The Manta Ray: How America's Futuristic Underwater Drone will Change Warfare. 

I'll be bummed out if this cancels the Sharks With Frickin' Lasers Beams Attached to Their Heads research program.

Now that I am sixty years old, I am starting to get an inkling of what my father experienced in his life. He was born in 1931 in a cabin in Quebec. He always remarked that he was born before televisions and there were very few telephones and family cars; he remembered his expression of disbelief was “Sure! And let’s just go to the moon while we’re at it!” when he was a child. I remember when tv’s were black and white, and only picked up two channels….. but only if the weather was good. I remember milkmen and collect calls and dressing in my best to go to the doctor, church, and when flying. I remember thinking how awesome it was when I got my first push-button phone (and it was attached to the wall in the kitchen). When I see projects like this, I think back to how far we have come since I was born in 1964 and I wonder what my grandchildren will be looking back upon when they reach my age.

The best inventions are the ones no one knows exists...

If your able to talk about it then your about 5-7 years behind, this will already be in service,

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1050">17:30</a> somewhere in a darpa office: Hey we got this cool new toy but what can we do with it? someone else: i dunnno, let's release the information to the public and monitor youtube for ideas

I've said it before and I'm happy to say it again: I consider your offerings and those from Alex Hollings to be the the most genuine and honest channels for these types of discussions. Never see any clickbait or over the top BS headlines. Thank you for continuing your excellent work...

Projects like these aren't discussed unless they're already several steps ahead in development, so this thing already has the ability to fight and reconnoiter. When Russia revealed Poseidon, it was obvious the US already had its version.

Swedish Silent Submarines: No one will ever find us since we are so covert. Manta Ray: (whispering from behind) The following thirty minutes could hold anything.

Programmer: “Pop up where you’re least expected” Pops up on Christmas in a mall dressed as Manta Claws

Thanks for crediting Alex Hollings as a reference, his previous work on the DARPA Manta Ray was also excellent (I am a big Alex/ Sandboxx News fan!)

That which is in the Sea is similar to Space. Autonomous Drone's. X-37. 2+ year mission's in space. Has had different configurations as per mission requirements.

I can envision a SciFi movie featuring a Manta Ray drone which becomes sentient and then goes rogue. The possibilities are fascinating.

Columbian customers in the " export pharmacuticle business " have already ordered the first one hundred. 😂

Patience Skynet, patience another ten years the world will be yours. 😂😂😂

Looking forward to the next one as much as I enjoyed watching this! Thanks for sharing this adventure- just love the site, and I’m glad you’re making the most of that view of the gully behind it!

The potential of stealthily traveling up a river with a nuclear bomb is more terrifying than anything you mentioned.

I wonder what kind of voice Habitual Linecrosser will give it 😂

*A submarine's worst nightmare:* "Please reconnect controller."

Love that you guys consistently quote Hollings on these things!

that was one of my favourite programs on TV back in the 70's ...looks GREAT in HD COLOUR!!!

Metal Gear Strikes Again. GG Kojima, saw it coming from 2001 👏

These manta rays will disturb Godzilla sleeping deep underwater and then all hell will break loose.

As usual, a fascinating subject. Once again, I'm grateful for the years of wonderful content!

If we can view this project openly, it isn't as important as we think. DARPA releases info when intimidation is where the most value to be had.

These things like the drone in this video, that we hear about are things I'm sure that's been worked on and developed for years, I think these are amazing, I just hope it's something that's sustainable and could be quickly produced in time's of need.

Looks like the flying sub from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea tv series...OR The Romulan Bird of Prey from Star Trek, take your pick.

Lots of fascinating information, splendidly presented. Thank you.

Not just the seas and oceans but also up estuaries and rivers right into the hart of major cities around the world

deliver fresh groceries to our special forces on missions

DARPA has demonstrated water-vehicles that use 'wings' to sail much like an airplane. They trade small changes in depth for forward travel...<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1201">20:1</a> glide-slope is easy in water. Internal bladders control buoyancy of the vehicle. Quite energy efficient, absurdly quiet. Perfect for silent missions.

My brother worked for General Electric in the UK back in the 1990’s and told me of a project like this back then. It was one of the reasons he moved on. He didn’t like the idea of spending the rest of his career making the deadliest weapons on earth. He’s been making games with Rockstar for the last 20 or so years and seems a lot calmer.

US Military: We have new hardware Orca’s: Thank you for new toy to tear apart.

Honestly I think there’s an even more obvious use for them, parking them on the sea floor just outside of PRC territorial waters in arcs around PLAN submarine bases with a pair of Mk54 torpedoes on board and when war kicks off use them to sink PLAN submarines as they leave base for open water.

My thoughts? 1. The visibile screws are not used for propulsion, except if the drone is damaged in some way to make the main drive non-functional. No, these are the generators that are feathered when in active propulsion. 2. The two eyes are intakes to a non-MHD tunnel drive that provides backpressure against it's internal turbines (tesla turbines would be good, they are bladeless) to prevent cavitation. This would be used for attack speed manouvers. 3. The leisure drive system that takes almost no power would be a ballast purge and fill system that would cause propulsion by gliding up, and down the water column as it changes depth. Already used in some ocean drones, and very effective. 4. The vertical stab is not needed, don't expect it on the final version. The drone appears to have two beautiful alierons (hydrons?) on the trailing edge of the wing, and we know how Northrop/Grumman likes brakeable flaperons on the rear of it's stealth aircraft. Getting rid of the vertical stab would decrease the Manta's sonar visibility profile dramatically.

Everybody talking about the Manta Ray But nobody talking about Simon's nice looking Chandelier in the background :(

If the future of naval warfare will be drone-centered as it currently seems it will be, then an additional use case for the manta ray might be to function as a sort of logistics network. It can set up small recharge stations and communication points ahead of other drones that could either be cheap kamikaze style drones, or more expensive drones capable of bearing other armaments. Not sure how realistic that is, but I do think this drone sounds a little on the large and especially expensive end to be used as a kamikaze drone itself.

"Deep diving whales that do battle with mighty Cephalopods..." Just not that whale shown in the intro.

Unmanned, autonomous and armed. What could possibly go wrong?

I think there may be cameras fitted to the bottom of ships soon. 😆 outstanding video as always thanks Simon. 👍

Aquatic life is just a whole different level. I work at a pet store, and a few weeks ago we found a fish with no eyes in one of the tanks. The other fish just ate his eyes while he was alive, and left him blind. And these are literally the fish you buy for you kids as pets. Ocean scary, man. Ocean scary

I think it was a year ago that I saw the UK had come up with this beautiful design. I am 67 years old and when I was 7 years old, I used to watch a TV show called Voyage to the bottom of the sea. A futureistic submarine called the SEA VIEW had a beautiful bow design on the submarine, simular to the Manta Ray, except the bow had huge windows to observe the sea, as you drink your coffee. As a diver I have long admired the living form of the RAY SPIECES and harking back to the days of the famous SEA VIEW I HAVE ALL WAYS LOVED. No cell phones, no remote controls, no color TV but I did have a Admirals Uniform I wore to church, when I was 7. Now adays, people play games on their cell phones while sitting on the gym equipment. And what ever you do dont you dare bother them.

If talking about it. It’s already operational

Breaks down into five pieces - undetectable by X-ray! I like it.

5879 views in just 30 mins.. Simon is really outdoing himself here Atta boy!

Does a guy with a black helmet who pops out of it and it fight aquaman?

This is really AMAZING!!! Now I have faith in humanity. And I will create my Creations.

Fascinating information, thank you.

I’ve been waiting for this one!

They’re gonna find the aliens with this bad boy

Okay this is badass

If this had been posted and hosted by anyone else I would absolutely think this was a conspiracy theory

Absolutely amazing and I'm so glad it's ours. Make it happen DARPA and friends!

In 1942 Murray Leinster wrote a story called "The Wabbler" which came to mind during the discussion of the Manta project.

An alternate way to travel underwater, with minimal engine-noise: an internal bladder is compressed, allowing the craft to glide forward while descending... and by releasing that bladder, they rise while still gliding forwards. Dolphins use the same trick with compressed air in their lungs, to 'glide up-and-forward' then 'glide down-and-forwards'.

@<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="697">11:37</a> - "What exactly is it supposed to do...?" I'll tell ya what it's supposed to do.... Scare the shit out of the bad guys !!!

So it runs on the same concept as geothermal. Park at the bottom release a bouy with tube that have some material that flows and is optimized for those temperatures and pressures to flow and drive any number of ways to capitalize on the energy gradient or flow. Dope idea

I love it solar running along the top will make it so it never is dead and less goes wrong with that process

So soo sooo cool!

Surprised it doesn't use water jets rather than propellers. Be more stealthy, faster and a damn sight cooler.

The Manta Ray is / was in my backyard in Port Hueneme, CA. Bow to stern the Manta measures approx. thirty-two feet, wing tip to wing tip the Manta measures approx. forty-six feet. It can be seen on Google Earth (11/09/23 and 3/06/24) in Port Hueneme, CA at: 34° 9'12.98"N, 119°12'31.07"W.

I feel like I need to take a nap inside a manta ray. Looks very relaxing

Just in its functioning, this is an incredible piece of engineering. The salt water battery is incredible, and the design should make it much more difficult to detect, like a stealth jet fighter. It'll be a while before it's fully functional, I'm sure, but what a great piece of tech!

So... Will the US get that guy with the big goofy helmet, that shoots a laser for some reason, to lead this project? And how would that effect its relationship with Atlantis 😅?

SWEET EPISODE!!!! 👍🏻🫡🇺🇸👍🏻

I think I should curl up inside a manta ray and take a nap. It appears to be rather soothing.

Got it. So DARPA and team built a real life Metal Gear.

I created a similar hypothetical design in college. My idea was to anchor a buoyant winged device to the sea floor. In my sketch up it didn't use a propulsion system making it incredibly quiet. It was essentially the undersea equivalent of a glide bomb with an almost unlimited payload and since it had no propulsion when attacking it would be almost impossible to detect. It would use an onboard database of known ship signatures as targets. After a sonic activation signal it would target any of the known ships autonomously if they came into range.

Excellent stuff bro

The Houthis would love to have a couple of these. Bad actors drool for the chance to hold sea lanes hostage.

how viable is this considering the ukranians made cheap sea drones and nearly wiped out the russian fleet without having a fleet themselves lol

When i heard about the energy goals, i thought i was going to hear about someone solving the drag issue. Was both really excited and frustrated i wasnt involved. Thankfully my pipe dream still exists 😂

@<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="69">1:09</a> omfg i just realized this beat is the opening seconds of "mechanical man" from command & conquer :O

I wonder if they will have to make it shark proof because of all the electrical activity in the drone lol.

In three years, Cyberdyne will become the largest supplier of military computer systems. All stealth bombers are upgraded with Cyberdyne computers, becoming fully unmanned. Afterwards, they fly with a perfect operational record. The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes online August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="134">2:14</a> a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.

I really enjoyed this one

Amazing breakdown of the Manta Ray and its potential impacts on future naval warfare. The autonomy and long-range capabilities of this underwater drone seem to be the future.

Not knowing its size, I imagine it surfacing inside a ships hidden well deck, then hull panels slid close as a crane lifts it onto blocks for servicing, while a second Manta is positioned over the hull panels, waiting for them to open and let it continue its mission. ;-)

There’s two reasons we get to know about DARPA projects publicly. 1. They’ve already been built, deployed, and in use for years or 2. It’s FUD, Fully Unrealized Documentation meant to confuse and intimidate adversaries that we might just be capable of this sorta shit.

It's a beautiful looking craft

5879 views in a half-hour. Atta boy, Simon is really surpassing himself with this!

Lemme guess! The want to use it to explore the manganese nodules on the deep sea floor!

Simon: *mentions DARPA* Me, in a shocked yet gritty voice: "Metal Gear?!"

Cool!

My money's on these being used primarily for recon/intelligence. An autonomous drone patrolling waterways and coastlines could quietly provide all sorts of highly accurate maps, logs of boat traffic, or be an effective minesweeper. Imagine a fleet of these drones serving as advance scouts wherever the navy is looking to deploy, and keeping the area under surveillance during operations.

Ngl the pictures of that thing were amazing to see in the news a couple weeks ago. Rare we get to see military tech like this

this deserves a Subscribe

Solid show and info. Maybe they can place a tracker on enemy subs as they transit choke points.

this make me remember that episode in Arpeggio of Blue Steel where Iona using the Auxiliary Vessel made by Hyuga.

If you don't mind a very low data rate, you can communicate with something under the ocean using ELF radio. Basically you transmit at something down below 1KHz, perhaps as low as 20Hz. The receiver basically detects variations in the magnetic field. Over a period of several minutes, you can send a message effectively in a very narrow bandwidth. In fact, the information would be sent in a spread spectrum manner so that the signal would be less obvious. Return signals may not be practical because of the power demand of a transmitter.

Imagine putting a EMP in it to disable subs then tow it to get the crew out safe. Then take the sub apart and scraping it for parts.

This working alongside SwarmDiver, Ocean Aero Triton and others would be a great way to patrol the Pacific.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="485">8:05</a> Regarding its profile for sonar detection..... My guess is that it's an unmanned vehicle, intended to operate autonomously, for long periods in the field, and without the constant need for human control, but that is still in its prototype / developmental stage, I imagine having it be easily detectible might be an intentional choice. You know.... in case, it gets lost and/or damaged, and needing recovery.

Fire the manta ray! Pew! Pew! Mind you, "Screamers" wasn't supposed to be a documentary.

I straight-up drew some shit like this when I was in middle school, though my version used electric turbines in a flow-through propulsion design so there would be less noise from external propellers. Glad to know that my bullshitting wasn't as unfeasible as it seemed.

Looks dope

All these kojima metal gear solid things coming to life, next up? Unlimmited ammo bandana - ifykyk

Aussie here ... We'll have 50 please 😁

Messages underwater are typically best relayed by sonar. I am positive we could deploy a surface buoy with sonar equipment to relay information underwater in complex combat situations, basically allow for manual override by a pilot, when necessary. Decision making always has to have a human pulling the trigger as the final check.

Re: the first mention of Manta Ray, Phase I projects typically don't involve any direct hardware development, and so tend to be relatively quick and inexpensive. They're used to identify stake-holders, define specs, and ideally come to an agreement to pursue a Phase II project which encompasses the actual development. It's not surprising that the due date for the Phase I was under a year, since it mainly involves just talking to people. What's surprising is the $12MM price tag - this means that they had to interview a *lot* of people about a *lot* of different things, which indicates the huge scope of the potential project.

Everyone on this planet just baffles me when they see something like this and don't get alarmed when i say "Skynet" Just clueless to the pandoras box we are opening.