The development of hypersonic weapons — intended to attack targets faster than the speed of sound — represents the newest iteration of an arms race between China, Russia and the U.S.
In order for a vehicle to be considered hypersonic, it must travel "at least at Mach 5 — five times the speed of sound, or about 3,800 mph," which is fast enough to make its way across the U.S. in just 30 minutes,
CNN reported in June.
Like the U.S., China and Russia are also known to be actively building and testing hypersonic vehicles, an Air Force official told the network.
By 2023, the U.S. Air Force wants to have developed the game-changing flying weapon that is touted to "transform the nature of warfare."
The details and funding levels of hypersonic weapons are classified,
according to Politico, which reports that there are predictions it could be "perfected" by 2020.
Critics fear the weapons could be "dangerously destabilizing" and "render obsolete even the most advanced missiles defenses and provide a new means to deliver nuclear warheads, prompting some to call for an outright ban."
"These things do create escalation risks that I don’t think have been adequately studied," physicist and co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment James Acton told Politico.
"It’s developing the technology without thinking, big picture, about the pros and cons."
Another physicist, Mark Gubrud, a professor in the Curriculum of Peace, War and Defense at the University of North Carolina, suggested that the U.S. and others are developing the technology just "because maybe we can" and "people are deluded that it represents some kind of major advance that we can exploit to keep the Chinese or Russian menace at bay."
The Guardian reported a year ago that a U.S. test of its Advanced Hypersonic Weapons system in Alaska did not net the desired result — it exploded within four seconds, "and fell back down to earth, causing undisclosed damage to the test site."
But Politico reports that, in other tests, a Boeing-built missile rocketed more than 230 miles in four minutes and a Lockheed Martin prototype went 20 times the speed of sound.
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