Every story and comment from the Hacker News API, in a layout borrowed from 2001.
A comment on U.S. Air Force says it conducted successful hypersonic weapon test. Parent comment
> The U.S. Air Force said on Monday it had conducted a successful test of a hypersonic weapon, which flew at five times the speed of sound.
But to your question:
> around Mach 10-20 is where the tradeoff could become non-obvious, depending on how much you value weighing less?
The same logic holds at mach 5-8 (ie current hypersonics), which is why they’re being developed:
You want a weapon that can surprise, evade, or penetrate better — even if that’s less destructive overall.
There are no comments on this comment yet.
> The U.S. Air Force said on Monday it had conducted a successful test of a hypersonic weapon, which flew at five times the speed of sound.
But to your question:
> around Mach 10-20 is where the tradeoff could become non-obvious, depending on how much you value weighing less?
The same logic holds at mach 5-8 (ie current hypersonics), which is why they’re being developed:
You want a weapon that can surprise, evade, or penetrate better — even if that’s less destructive overall.