US Air Force

The Air Force recently released its outline for a 30-year strategy, charting the future of a branch of the military that has been recently transformed by technological innovations like the development of advanced unmanned aerial vehicles. In the new plan, the Air Force highlighted technologies it would be targeting in the coming decades.

The advances will focus on adding even more "speed, range, flexibility, and precision" to the Force's operations.

"The aircraft as an instrument of war was once considered 'game changing,'" the report says. "Pursuit of the next 'game changing' technology is central to maintaining the asymmetric advantage our Air Force has always provided the nation."

The report highlighted five areas in which the branch will direct its attention over the next three decades — technological developments that can keep the Air Force prepared to face future threats and maintain the U.S.' global military edge.

Hypersonics

Boeing X-51 More

U.S. Air Force/Chad Bellay/Wikimedia

Unmanned Boeing X-51 Waverider.

The Air Force has a natural interest in increasing its planes' speed, a development that would vastly broaden the Force's travel and attack options.

"Though we may not always desire to operate at the fastest possible speed, the ability to do so creates a significant advantage," the report said.

Back in 2013, the Air Force tested the Boeing X-51A, which reached Mach 5.1 and traveled 230 nautical miles in six minutes, making it the "longest air-breathing hypersonic flight ever."

The Air Force also plans to test a technology called boost-glide, which it hopes to have ready by 2020 at the latest, Breaking Defense reported. A boost-glided projectile is a "payload delivery vehicle that glide[s] at hypersonic speeds in the atmosphere for most of [its] flight path," an Air Force officer told Space News in 2011. The eventual goal is to have "boost-glide running at Mach 8 speeds, which is more than 6,000 miles per hour."

Nanotechnology

View photos nanotech thing More

National Science Foundation

Gold-polymer nanorods self-assemble into a curved structure during research conducted at Northwestern University. The National Science Foundation says that curving nanorods have applications for "drug-delivery systems, nanoscale electronics, catalysts and light-harvesting materials."

The Air Force believes that nano-technology will have a direct application for both flight and space travel.

"By manipulating materials at the molecular level, we can create structures that are both stronger and lighter, contributing to both speed and range," the report said.

Miniature systems will also allow for the Air Force to operate in new situations and could change the way the branch approaches its missions in "highly contested environments," per the report.

On a similarly small scale, researchers backed by the Air Force have been designing a small, bandage-like patch that would monitor stress and fatigue levels for military combatants, The Boston Globe reports. Surely, this is something that would be sure to make its way to airmen and commanders once completed.