With all the hoopla about Iron Man, DVICE blog wonders if we can actually build a real Iron Man suit. Step one is to check out what history has to offer, and that's Hardiman exoskeleton for humans:
Before we start building our own Iron Man suit, let’s first benefit from the experience from those who have tried this in the past. In 1965, GE (disclosure: our parent company, bless ’em) was the first to try creating an exoskeleton for humans. But the first iteration went berserk — kicking, bucking and gyrating so much, they never chanced it with a human inside. The project was scaled down to an arm that would be able to lift 750 pounds, enough to load up a bomb onto a plane on an aircraft carrier. Big problem, though: The arm itself weighed 1,500 pounds, far beyond anyone’s capacity to handle it. The idea was scrapped.
Read the rest of the entertaining article here: Link - via Gorilla Mask
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-04/building-real-iron-man