Times have certainly changed

While researching Arnold Bank, Rico says he came across this reference to some government-sponsored research being done at Carnegie-Mellon:

Carnegie Mellon's National Robotics Engineering Consortium and Boeing Integrated Defense Systems in St. Louis will receive $5.5 million over eighteen months to construct the first all-terrain, unmanned ground combat vehicle. It will be named the Spinner. With no humans aboard the vehicle, engineers can ignore amenities, but the final product will climb four-foot steps, stay on duty for fourteen days without refueling, and hit the war scene faster than a tank. The vehicle is expected to operate even if it's turned over. It can also stack itself atop similar vehicles.

Rico says that would never have happened back when he was at CMU; Vietnam was barely over, and no one loved tanks (except him).