Traveling speed of 10 Mach soon to be a reality

Traveling speed of 10 Mach soon to be a reality

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supersonicScientists with the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Pentagon’s research arm are working to build a new hypersonic air vehicle that can travel at speeds up to Mach 5 while carrying guidance systems and other materials.

The new air vehicle development will progress alongside an Air Force hypersonic weapons program. While today’s cruise missiles travel at speeds up to 600 miles per hour, hypersonic weapons will be able to reach speeds of Mach 5 to Mach 10, Air Force officials said. The U.S. is not the only country seeking to develop hypersonic weapons, as countries like China have been testing and developing hypersonic missiles.

The new air vehicle could be used to transport sensors, equipment or weaponry in the future, depending upon how the technology develops. Also, Pentagon officials have said that hypersonic aircraft are expected to be much less expensive than traditional turbine engines because they require fewer parts.

As well as traveling extremely fast, perhaps more important is the distances such a vehicle can reach in a short amount of time. The advantage of hypersonics is not just that something goes very fast, but that it can go great distances at those speed so, for example, a hypersonic flight could make a flight from New York to Los Angeles, which takes about five hours, in about 30 minutes.

That being said, the speed of acceleration required for hypersonic flight precludes the scientific possibility of humans being able to travel at that speed.