THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE has given millions of dollars to a company you've never heard of in order to fund something called Project M, whose aim is "The Use of Modern Sensing and Actuation Technologies Coupled With High Speed Processing to Control Complex Dynamic Systems." In English, this means three objectives: "active control of vibration, active control of mechanical shock, and active control of magnetic fields."

But for what purpose? To create an army of Magnetos capable of hurling large metallic objects at the enemy? Not quite. To find the answer, I turned to the recently retired chief of naval research, Rear Admiral Jay M. Cohen.

I had an opportunity to speak with the admiral a few months ago when I first heard of the possible military applications for magnetic-levitation technology. Cohen, in a phone interview, explained how the Navy's interest in MagLev originated with the need for silencing machinery aboard ships. "Throughout history," he said, "we had used rubber mounts" to reduce noise and vibration. "What all navies have traditionally done is put heavy, large cables all around the perimeter of the ship. We then pass electric currents through them to try and nullify the electromagnetic feature of the steel hulls."

But what if you could drastically reduce the amount of noise a ship makes directly at the source? One small company in Alexandria, Virginia, was proposing just that. The result was Project M.

Vibration & Sound Solutions Limited (VSSL) suggested placing mag-lev sensors at the source of the electromagnetic fields, such as motors. The idea was to actually levitate the machinery with an array of electromagnets while using a small amount of power. "The technology really worked," says Admiral Cohen. "But, like other technologies, it was ahead of its time." He described the innovation as a "disruptive technology" that goes "against the more tried and true ways of doing things." And "for whatever reason, the decision was taken to not pursue at that time that very promising technology." (Cohen was quick to point out the decision was not his but, as he called it, "Big Navy's.")

There would, however, be other opportunities. According to a recent study by the Naval Health Research Center, "Boat operators and crew of U.S. Navy Special Warfare combatant craft are routinely exposed to severe boat-wave impacts as part of their mission training and execution." Since 9/11, there has been a growing need for littoral operations--taking place on shores and coastlines and requiring fast-moving transports and the deployment of SEAL teams. But en route to missions, riding on high-speed vessels such as the Mark V, said Cohen, "You find that we're bracing ourselves, either standing and holding on to a bar or backbrace . . . or we're [resting] on passive shock-mitigating seats. It occurred to me that we were doing damage."

Indeed, as a Mark V hits the waves at 45 knots, those on board can experience up to 8 G's of pressure. "And that's vertical on their spine," notes the admiral. "You can imagine the tap-tap-tap. . . ." The successor to the Mark V is the Sea Fighter (formerly the X-Craft), a 262-foot, 1,000-ton, aluminum catamaran that travels up to 50 knots on the high seas. This led Cohen to "look at decoupling the human from the impact of the craft using this magnetic levitation, and that was sort of the genesis of the seats that you see today."

THE SHOCK-MITIGATING SEATS were developed by VSSL, and fast-tracked under the Office of Naval Research's "Swampworks" program. As Cohen explained it, "the first seat we did was what we call a semipassive seat. It denses the acceleration but then reduces it. It takes us from about 8 G's to 2 to 3 G's, and it has removed the rapid shock, the bang--and it worked well." Secondly, "you have a wave-height sensor forward on the small ship and you could anticipate what the reaction of the ship would be to its meeting that wave. You could then pre-position that seat to get the optimum G-force reduction."

Not only did I sit on one of the prototype shock-mitigating seats at VSSL's facility--an unassuming 23,000-square-foot low-rise office that consumes at least one block--but I also watched the company's "Six Degree-Of-Freedom Motion Simulator" at work. The test rig is impressively equipped with solid-state electromagnetic drivers and able to produce an effective shock environment. That's not all they are working on.