According to 1984's Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, Iron Man's armor is able to, you know, exist, thanks to something called "biological circuit fabrication." This is a fancy way of saying that all the circuitry inside is very, very small, apparently... which happens to be exactly the kind of thing that scientists happen to be working on at this very moment:

[A] group of scientists led by Michael Sussman, director of University of Wisconsin, Madison's Biotechnology Center, and oceanography professor Virginia Armbrust of the University of Washington, are seeing if diatoms will help make even smaller integrated circuit chips by a similar process of biological fabrication... Sussman's interest in diatoms is based on the fact that diatoms are capable of creating lines of silica much smaller than present chip manufacturing processes can make out of silicon.

"If we can genetically control that process, we would have a whole new way of performing the nanofabrication used to make computer chips," says Sussman.

Rex Jameson bikes and swims regularly, and plays tennis and skis when time allows. But the 5-foot-11, 180-pound software engineer is lucky if he presses 200 pounds — that is, until he steps into an "exoskeleton" of aluminum and electronics that multiplies his strength and endurance as many as 20 times... Jack Obusek, a former colonel now with the Army's Soldier Research Development and Engineering Center in the Boston suburb of Natick, foresees robot-suited soldiers unloading heavy ammunition boxes from helicopters, lugging hundreds of pounds of gear over rough terrain or even relying on the suit's strength-enhancing capabilities to make repairs to tanks that break down in inconvenient locations.

Microbes could build 'Iron Man' circuits [LiveScience]
Robotic suit could usher in super soldier era

Ruth's letter says it all:

Please forward this to the proper channels. I have read Stephen Hawking's latest remarks on space travel and the importance of it to human survival. The problem is, NASA is going about it all the wrong way.

Here is an idea: Send battle-hardened, strong-minded soldiers and marines on the long trips into space. We are conditioned to live with the bare minimal (of) life's necessities and are trained to be prepared for ... the worst conditions that any environment could throw at us.

Hell, me and my men will go, set up a colony somewhere and await colonists to arrive.

Me and most of my men are on our 3rd or 4th deployment into a combat area. We are scouts, reconnaissance specialists. We go before everyone else and spend time living off the land. Sounds just like the type of men needed for a long colonization journey.

Please pass this message on to anyone you know in the space program. (T)here are many men already trained and prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country and the human race.

Thank you for you time.

SFC Ruth, 101st Airborne Division. Afghanistan

Source: LiveScience.com