Can there be an Iron man in reality?

Personal body armor is a concept so integral to the human psyche that it's constantly manifested in fantasy and myth even when it's lacking in contemporary culture. Ironman is on such representation of the phenomena.

"Ironmen" are products of technological eras. They've already been:

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and they will be again.

Peace,

KAI

This Guy, seems to think so. Eventually.

[edit on 30-4-2008 by Shazam The Unbowed]

by 2050 i guess. Dun worry we are smarter than aliens. Invent something we cant are the key to sucession.

I'll betcha extraterrestrials have the know-how to build a skin-tight full-body suit that is essentially bullet-proof, yet flexible... augments physical strength and resists radiation. Anti-gravity flight capabilities, too. Wouldn't that be cool?

Sure there can be an Iron Man but he would be a Twinky!

Firm an the outside with a cream filling.

There is not stopping concussion!

A single round to the head with a high calibre would splatter his brain against his own skull.

Iron man=Possible

Goverment actually shelling out a trillion for each one=never

What will the use be for such a iron man? Pulling cats out trees, and fighting off firey evil arch-nemisis? Even if we reached the stage where human have the cabability to produc a full-fledged "Tank-Suit", it would never be viable? With the current USA defence budget, you might be able to equip all of Delta-Force with these, but that would really be pushing it.

Why would you need iron-man when a tank can just do the job? And to the previous poster, kudos to you for mentioning that whatever technology Iron Man has, will juts be scaled up and put into a bigger package. This is true. Why go for a body suit, when you can build a indestructable MBT, with amplified Firepower?

The only problem I had with the Ironman movie was how he took 120mm tank round (most likely sabot) to the face and walked away with virtually no scars.

That's a big round, the size of his arm and for it to hit him; bring him down and for him to get up without so much as an indentation is beyond me. They said his armor was made of Titanium alloys. The round should have penetrated that thin plating.

For the price, a tank could easily defeat a suit of this nature. But this suit would do WONDERS in urban guerrilla warfare.

Shattered OUT...

reply to post by ShatteredSkies

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MOAB's do wonders in urban warfare

reply to post by hpsfl

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We want to pacify the area, not level it.

Shattered OUT...

I searched for the answer to this question myself after reading some of the threads and arguments on IMDb, and my search ended at this article:



Some of the responses to the article I find more interesting and informative than the article itself.

[edit on 6-5-2008 by Alexi Humi]

If I remember correctly, the Terminator (Arnie) was powered by two hydrogen fuel cells, not that the Terminator is real or anything..

[edit on 6/5/08 by Cthulwho]

reply to post by Cthulwho

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Actually it's not a hydrogen fuel cell, it's a hydrogen FUSION cell.

Essentially there's a miniature nuclear reactor in each terminator.

Shattered OUT...

In addition there are other things wrong with the flying suit as shown.

Even with locks and controls, if one 'foot' flames out, it puts the suit into a spin.

The engines don't appear to be 'directional' or 'vectored' which would be required.

Having steering jets in the palms would also be problematic. The arms and legs would have to be 'locked' when in flight to prevent the jets from ripping off a limb.

Though there may be ways around this using fly-by-wire computer controls, and seeing the thrust come out of the feet and hands is 'uber cool', the best personal jet would be a single jet-pack, and the steering would be best served by rigid arms which came out from the single backpack like the classic 007 rocket pack.

Agree on the material not withstanding even small arms fire. Since gold is a very soft element (not to mention heavy) it remains to be seen if a Titanium/Gold alloy would be especially hard. Odd choice, too, b/c the original comic just used 'Iron Alloy'. ISTM they'd have been better served to use an 'unobtanium' or 'adamantium' alloy, since they used a science-fiction energy source.

There might have been a possibility of citing some kind of super-ceramic material, or an alloy of known materials which is currently impossible to manufacture. Boron-ceramic-titanium alloy which confers 'special' properties that are not able to be disproved would work. Should have hired a better 'science geek' to consult, LOL.



[edit on 7-5-2008 by Badge01]

Hate to nitpick but...

As a fusion cell, the power source would be more like two miniature stars inside every terminator.

Also, the Ironman suite would need to have some sort of magical inertial dampening system to keep his guts and brain from becoming a nice biological soup. As far as I know, no one has figured out a way to violate the law of physics and dampen inertial forces at their whim.

Jon

reply to post by Voxel

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"...inertial damping"

I got the feeling they may have explored such things, maybe in an earlier draft, but decided in the end, it would require too much screen time explaining it all.

After all, the ST series used 'inertial dampeners' and didn't have to explain them. Heck, a lot of people probably would believe that we already have these, given the exposure to sci-fi in movies and on TV.

They left out vectored thrust, too, which is now fairly commonly in use and is superior to using flaps and control surfaces in many aerial maneuvers.

BTW, you may be essentially on the right track with the suit causing excessively high forces but remember that people can pull higher G, they just pass out.

The record is 47g on a rocket sled and the guy lived, just had two black eyes. How the suit would have compensated for the fast rolling is not clear. That would be more disorienting than just pulling straight Gs.

Even then ST get away with it by using a warp bubble. Inside the warp bubble you are essential not moving. The warp bubble itself is traveling through space so there is no violation of Newton's laws. I think ST uses the inertial dampeners just during "impulse" maneuvers.



49G is impressive but I would wager that the G forces received from the sudden (though short-lived) acceleration due to an RPG or sabot impact would be in excess of 200Gs or more. At those energies arteries collapse, cells rupture, the brain is smashed against one side of the brain case, and bones are shattered.

Thats not even considering concussive force as someone mentioned earlier. Unless the suite is also sound-proof (like the inside is a vacuum) just the concussive energy from a blast would scramble the wearer's insides.

The suite would really by little more than a wearable coffin. It would help to contain all the juices that make normal warfare so unsavory and messy.

Jon

reply to post by Voxel

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And that's exactly what it is... if you watch Terminator 3, the T-101 demonstrates this power.

Shattered OUT...

Wondering....in the scene he's being chased by Raptors....wouldnt the G forces kill him when he suddenly breaks?. Like...his internal organs squishing against his armor at the speed of sound?

reply to post by Ioseb_Jugashvili

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I think the suit itself acts as an advanced G-Suit.

But the Raptors seem to keep up par with him, so if the pilots in the F-22's can survive, so can he?

Shattered OUT...

reply to post by ShatteredSkies

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I could be wrong but I believe he stops from 800km/hr to....0?

The raptors on the other side....do not...was just an observation anyway