The unmanned US Falcon HTV-2 launches Thursday. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/10/us-military-fastest-plane-falcon
It only sustains top speed for about 2 minutes, and it's tiny, just a few feet long. It can't land and drops into the ocean. Vandenberg/Edwards does these scramjet experiments about once a year. The British media is always clownish. The subheadline is, "Unmanned Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 can travel from London to Sydney in less than an hour."
I read about these tests about once a year. Now, I looked it up. There are 3 programs. The X-51 (140 seconds of scramjet) recently replaced the X-43 (12 seconds of scramjet). The Falcon program (fooling around for 50 years with vertical rockets with a dream of runway takeoff someday) is what your article is about. Wikipedia says
There's a budget cut that should have happenned years ago. The fact that killing people is the #1 priority use of our tax dollars says a lot about the people we allow to rule us.
U.S. hypersonic glider launched, contact lost LOS ANGELES — The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency says contact with its experimental hypersonic glider was lost after launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the central California coast. The agency says in Twitter postings that its unmanned Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle-2 was launched Thursday atop a rocket, successfully separated from the booster and entered the mission's glide phase. The agency says telemetry was subsequently lost, but released no details.. A similar vehicle was launched last year and returned nine minutes of data before contact was prematurely lost. The small aircraft is supposed to maneuver through the atmosphere at 13,000 mph before intentionally diving into the ocean. The U.S. military is trying to develop technology to respond to threats around the globe at speeds of Mach 20 or greater. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2011-08-11-hypersonic-glider-launched_n.htm
I've seen articles for years, but I had the 3 programs merged in my mind into one program. Here's what I found. The X-43 and X-51 are scramjet powered, carried under a B-52's wing. The Falcon is a glider, lifted on top of a big vertical rocket. The X-43 program ended, Falcon ends with today's test, and the X-51 will be the only one which continues. The supposed advantages of a hypersonic glider over a ballistic: It can be routed to avoid 3rd-party nations. It gets to close targets faster. Its controlled descent can dispense additional types of weapons and curve to avoid attack. It looks less like a nuke so it's not mistaken for a nuclear strike, provoking a nuclear defense. The real advantage of the tests: The military gets to play with expensive toys that after 50 years of tests, are still another 50 years away from becoming weapons. Okay, I'm done with boring everyone.
Most of those who use common sense would utilize the definition of "defense", rather than the one you choose to throw around. And who's to say that defense spending is our #1 priority? I can look up in the budget 2 other things that involve little value added to the country at-large that take up more spending.
From what I read, if this test didn't go well, DARPA wasn't going to build a third. Ergo, the project is done.
One advantage of building a clearly superior weapon is that it scares your enemies into submission. You only use the weapon if you have to. It's actually a great peace tactic.
We spend more on the military than every other country in the world combined. The only way you can call all of it defense spending is if you seriously think the best defense is a good offense. We could spend a fraction of the money and still have far and away the best homeland defense in the world. Instead we're wasting tons of money on weapons developments projects, many of which are failures that continue to suck money from us.
lol hows that peace going? since 1950 korea bay of pigs vietnam dominican republic lebanon grenada panama gulf war somalia bosnia kosovo afghanistan iraq war libya and thats not to mention all the shady shit we have taken sides in, supplying guns and training, backing whomever might benifit us that year
You say common sense, I say blatant lying. Our country has not had to face any serious threat to it's safety and freedom since WWll, other than that which has come from the US military industrial complex. You can "look up" all you want. In my lifetime my government has openly murdered several million people in over a dozen countries and no doubt many more in secret collusions which they preferred not to publicize, despite the fact that NO COUNTRY HAS ATTACKED THE US. They murder for oil, for money, for power, and to promote christianity. The total expense incurred financing these sins eclipses any supposed "entitlement" programs you can name. To do these evil deeds in America's name is disgusting and criminal. It's not only why the rest of the world hates us, it's why many Americans hate what America has become.
Ignoring the obvious fact that this is by no imagination a clearly superior weapon, "scaring enemies into submission" hasn't actually ever worked in real life. There is no conceivable weapon we can build that a dozen other countries couldn't also build, and the rest could buy.
I don't think these words mean what you think they mean. I generally do, so I don't pull inane comments out of orifices and project them as informed opinion. You must be getting that "several million" murders figure from the same blogging housemom that thinks she knows about Chernobyl and whoever you read that makes you think secondhand smoke is good for business. There's also a difference in that many of our allies have been attacked...you know, people we swear to protect? Then how is it that our oil prices have gone up, we willingly give up power in worldwide organizations, and Christianity (both in terms of people who attend and people who profess) is on the decline? And what about those people who thank us for our humanitarian efforts worldwide, funded and executed by the DoD because State, USAID and all those other NGOs can't handle it or mobilize fast enough to save people? You're 0-for-this whole topic, sport. False. And who are you to call anything a "sin"? How do you feel about not honoring our commitments to allies? Or is it your expert geopolitical opinion that America doesn't need allies? It's not only why the rest of the world hates us, it's why many Americans hate what America has become.[/QUOTE] I'm one who hates what America has become. But you seem to like entitlements without responsibility, comfort without service, protection without sacrifice and freedom of speech without requirement for wisdom. Why don't you just sit there quietly and let those allowing you to muse curmudgeonly about how your generation's mistakes are being paid for today protect you in peace?
I like how you think an "obvious fact" isn't true at all. And I'd like to hear your reasoning behind Japan's capitulation in Summer of 1945 and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Oh, and how other countries who combined don't spend what we do on the military (in your own words) can all of a sudden afford a state-of-the-art weapons program to make a superior weapon, or afford to buy one from someone who does. You might want to stick to real estate and central Oregon weather.
"Honoring our commitments to allies" is a poor excuse for jumping into every war we can. No one held a gun to our heads and forced us to make silly commitments to make war everywhere. The "allies" are usually 3rd-world fake governments created on the spot to justify a war there.
Extrapolating on this, some would argue that these allies actually spend less than they normally would for defense/military assuming the U.S. will intervene should they encounter problems. We are paying more to be so big and bad that we cover for other countries' asses while other countries are saving money. Like I said we could cut a LOT of the military spending and still be leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else.
