Six Million Dollar Man

Remember the old Six Million Dollar Man series where astronaut Steve Austin, gravely injured, was rescued by scientists who could "build him better" with prosthetics that gave him super human strength, speed and sight. Not bad for a show that ran in the early 70's given the fact pc's did not exist and Intel was just starting out making chips that would change how the world does business.

Thirty some years later, the Six Million Dollar Man, in terms of prosthetic capability, still remains fiction but there's hope...Rocket Man is coming based on radical research, funded by Darpa, to build prosthetics that can actually do something using rocket power as researchers have learned how to fit this tech into the form factor of a bionic arm without blowing up the user. "Our design does not have superhuman strength or capability, but it is closer in terms of function and power to a human arm than any previous prosthetic device that is self-powered and weighs about the same as a natural arm," said researcher Michael Goldfarb, a roboticist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

"It has about 10 times as much power as other [robotic] arms," Goldfarb said"

Click here to see a video on this outrageous device.

If this scales, Terminator and Transformer technology, from the power perspective, could become reality.

The other part of the equation, however, depends on how to use this power to make the prosthetic "feel real". To accomplish this, scientists at the University of Utah intend "to develop a "peripheral nerve interface." The implanted device would relay nerve impulses wirelessly from what's left of a limb to a computer worn on the person's belt. From there, the signals would be routed to a bionic arm and back to the remainder of the amputated arm, where they would then flow naturally back to the brain."

Hey Steve, wanna race?