Aerospace Technologies and Applications for Dual Use: A New World of Defense and Commercial in 21st Century Security

Events which occurred over the past years have shown how the threat related to both intentional and natural disasters could bring the civil and the miliary worlds closer in the conception and deployment of countermeasures, as well as in the identification of effective strategies for enhancing the Planet safety and security. In this frame, the concept of dual use - the set of technologies and applications that can be exploied for both civil and military purposes - becomes a key-topic. In addition, the aerospace is a strategic building block in the deployment of a network centric environment that aims at the global protection of the mankind. Aeropsace is also a natural environment for dual use: many of the related enabling technologies have been first developed for the military world and then applied to civil - including commercial - purposes.