WEBVTT - How Could Hypersonic Missiles Work? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:07.080 Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff. 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:10.840 Lauren vogelbamb Here At a meeting in Arlington, Virginia in 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:14.440 late one of the Pentagon's top officials told an audience 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:16.920 of defense executives that the US is locked in a 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:19.560 tight race with Russia and China to develop a new 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:22.119 game changing weapon that could fly at many times the 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:24.360 speed of sound and could be used to launch a 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:27.040 deaf stating attack upon an enemy in a matter of minutes. 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:30.600 The assemblage was told by Michael D. Griffin, the Department 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:33.519 of Defense is under Secretary for Research and Engineering, that 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:36.200 of all of the technological marvels that the Pentagon hoped 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:41.080 to create, developing a hypersonic missile was his highest priority. 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:45.480 It's not hard to understand why hypersonic missiles a technology 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:47.680 that could be deployed as soon as the mid twenties. 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:50.240 It sounds like the sort of exotic menace that a 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:53.199 villain would dream up in a James Bond thriller. If 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:55.480 we could get them to work, hypersonic missiles could have 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:58.360 the ability to fly and maneuver its speeds between five 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:01.320 and twenty five thousand kilometers per hour at a range 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:04.120 of altitudes up to a hundred kilometers above Earth's surface 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:06.880 for our non metric friends, that's about three to fifteen 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:09.520 thousand miles per hour and up to sixty two miles 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:14.040 high at the edge of orbital space. These capabilities could 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:16.640 make it a nightmare to defend against them, because they 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:18.759 would be moving so fast that it would be difficult 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:20.959 to predict where they were about to strike until the 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:24.920 last few minutes before impact. And because the missiles travel 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:27.680 at such a high speed, their sheer kinetic energy alone 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.880 would enable them to wreak destruction without carrying any conventional 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:35.480 explosives or nuclear warheads. There are different potential methods of 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:38.880 attaining that fantastic speed. One approach is to fire a 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:42.119 conventional missile that would in turn release a smaller hypersonic 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:45.080 glide vehicle, which would fly up into the upper layers 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:48.360 of the atmosphere. Another approach would utilize a rocket or 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:52.760 an advanced jet engine, such as a scram jet. Military 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:56.080 vision areas have been contemplating hypersonic weapons for decades, but 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:58.440 it wasn't until recently that the concept began to seem 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:02.400 close to fruition due to any one specific breakthrough in technology, 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:06.240 but rather due to a combination of progresses and political motivation. 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:10.480 We spoke via email with Eon D. Boyd, a professor 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:13.960 of airspace engineering at the University of Michigan. He explained, 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:16.079 to develop a missile, you first have to show that 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:19.600 the platform can fly. Emission of interest that was demonstrated 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:24.840 in the US by scramjet powered demonstration flights. While a 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:28.720 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA's to flight tests 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:32.120 of their HTV to boost glide vehicle ended in failure, 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:36.600 significant progress was demonstrated and important lessons learned. In an 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:40.680 overlapping time period. The Pentagon demonstrated longer range hypersonic vehicle 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:45.000 capabilities in their conventional Prompt Strike program. DARPA and the 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:47.640 Air Force then partnered to mature many of the systems 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:49.720 needed on a platform to make it into a weapon, 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:54.519 as such as the guidance, navigation and control materials, structures, 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:59.320 and rocket boosters. But the US wasn't alone and interest 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:03.480 in developing high personic capabilities, Boyd said, China was watching 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.440 and learning and at some point started investing in hypersonics 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:10.320 since it became evident that significant progress was being made 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.800 that at least in numbers of flight tests conducted appeared 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:17.480 to show China outpacing US efforts, and in Russia, where 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:20.160 they've worked on hypersonics for decades, like the US, they 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:22.840 also seem to have had recent successes with test flights. 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:26.600 In response to the Chinese and Russian progress, the Trump 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:29.960 administration is pushing to develop hypersonic weapons as soon as possible, 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:32.960 and as requesting funding of two point six billion dollars 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:35.800 for hypersonic research by the Air Force, Navy, Army, and 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:40.040 DARPA in its budget request for the financial year. The 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:42.880 managing editor for National Security for the Center for Public 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:45.839 Integrity one Our, Jeffrey Smith, reported in the New York 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:49.360 Times magazine that spending on developing hypersonic weapons could rise 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:52.160 to five billion dollars a year as the US pushes 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:55.080 to develop a deployable hypersonic missile system in the next 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:59.760 two to three years. Though hypersonic missiles could carry nuclear 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:02.240 war heads, the missiles being developed by the US will 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:05.880 only be equipped with conventional explosives, but they'll still be 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.360 plenty fearsome. As Smith wrote in the Times quote, the 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:13.000 missiles function like nearly invisible power drills that smash holes 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:16.760 in their targets to catastrophic effect. They'll impact their targets 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:19.400 with a force equivalent to three to four tons of TNT, 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:24.599 according to Smith. In some ways, hypersonic missiles presented different 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:28.120 and perhaps even scarier threat to peace than present nuclear arsenals, 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:30.599 because they could enable a nation to launch a surprise 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:33.960 attack and cripple an enemy's ability to retaliate, leaving it 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.479 helpless against the threat of a nuclear attack. They'd be 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:40.960 difficult to defend against for a number of reasons. Their speed, 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:43.440 the fact that they fly in an area between aviation 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:45.560 and space flight that we've never had to defend in, 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:48.719 and they're maneuverable, a meaning that have to be tracked 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:53.640 throughout their flight with accuracy. Boyd explained another issue quote 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:56.280 this class of missiles is not covered by any currently 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:59.760 valid weapons treaty. This poses a number of concerns, including 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:02.720 the that the nations primarily involved, the US, China, and 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:05.719 Russia do not have established protocols in place for the 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:10.240 use of these systems. Finally, the potential for a hypersonic 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:12.920 weapon to carry either a conventional warhead or a nuclear 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:15.839 warhead means that a nation under threat wouldn't know whether 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:19.880 a nuclear response should be considered. That all means that 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:22.359 in the near future, hypersonic missiles could lead to a 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.800 continuous atmosphere of hyper anxiety, in which nations might be 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:28.960 afraid to not strike first, or to instantly launch a 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:32.400 counter attack at the first hint of trouble, or at 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:34.640 the very least, it could prompt nations to spend even 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:37.480 more money on not just counter attacks, but defense measures. 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:45.080 Today's episode was written by Patrick J. Kaiger and produced 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:47.679 by Tyler. Playing brain Stuff is a production of iHeart 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:49.880 Radio's How Stuff Works. For more in this and lots 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:52.440 of other military topics, visit our home planet, how stuff 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:55.279 Works dot com and for more podcasts for my heart Radio, 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.080 visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:08.240 listen to your favorite shows.