Hypersonic gliders

Artist's impression of the DARPA HTV-2 Hyper glider 

The US military has been experimenting with some very fast moving objects indeed.  They successfully launched and monitored a glider flying at Mach 20 - that's around 21,000 km/h.  Well that's too fast for me to comprehend but I believe them when they say that, at this speed, they can respond to a threat anywhere on earth within an hour.

Not everything went to plan and the glider was hypersonic at speeds of Mach 17-22 for just 139 seconds.

Some random thoughts from me on this . . .

• This is an awesome although somewhat scary technology
• I'm impressed that they can build something that moves at this speed yet still remains controllable
• I wouldn't have wanted to be standing anywhere nearby when the sonic boom kicked in (although that's not likely when they took this to the edge of space to perform the trial)
• The acceleration on this thing must be mind-boggling - how fast could this have flown with a man or woman on board without turning them into soup? 
• Explanations of why the flight was so short suggested that the extreme speed caused the shell to peel off.  Did they intend to test it to destruction or was this an accident?
• I guess they are going to be spending an awful long time analysing the data they collected from the mission, even if it was cut short
• That analysis is not going to be available to anyone outside of the US government or military 
• Let's hope that our government stays friendly with the US when they have the money, capability and appetite to pursue such programmes of military development 
• Let's hope that non-democratic powers aren't doing the same.

Hyper glider article on Stuff.co.nz

More info on the DARPA HTV-2 flight at Space.com