HTV-2 test unsuccessful

I'm surprised that this news item hasn't been mentioned here.

DARPA was launching a second test flight of a hypersonic missile
designed to be able to reach any point on Earth in 20 minutes, and
this test flight has also been unsuccessful.

John Savard

Le 12/08/11 03:54, Quadibloc a écrit :
I'm surprised that this news item hasn't been mentioned here.

DARPA was launching a second test flight of a hypersonic missile
designed to be able to reach any point on Earth in 20 minutes, and
this test flight has also been unsuccessful.

John Savard

I hope this stupidity will go down the drain of future budget cuts.

Le 12/08/11 03:54, Quadibloc a écrit :
I'm surprised that this news item hasn't been mentioned here.

DARPA was launching a second test flight of a hypersonic missile
designed to be able to reach any point on Earth in 20 minutes, and
this test flight has also been unsuccessful.

John Savard

I hit the send button too soon.

This marvel costs 320 million dollars per launch. Isn't that
GREAT? (for Lockheed Martin I mean)

It has a very good record of 100% failures: it has never landed
successfully.

But it is much better than the first flight: it lasted for 30 minutes
compared to the first flight of (gasp!) nine minutes.

The U.S. spent 640 million dollars in 39 minutes of flight. Amazing.
It makes for 16.41 million dollars the minute, not including the
research and development costs.


Go on guys... Spend yourselves to ruin!

On 12/08/2011 11:54 AM, Quadibloc wrote:
I'm surprised that this news item hasn't been mentioned here.

DARPA was launching a second test flight of a hypersonic missile
designed to be able to reach any point on Earth in 20 minutes, and
this test flight has also been unsuccessful.

John Savard

The definition of success has to be understood in context. As a result
of this test, even more money will have to be poured into the coffers of
the contractors. They will probably not consider that a bad thing.

Sylvia.

"jacob navia" wrote in message
...
Le 12/08/11 03:54, Quadibloc a écrit :
I'm surprised that this news item hasn't been mentioned here.

DARPA was launching a second test flight of a hypersonic missile
designed to be able to reach any point on Earth in 20 minutes, and
this test flight has also been unsuccessful.

John Savard

I hit the send button too soon.

This marvel costs 320 million dollars per launch. Isn't that
GREAT? (for Lockheed Martin I mean)

It has a very good record of 100% failures: it has never landed
successfully.

But it is much better than the first flight: it lasted for 30 minutes
compared to the first flight of (gasp!) nine minutes.

The U.S. spent 640 million dollars in 39 minutes of flight. Amazing.
It makes for 16.41 million dollars the minute, not including the
research and development costs.


Go on guys... Spend yourselves to ruin!

Navia stop talking like a complete and utter moron. This is basic
science and engineering. Things sometimes go wrong, get wrecked and
people even get killed. That's how mankind progresses. Hypersonic
flight is DIFFICULT, not everything can be simulated on computers, some
things simply have to be found out the hard way.

It's startling how people seem to become less and less forgiving of
failure. If people had acted this way in the 60's (where U.S.
scientists blew up a rocket almost every week) we'd never have gotten
to the Moon or even Earth orbit.

Le 12/08/11 16:32, Fritz Wuehler a écrit :

Navia stop talking like a complete and utter moron. This is basic
science and engineering. Things sometimes go wrong, get wrecked and
people even get killed. That's how mankind progresses. Hypersonic
flight is DIFFICULT, not everything can be simulated on computers, some
things simply have to be found out the hard way.

It's startling how people seem to become less and less forgiving of
failure. If people had acted this way in the 60's (where U.S.
scientists blew up a rocket almost every week) we'd never have gotten
to the Moon or even Earth orbit.


I would never have written this if it was space exploration, but this
is surely NOT space exploration but weapons development. This is not a
rocket for transporting people but for hitting ANY target on the earth
in less than an hour, see the specs of the DARPA public documentation.

The huma pace exploration program has been shut down. Weapons
development only will be continued.

jacob navia wrote:
I would never have written this if it was space exploration, but this
is surely NOT space exploration but weapons development. This is not a
rocket for transporting people but for hitting ANY target on the earth
in less than an hour, see the specs of the DARPA public documentation.

The line between "weapons development" and "space exploration" is a fuzzy one.

The Redstone missile was developed to drop nukes on people a few thousand
miles away. It launched two people into space.

The Atlas missile was developed to drop nukes on people a half planet away.
It launched all the manned Gemini missions and later became a satellite and
space probe launching vehicle. The latest rocket in the line of rockets named
Atlas, the Altas V, was developed as part of a DoD program. That Atlas
missile just launched a space probe to Jupiter. Same thing for the Titan
missiles that launched Viking and Voyager.

When the shuttle was developed, the USSR (and others) was convinced it was a
weapon system being built in plain sight with a nasa disguise. I remember as
a kid reading an article telling where the lazer gun ports supposedly were!

The MX missile that launched the HTV-2 could, by itself, hit any target on
earth in less than an hour.

Glen Overby

On Aug 12, 12:29*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:

It appears DARPA is still stuck somewhere back in the 1980's as far as
our list of likely enemies go, and I suspect what is going to be inside
of it is a nuclear warhead rather than the "Rods From God"
kinetic-energy penetrators.

I thought conventional explosives were not excluded as a possibility.

While al-Qaeda is not a passing fad, Russia's invasion of Georgia
shows that we haven't necessarily heard the last from that quarter
yet. While U.S. foreign policy towards China is premised on optimism
that it will gradually mellow, the chance of a confrontation over
Taiwan can't be excluded either - then there's the recent cyberwar
news story.

The Defense Department just has to cover *all* the bases.

One _example_ of how we could wind up in World War III is if Iran got
close enough to the Bomb that it had to undergo an Iraq-style regime
change... and the U.S. misjudges Russian objections, because it's too
close to their perceived "sphere of influence" or they would like an
all-weather port there or whatever. It's not al-Qaeda instead of the
Cold War, it's al-Qaeda _in addition_ to the Cold War - basically,
ever since Putin's nationalists took over Russia.

John Savard

Pat Flannery wrote:
This was followed by the Mach 25 X-23 PRIME, which also worked, and
could even do cross-range maneuvers during descent:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-23_PRIME
I have a hard time seeing why they can do a hypersonic glide with
something at Mach 25 in the 1960-1967 time period, but can't do it at
Mach 20 nowadays.

Well, per that article, the first two PRIMEs went unrecovered - though
for something more mundane - chute failures. Interesting to me was
the use of titanium - weren't you (or someone) talking about titanium
burning (or would that be oxidizing with style?) during the Columbia
disaster? Was it only on the inside of the craft? Ah, it also says
the thing was covered with an ablative shield.

rick jones
--
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

Le 12/08/11 18:23, Quadibloc a écrit :
On Aug 12, 12:29 pm, Pat wrote:

It appears DARPA is still stuck somewhere back in the 1980's as far as
our list of likely enemies go, and I suspect what is going to be inside
of it is a nuclear warhead rather than the "Rods From God"
kinetic-energy penetrators.

I thought conventional explosives were not excluded as a possibility.

While al-Qaeda is not a passing fad,

You need Mach 22 glider against Al Qaeda?

It was enough with some copters to get rid of bin laden.


Russia's invasion of Georgia
shows that we haven't necessarily heard the last from that quarter
yet.

And what would you do with your glider? Put an atomic bomb inside
to reach Moscow? You can do that already.


While U.S. foreign policy towards China is premised on optimism
that it will gradually mellow, the chance of a confrontation over
Taiwan can't be excluded either - then there's the recent cyberwar
news story.


Yes, you would answer with atomic war against some internet hackers?


The Defense Department just has to cover *all* the bases.


Of course. Let's go on spending.


The biggest threat to U.S. security is the size of the U.S. deficit.
Defense spending disminishes U.S. security. Look at Japan. They have
no real army since WW II. And they are OK, saving billions.

One _example_ of how we could wind up in World War III is if Iran got
close enough to the Bomb that it had to undergo an Iraq-style regime
change... and the U.S. misjudges Russian objections, because it's too
close to their perceived "sphere of influence" or they would like an
all-weather port there or whatever.

Yes, "whatever". Russia would risk a nuclear war to save the Iran
regime.

And what else are you dreaming about?


It's not al-Qaeda instead of the
Cold War, it's al-Qaeda _in addition_ to the Cold War - basically,
ever since Putin's nationalists took over Russia.

John Savard

They aren't specially hostile to the U.S., and Georgia is within the
borders of the former Soviet Union.

There are always *some* reasons for spending $$$ in some crazy weapons
system. Look at the star wars spending of Reagan.