The Pentagon's mad-science wing, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), has always marched to its own drummer. That's immediately obvious in the acronyms it uses to describe its personnel, and especially in those used for the more than 200 programs it has running at any given time.

"The names were acronyms made up by the program manager, who always tried to come up with ones which could be pronounced and still described the project," says Tony Tether, DARPA's former and longest-serving director. Or, as a current program manager who asked not to be identified puts it: "We have wacky acronyms. It's our thing."

Here's a guide to some of the terms and program names used at DARPA.

PM: Program Manager. More than a hundred of these dream up and manage the programs that DARPA funds, for everything from exotic aircraft to biotech.

Performer: The contractors who bend the metal and write the code and do all the other grunt work required to turn a PM's dreams into reality.

BAA: Broad Agency Announcement. The main process by which PMs solicit proposals from Performers. It has nothing to do with goats... we're pretty sure.

PAO: Public Affairs Office. The PAO has been known to get nervous about some of the more colorful program names. For example:

MAHEM: Magneto Hydrodynamic Explosive Munition. The program seeks to "increase lethality precision" in bunker-busting missiles, according to DARPA's website. In other words, to create more mayhem. Apt though it might be, the name was apparently a little too risqué for image-conscious PAO staffers, who sent a memo asking PMs to dial back on the not-so-cute factor. Still, the PAO can only suggest, not dictate, how DARPA programs are named, and so, after a brief cooling-off period, the colorful names kept coming. Such as:

ARES: Aerial Reconfigurable Embedded System. This program is named for the Greek god of war, and seeks a hovering drone capable of sending troops and supplies into battle.

MOIRE: Membrane Optic Imager Real-Time Exploitation seeks "real-time images and video of any place on earth at any time" via advanced optics on satellites. It's also the name for a pattern revealed by the intersection of other patterns.

MOIRE.

EXACTO: Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordinance is all about creating bullets that can steer themselves in flight to hit their targets.

Hydra: A program for underwater drones that "would serve as a force multiplier" to deliver military equipment wherever and whenever needed.

Vulture: This program seeks a drone that can stay aloft for years at a time.

InSPIRE: One of the more unwieldy program names, InSPIRE is an acronym that unpacks into yet more acronyms: ISS (International Space Station) SPHERES (Synchronized Position, Hold, Engage, and Reorient Experimental Satellites) Integrated Research Experiments.

InSPIRE.

One Shot XG: This program, according to the DARPA site, "seeks to enable snipers to accurately hit targets with the first round, under crosswind conditions, day or night, at the maximum effective range of the weapon."

One can only guess at the nature and names of the classified programs that are not publicly revealed. Some nonclassified DARPA programs have names that seem designed to obscure their true purposes—System F6 and Plan X, for example, and classified program names may be similarly obscure.

And some DARPA program names have perhaps unintentional meanings. Consider these program names created by PMs who were apparently thinking about lunch time:

BRIOCHE: Sorry, it's not a program for a rapid-fire, multichambered bread machine. This acronym stands for Basic Research On Ionospheric Characteristics and Effects.

QORS: Quantum Orbital Resonance Spectroscopy. Not for brewing beer under extreme conditions.

ALASA: Airborne Launch Assist Space Access. Not a program for developing Plants-versus-Zombie-style weapons, although alasa is the name of a tropical fruit.

ALASA.

"I don't think anybody does like what the DMV does, you know, check to make sure it doesn't mean something obscene in Farsi or something like that," a program manager tells PM. "It wouldn't be wasted effort, probably."

How about it? Can you come up with some creative, potentially PAO-alarming DARPA program names?

Michael Belfiore is the author ofThe Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs.

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