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""We want to give our troops at least a two-horsepower augmentation of strength and endurance," says Ephrahim Garcia, who directed the exoskeleton program at DARPA and is now a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor at Cornell University. The agency gave $50 million in grants to Sarcos, a Salt Lake City engineering firm; Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn.; and the Human Engineering Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley to create a legs-only exoskeleton ready for trials by 2003. A whole-body version could be ready by 2005.

Garcia says versions of the suit could be created for different missions. "Now the soldier can carry 120 pounds and move 2 kilometers an hour," he explains. But, with a suit designed for deep reconnaissance, "he will be able to carry 200 to 300 pounds, which will feel like 5 to 10 pounds, and he'll be able to go as fast as 8 kilometers an hour."