MAKE | News From The Future – One Hour Or Less Worldwide Delivery Guarantee

News From The Future – One Hour Or Less Worldwide Delivery Guarantee…

An unmanned military plane billed as the “fastest aircraft ever built” crashed into the Pacific Ocean after a malfunction caused it to stop sending signals while flying at more than 20 times the speed of sound, military officials said…

The flying prototype, called the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2), plunged into the ocean after shifting into a mode that allows it to fly Mach 20, or about 13,000 mph, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which oversaw the test flight.

The rocket-launched vehicle is part of an advanced weapons program, called Conventional Prompt Global Strike, which is working to develop systems of reaching an enemy target anywhere in the world within one hour.

More @ SPACE.com and MSNBC.

Today’s enemies are tomorrow’s best friends, so perhaps this will be a nice way to travel anywhere on the planet in one hour.

11 Responses to News From The Future – One Hour Or Less Worldwide Delivery Guarantee

Frank Buss on August 23rd, 2011 at 2:14 am said:

How loud is the sonic boom with mach 20 for the environment? Another idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vactrain

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- Anonymous on August 23rd, 2011 at 2:58 am said:
  
  @facebook-753648630:disqus ” Air Force procedures require that, whenever
  possible, flights be over open water, above 10,000 feet and no closer than 15 miles from
  shore. Supersonic operations over land must be conducted above 30,000 feet or, when below
  30,000 feet, in specially designated areas approved by Headquarters United States Air
  Force, Washington, D.C., and the Federal Aviation Administration. “that’s just a quick search however.
  
  Reply ↓
Frank Buss on August 23rd, 2011 at 2:14 am said:

How loud is the sonic boom with mach 20 for the environment? Another idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vactrain

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Kompani on August 23rd, 2011 at 12:11 pm said:

I think it will be a means for America to deliver weapons without leaving the homeland thereby not risking it’s own military and civilian backlash. It is the new ‘ICBM’.

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Daniel Kim on August 23rd, 2011 at 2:28 pm said:

Didn’t they lose . . . like . . . two of these in testing?
Maybe, after reaching hypersonic speeds, they passed into a time warp and won’t return until last week.

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Daniel Kim on August 23rd, 2011 at 2:28 pm said:

Didn’t they lose . . . like . . . two of these in testing?
Maybe, after reaching hypersonic speeds, they passed into a time warp and won’t return until last week.

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Daniel Kim on August 23rd, 2011 at 2:28 pm said:

Didn’t they lose . . . like . . . two of these in testing?
Maybe, after reaching hypersonic speeds, they passed into a time warp and won’t return until last week.

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Anonymous on August 23rd, 2011 at 3:39 pm said:

Mach 20 means we’re almost at Mach 26 or escape velocity. And for those who might be lamenting an advance in military technology from DARPA, consider that they built the first computer to calculate ballistic missile trajectories and also ARPAnet, the predecessor to the Internet. So they have a pretty good history of crossover into civilian tech.

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Anonymous on August 23rd, 2011 at 3:39 pm said:

Mach 20 means we’re almost at Mach 26 or escape velocity. And for those who might be lamenting an advance in military technology from DARPA, consider that they built the first computer to calculate ballistic missile trajectories and also ARPAnet, the predecessor to the Internet. So they have a pretty good history of crossover into civilian tech.

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Anonymous on August 23rd, 2011 at 3:39 pm said:

Mach 20 means we’re almost at Mach 26 or escape velocity. And for those who might be lamenting an advance in military technology from DARPA, consider that they built the first computer to calculate ballistic missile trajectories and also ARPAnet, the predecessor to the Internet. So they have a pretty good history of crossover into civilian tech.

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Seth Oberst on August 23rd, 2011 at 7:46 pm said:

People, that is almost (not quite) 5 miles per second! Hard to wrap you mind around that.

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