US concerned about China’s reported hypersonic missile, Chinese claim it was a ‘space vehicle’
Washington is concerned about hypersonic missile technology and its potential military applications by China and Russia, a U.S. arms control official said on Monday, after a media report that Beijing had tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic glide weapon.
Hypersonic weapons are usually defined as missiles that fly more than five times the speed of sound, and a race is under way for the next generation of long-range weapons that are harder to detect and intercept.
The Financial Times, quoting five people familiar with the matter, said at the weekend that China had tested a weapon in August that flew through space and circled the globe before cruising down towards a target which it missed.
To date the lazy trope of China is that they are good at stealing technology and back engineering whatever they steal.
This news that they successfully tested a hypersonic missile has stunned America by suggesting they have leap frogged their technology.
This in the wake of China’s successful dark side of the moon launch and incredible advancement in quantum computing suggests that China’s communism can beat Americas private military industrial complex.
America spends half a trillion more each year on their military than China dies so to have China leap frogging Western technology will have enormous ramifications.
AUKUS is being built on the belief that 8 nuclear subs will become hypersonic missile platforms against China but that’s not operational until 2040, China gaining that technology now will terrify America.
Where America does have dominance is in AI and the fear of China gaining hypersonic missile advantage will drive an AI response.
Hypersonic missiles are so dangerous because they move at a speed faster than human response times, the counter solution to that military advantage is AI defense systems that react in Nano seconds to counter strike hypersonic missiles.
Of course the danger of AI defense systems is spelt out in the Terminator movie series.
Building a real world Skynet doesn’t fill me with much optimism.
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Did I miss something? In the No Nukes/Global disarmament/Nuke Free NZ movements one bedrock concept was MAD-Mutually Assured Destruction.
This means once a nuclear attack launches, there is automatic retaliation from other nuke armed powers-so various multiple locations will get pounded, vaporised, firestormed and left radioactive for many years. Radioactive dust clouds will prevent air travel and basically the survivors can kiss their arses goodbye and a few may get to try and start civilisation all over again.
So Hypersonic delivery is even madder than MAD. Just as crazy as other previous tweaks on Nuke delivery and “defence” like Euro based USA nukes and Ronald Reagan’s StarWars.
Russia have claimed and seemingly shown, those hypersonic abilities for 3-4-5 years or more that I can recall. So their existance can not surely be a surprise.
I even remember Putin warning the USA not to infringe further or continue to provoke Russia as these weapons mean they can very easily be used to defend themselfs against USA/Nato agresssion and be agreesive if needsbe.
People are just going to have to understand china is the coming empire do we really want to be shackled to the rotting corpse of MAGA USA? or their aussie puppy dogs..well do we?
Forget the ‘communist’ straw man, china isn’t, what it is is better at capitalism than death cult neo liberals.
I was an early adopter for vaping (former 2 pack a day geezer for nearly 50 yrs) now there is a field the chinese ran with, best cheapest and most cutting edge products which pushed the sector on by leaps and bounds.
The days when the PLA where 10 million peasants armed with SKSs are long over and we all have to get used to it.
Don’t understand a word you say mate!
that much is obvious son
He’s old.
“China’s communism can beat Americas private military industrial complex.”
But is China actually “communist”? I think the issue here isn’t really communism vs capitalism – China’s advantage in STEM is that it can focus on merit, rather than on gender and ethnicity.
You know who will be CEO of SkyNet – David Seymour. The Terminator movies are excellent IMO, as long as they stay in the fiction catergory. It would be just like the Yanks to destroy the world, by mistake.
The covid voiceover lady will be the voice though. Be Kind. LOL
Interestingly some people watch science fiction and see it as a cautionary tale, others say “hey, that a great idea, I wonder if…”
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/328299-robot-dogs-now-fielding-robot-guns
It’s a bit bemusing that the anti American crowd proudly point to Chinese or Russian missile tech as proof of American capitalist failure where it was actually America’s adherence to its missile treaty obligations which gave the other pariahs a chance to leapfrog in naked self interest.
Cheerleading Chinese missile prowess is cheerleading those who don’t sign missile treaties.
Also of course this is a statement by the Chinese re staying away from Taiwan – you will only ever see classified tech like this when they want you to.
Lastly I wouldn’t put too much money on the fact the USA hasn’t got hypersonic capability of it’s own.
No worries. Once the scientist perfect time travel, then Arnie can come back and save us… the Yanks will know that as well..
I think we could all be killed by HyperBullshit from politician’s and more specifically Australian politician’s instead of the Chinese.
People are just going to have to understand china is the coming empire do we really want to be shackled to the rotting corpse of MAGA USA? or their aussie puppy dogs..well do we?
Forget the ‘communist’ straw man, china isn’t, what it is is better at capitalism than death cult neo liberals.
I was an early adopter for vaping (former 2 pack a day geezer for nearly 50 yrs) now there is a field the chinese ran with, best cheapest and most cutting edge products which pushed the sector on by leaps and bounds.
The days when the PLA where 10 million peasants armed with SKSs are long over and we all have to get used to it.
sorry about the doublet of the posting thingummybobbies
” ….China had tested a weapon in August that flew through space and circled the globe before cruising down towards a target which it missed.” Sums it all up for me . A waste of large amounts of money on some piece of shit that doesn’t work! The futility of war, the stupidity of those who practise it and madness that pervades the most powerful nations on earth.
I’m more concerned about the twit next door mowing his lawns at 7.56pm. Bloody racket! Covids doing them all in.
As for the twits sending rockets into the atmosphere, an ICBM or a hypersonic will cancel them ( and us ) out just the same. So you can forget your mushroom clouds, you can forget your dirty bombs and radioactive fallout,- if one goes off they all go off and we’re all dead.
Now, – about that twit next door. Silence. at last. Hurrummmph !
That’s why crop, the fuck, dust everything everywhere with ecstasy powder.
Pot’s all Oooo and Aaaaa man …. Smack’s for those who want a death experience, opium’s nice but it’ll soak you up then let you die in its arms, cocaine’s great until you get the bad herpies and a pustule on your nob-end. Ecstasy, however, will render those with small cocks and big missiles and plans and schemes powerless to ejaculate The Big One.
Remember this? ” Suppose They Gave a War and No-one Came – The WWI Christmas Truce of 1914″
https://www.parkspresidentsandparks.com/blog-page/2019/12/20/suppose-they-gave-a-war-and-no-one-came-the-wwi-christmas-truce-of-1914
The official Chinese response is the test of a reusable spacecraft. If that is the case–launched from atop of one of their regular launch systems–would be reminiscent of the US Dyna-soar project of the late 1950s and early 60s.
That proposed system faced numerous disputes regarding funding and the purpose behind it. I’m currently most of the way through reading a book about it and most of the narrative concerns bureaucratic wrangling, which is often a common theme in texts regarding the history of such technology.
Before that was proposed there were proposals to develop an orbital version of the X-15 test aircraft. All this in a time before Gagarin went up and all who followed in those capsule spacecraft (not including the Space Shuttle).
It’s interesting reading during that era proposals for propulsion systems one doesn’t even hear about anymore such as LACE (Liquid Air Cycle Engine). A rocket engine system that collected its oxygen from the atmosphere by liquefying air as it travelled. Some US aerospace companies proposed fairly massive horizontal take off spaceplanes equipped with such engines as well as ramjets as a reusable single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane with an estimated twenty year development period.
At that time in the UK studies were commissioned for hypersonic aircraft with English Electric (later BAC) rejecting the feasibility of the popular notion of a hypersonic carrier aircraft boosting a second or third stage orbital spacecraft, largely on the grounds of expense and difficultly regarding their research on US proposals. Instead proposing their MUSTARD space shuttle type system, which would have been even more reusable than the later Space Shuttle. Interesting to note during a conference on the matter during the 60s a company spokesman proposed Britain could have a future in space with that design with an investment of 10 million pounds a year for ten years contrasted with the 1.2 billion spent on tobacco and alcohol per year.
Then in the early 70s for a year or two the British government funded the participation of BAC and Hawker Siddeley in assisting studies in the US towards the Space Shuttle. At its conclusion their participation was valued. An UK engineer working on it earning one third of their equivalent US counterpart.
One of the proposals for the future Space Shuttle proposed by US General Dynamics a “triamese” design like the BAC MUSTARD “stack” design though employing swing wings rather than a lifting body to avoid patents. One of the early designs of the Space Shuttle by North American/Rockwell included two deployable turbojets in the rear of the cargo bay to be used to assist safety with landings, reminiscent of MUSTARD. These rejected along with two solid rocket engines on the rear of the Shuttle Orbiter as a safety system partly due to cost. It instead was thought it could be constructed to such high standards of safety which would result in the loss of a crew in 1000 missions, whereas it ended up losing two crews in around 130 missions. Until the Shuttle the use of solid boosters was previously rejected for manned missions on the grounds of safety.
Other hypersonic aircraft proposed at the time was project Isinglass and Rheinberry Mach 5 and 20 respective successors to the SR-71. Much information remaining classified.
The West has the talent and expertise to achieve such projects, often lacking is the will of governments and foresight. Billions in funds spent and the knowledge attained going back more than sixty years has not disappeared.
The recent conclusion of a twenty year long and ultimately pointless war demonstrated numerous cases of how so many funds were exorbitantly rorted.
Meanwhile one can read recent news of Chinese military equipment (particularly aircraft) struggling to gain international customers. While Middle Eastern/North African countries who purchased the Chinese equivalent of Predator drones are seeking to sell them due to dissatisfaction with performance.
Amazing how irrational this field is, going back to the German V-2 rocket, all the bureaucratic scheming for funding and priority ultimately resulting in fruition due more to an emotional end rather than practical. Same for the Space Race. Or Dyna-soar and MUSTARD developed with a satellite inspection capability due to fears of a Soviet orbital bombardment system. Both spaceplane designs with origins going back to Eugen Sänger’s proposal for a long range rocket transport aircraft in the 30s, but being in Nazi Germany an Antipodal rocket bomber was more likely to have a chance to receive funding.
B-1s in long term rented Diego Garcia is more terrifying. Last time was 2006 and shows muscle from another angle to the volatile South China Sea theatrics. Posturing from Taiwan to Guam incites a costly projection and opens up the rear flank
First of all, the objective of the Whitehouse is to create a continuous frontline around China. Thus reinforcements can not be sent.
Second, who ever thought that the Whitehouse was the equal of Genghis Khan needs to be shot.
We are witnessing a new cold war unfolding, with one side obsessed with the rights of any minority you can identify and the other herding them into concentration camps for sterilisation and organ harvesting.
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