US military to develop "hypersonic" weapons

[I, Brian]

Hypersonic weapons? Yup - you'd better believe it. The US military is now conducting funding into the use of hypersonic launch vehicales, that will effectively allow the US to strike any target in the world within 2 hours.

A wild goose chase - or an important opening into research areas vital for human development?

And how does this relate to politically on the world stage?

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994408

excerpt:

The US military has begun development of an ultra-high speed weapons system that would enable targets virtually anywhere on Earth to be hit within two hours of launch from the continental US.

Ten companies have been given grants by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Pentagon for six-month "system definition" studies. If the Pentagon likes the results, a three-year design and development phase will begin.

The ultimate aim, slated for around 2025, is a reusable Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle (HCV) that can take off from a conventional runway in the US and strike targets up to 16,700 kilometres (10,350 miles) away.

"There is a strategic military need to be able to strike potentially dangerous military targets that are far away and may only be accessible for a short period of time," explains Daniel Goure, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, a think tank in Washington DC.

Current cruise missiles travel relatively slowly, meaning a target may move before it arrives. One solution is to use military bases in foreign countries, but this brings political and logistical difficulties. A hypersonic weapons systems solves both problems.

However, experts describe the technical challenges posed by the program as "tough" and "challenging". Tearing through the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds requires materials that can withstand the phenomenal temperatures produced by air resistance. Travelling above the atmosphere, in space, avoids this, but would require the creation of a new type of rocket-plane hybrid vehicle.

[rocketboy]

I think that hypersonics could be transformational in how it allows wars to be conducted. The thing about faster cruise missiles in particular - you might stand a better chance of putting ordnance on someone like Bin Laden if you could get flight time down from 60 minutes to 6 minutes. I recall that after the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in '98, Clinton ordered a Tomahawk strike on Bin Laden and missed him by about 40 minutes. If we'd have had a hypersonic missile, maybe we wouldn't have missed - and the world might be a somewhat different (better?) place.

Hypersonics could also allow you to launch payloads into orbit - to replace a spy satellite that's run out of fuel or been knocked out by an adversary. However, that means expanding the shooting war into space, which is something that once upon a time we all said we weren't going to do. But then again, maybe that was just wishful thinking. Maybe any realm into which humans become able to operate - the sea, the air, a new continent or world for that matter, inevitably becomes a venue for war.

Still, I'm not sure about the value of global reach hypersonic aircraft. To be able to travel 10,000 nm in 2 hrs is awesome, but if you use an aircraft like that for strategic reconnaisance, you're just going to piss off whoever it is you're spying on, thereby negating what you are trying to do on a diplomatic front. To try to conduct tactical reconnaisance or tactical operations at global ranges seems somewhat pointless. If you don't have a local ally within a couple of thousand miles of your intended target, what are you doing in that part of the world anyway? I think the justification for the CONUS basing and the long range is the fact that such a vehicle would run on liquid hydrogen, and it is difficult to maintain LH2 facilities around the world - and for that matter, build and operate a fleet of LH2 tanker jets. Better to build a nearer term hypersonic aircraft that can do about 2500 nm unrefueled - tactical missions - that runs on regular jet fuels.

[I, Brian]

Thanks for that, rocketboy - and welcome to the chronicles-network!

As for surveillance - a thorny issue over here is that the UK government allows it's US intelligence friends to eavesdrop on European telecommunications using the British telecoms network.

The simple fact is that the USA is happy to "monitor" allies, as well as potential foes. So whatever posturing there may be on the diplomatic front, the US still wants to read it's friend's secret diaries. Just in case.

[fallenstar]

oookkkk, is this another way to gain control of the American World? sorry too much Dune ^_^. Actually, if Bush or US government itself really want to take over the world, or at least being ACCEPTED by the world, they should learn PROPAGANDA!!!Only military might cannot win the heart of people, having people supporting you and willing to die for you that's called successful politicans. So Bush, need to read about Napoleon, Hitler, and Mao Zedong. Those are the great propagandaists. If Napoleon learned more of politics, he might rule the whole Europe. If Hitler have the military intelligence he might defeat the others and rule the world if he got the research of Nuclear Weapon done. Propaganda is the first thing of politics!!(in my opinion)

[I, Brian]

Why would anyone want to control the world.

Think Bush and co. are primarily concerned with protecting national interests, and have long been involved with various propaganda propagation. However, this is indeed the same as any other country would be. The difference is simply one of scale.