Iron Man is a pretty interesting idea. Although today's Flightsuits are pretty cool, imagine one that lets you fly!

Will such a suit allow the wearer to fire repulsor beams from their hands and chest? My guess would be no, not anytime in the near future after they’re made, but think of the level of protection a piece of armor like that could provide. It can’t fly, but what if it can jump? What if it features hydraulics on the feet that can somehow launch the wearer some amount of feet into the air? It’s all just speculation on my part, but like I said, the idea is interesting, and there’s so many things that can be done with it.

Consider, if you will, the War Machine suit from the film Iron Man 2. You could have a suit with a shoulder-mounted cannon, machine gun or otherwise (I’m talking future tech here), along with several compartments hiding smaller, more tactical weapons to surprise the enemy with. The possibilities are kind of mind-blowing when you think about it. However, all this makes me consider one thing: what is the user interface supposed to be like? By which I also mean, how are the weapons controlled? If it’s anything like the A.I. Jarvis in the Iron Man film series, then my guess is it relies on your brain patterns and other ultra-high-tech such-and-suchery to know when to fire which weapon (again, future tech).

While this sort of thing is probably a decade or so down the road from being fully operational, what with all the testing still required (considering it’s still in the planning stages, I believe), it’s really interesting to see that the military is taking cues from our beloved fictional characters, because honestly, we feel like their technology is more advanced than ours, a little too advanced, and we kind of want that technology. To me, that’s awesome.

So unfortunately, we don’t have Iron Man suits available on ARMY NAVY SHOP for you to look at, but if you’re in the military, or you know someone who is in the military, and you happen to be looking for any type of gear including military clothing, accessories, flags, backpacks, and so much more, follow any of the links in this article and check out all our good stuff!