Yeah, gotta call BS on this one. The speed cited would cause the platform to disintegrate or melt. The shock wave would cause catastrophic damage.
It’s just a matter of math and putting enough garbage into the flight path to damage it enough that it stops.
When you figure that one design for an anti-ballistic missile weapon was basically a giant umbrella frame that was inert because the impact speed would be enough to destroy the warhead.. it makes the term “unstoppable” rather inaccurate.
And nuclear warheads are reentry vehicles that travel MUCH faster than this supposedly “unstoppable” missile.
I remember the hype for laser weapons at one time. Are they ever going to be of much usefulness?
I don’t think anything can fly mach 6 in the lower atmosphere without melting. There’s no material strong enough.
We’ll know when the Norks claim to have one...................
Except the U.S. was already testing the X-51 A "Waverider" hypersonic cruise missile back in 2010. Who knows what they have now.
Yeah, right. Lying news. When the SR-71 was recruited and used by the military, a mach 3.5 aircraft, publicly, it ended up being turned into a spy plane because it ran over it’s own bullets and missiles. It also had a fuel limitation that it had to be refueled to go anywhere just short of cruising altitude right after takeoff.
Which brings to mind, without fuel, what type of range could this thing have? Judging by the picture of it, the body would have been had to be totally fuel and unable to carry any real strong type of payload, if at all, anyway.
The US has already started developing an air craft, the SR-72 to replace the semi-retired SR-71 at Lockheed/McDonald Douglas.
But it also is a spy plane carrying cameras with the exception of being unmanned. They originally retired the SR-71 due to a lack of need with the use of satellites. So they already have operational orbiting cameras.
1” grape shot in its path will do the trick. Or a shock wave.
At 4600 mph the tragectory is completely ptedictable. Should be an easy shot.
Iirc, we recently successfully tested a 4600 mph anti ship missile.
I am the father of the modern hypersonics movement. Yes those speeds are possible. Our target was Mach 8. The weapon actually has to slow down to about Mach 4 for impact as the backend of the warhead (solid metal) will try to catch up with the front end and greatly limit the damage it will do. Once it is lined up in the terminal phase, it is almost unstoppable. No amount of lead shot at it will even phase the warhead. I arranged for one to be sent into a dome of solid granite. The first foot or two shattered around the impact point. The surprising point was that it bored a nice clean 30 plus foot hole into the granite. Which means it was essentially vaporizing. DARPA and NASA really messed up the effort by going off design on some dead ends. The design is for Mach 6 to 8 and run on JP fuel. I have been busy with other things, but the last I knew was they were working on the challenge of keeping it lit. There are a couple of ways and they should use both.
This is a change the nature of warfare weapon if it can be produced. The Russians have been into hypersonics for a long time with little to show for it. I would take any claim with a grain of salt; but I would watch very closely.
This story might be fake and might be true, just like our own recent test intercept of an incoming ICBM. Both sides are posturing toward war, and we have no way of knowing fact from fiction. What we do know is that Putin declared a decade ago that Russia could not afford to match our strategic defensive capabilities, and would instead focus its more limited resources on strategic offensive weapons.
There is also a wiki page for it, FWIW.
> Fake news?
Nope. We were developing similar weapons as far back as the 70s when the Democrats put a stop to such weapons after Nixon. The Russians have caught up and may have surpassed us.
I did work on a Mach 8 (6000mph) surface to air missile system once. The hardest part of the design was keeping the guidance surfaces (fins) from melting off. Luckily we only needed to survive for about 20-25 seconds to get to the target.
but it takes it 3,800 and 4,600 miles for it to get to 3,800mph and 4,600mph so it always runs out of fuel ,LOL
Why are they announcing this now? What do they hope to gain by not keeping it secret until it actually exists?
Boy, I sure am glad while the Russians are developing weapons we don’t have anything close to that we are spending all our time concerned how the Russians helped Trump beat Hillary!
(S)