HARD TO BELIEVE WE COULD HAVE EVEN FEWER CASUALTIES THAN NEARLY NONE, BUT...:

MIT 'air force' could help perfect unmanned craft: Lab's focus is software to better control drones for warfare, industry (Peter J. Howe, November 20, 2006, Boston Globe)

Who says battery-powered airplanes have to be outdoor toys?

Not aeronautics professor Jonathan How of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , who along with a team of students this fall has turned an MIT lab into a first-of-its-kind US test bed for "unmanned aerial vehicles" that, with the help of computers, fly themselves.

It's undeniably fun, How admits, to get away with flying a model helicopter inside. But his team's work, sponsored by aircraft giant Boeing Co.'s Phantom Works research unit, could one day help revolutionize one of the fastest-growing sectors of the aviation industry, remote-controlled flying devices that are increasingly being used for everything from warfare and border surveillance to battling forest fires and doing seismic testing for oil deposits.

Teal Group , an aerospace and defense market-analysis firm in Fairfax, Va., recently projected that worldwide spending on unmanned aerial vehicles and related systems will represent a $55 billion worldwide market over the next 10 years. Annual spending on flying drone systems could triple, to $8.3 billion in 2016 from $2.7 billion now.