*Or maybe not. We're not sure. Nobody knows.

Although Barack Obama joked before that DARPA and the Pentagon were working on an Iron Man suit, a recent tweet by billionaire genius Elon Musk has thrown more fuel on the fire.

Musk was recently spotted in the Pentagon by CNN, prompting everyone to wonder exactly what he was doing there and why he was there. Sure enough, Musk replied on Twitter that it was "something about a flying metal suit."

Again, that's probably just a joke on his part, but the truth is that the US Army has begun working on exoskeletons and the next thirty to fifty years could very well see Iron Man-esque suits becoming a reality. Already, Raytheon have developed an exoskeleton for military use that will allow soldiers to lift much heavier loads whilst US Special Operations Command have worked on a TALOS (that's Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit) that can break through doors and withstand gunfire with ease.

That's the bullet-proof, super-powered aspect of the suit. What about the flying part?

That, sadly, is much farther away from being a reality. Most jetpacks and personal flight apparatuses can only work for around ten to fifteen minutes of continuous flight, so it's unlikely we'll be seeing actual, full-blown Iron Man suits with flight capability any time soon.

Either way, it's pretty crazy to think that the gap between comic-book superheroes and reality is being bridged. How long before we can all have our Captain America shield? It would have so many uses outside of being a giant frisbee.

 

Via Twitter