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DARPA Loses Contact With Hypersonic Glider
x_IamSpartacus_x writes "DARPA says contact with its experimental hypersonic glider was lost after launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the central California coast. The agency says in Twitter postings that its unmanned Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle-2 was launched Thursday atop a rocket, successfully separated from the booster and entered the mission's glide phase. The agency says telemetry was subsequently lost, but released no details."
How many lives were lost?!?!?
That we're relying on Twitter to get the status of our defense department projects.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
It obviously went FTL and subsequently back in time. Occam's butter knife.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
So is this thing going to crash somewhere? Where was it headed? I can just see it now crashing into China somewhere and start WW3 lol
Isn't the whole kerfuffle these days because things like Twitter can beat "traditional" news sources to the punch?
Nothing useful to say but... *AGAIN*?! x)
Skynet has taken it...getting tooled up for the fight....when the Falcon hits the ground at Mach 20, the target will get obliterated. If you are named Connor, and are in the phone book, and live anuwhere near Vandenberg, now's the time to Get Moving.
"Cock Up Your Beaver" does not mean what you think. This sig is intended to clog filters and annoy do-gooders
"I can see it now. Whatever this is, it's big.
Two cylindrical projections on top, one below."
Then we lost contact.
Fight Spammers!
Imagine -- just try to make something glide at hypersonic speeds!
On a more serious note, it's interesting that communication with the craft seems to be the most difficult part of the project (or at least the outer skin of the onion of problems involved with hypersonic flight). I would very much like to find technical papers written on this problem -- clearly, they thought they had it solved, but also just as clearly, they haven't. What's going wrong?
In an unrelated note, British Intelligence just "acquired" a new Hypersonick Glider. No details given yet.
So it wasn't so much a glide phase as a "drop like a frickin' rock" phase?
If they're updating us that they lost it with Twitter they should've just had it check in with Foursquare when it landed so they could find it. Duh!
Because that's from where they will come !!
...in my lawn.
That sucker looked like more fun than my K1300 S. (Think two wheels and 175 HP)
Isn't this how the 6 Million Dollar man started? Maybe they're just doing reruns this summer.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
I'm having a hard time thinking of something moving at Mach 20 as a "glider" ... projectile, maybe, but glider? Really?
I guess, it's un-powered flight, which probably makes it a glider in the same way a bullet is a glider if it had wings.
Of course, we all know that it's gone where it was really aimed and we'll never know the details of the secret mission that this news story is designed to cover up. ;-)
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Warp speed?
How much did this thing cost? The article doesn't say.
It just burned up. Nothing left to find.
So, apparently this hypersonic glider is part of the "Prompt Global Strike" concept, designed to deliver an explosive anywhere on earth in under an hour, for various purposes.
Now, we already have ICBMs that can do that; but we can't use those because ICBMs are typically equipped with thermonuclear warheads, which makes the world pretty jumpy about anybody launching one.
So, we are developing this rocket-boosted hypersonic glider thing that doesn't actually work yet to do it instead.
Here is what I don't understand: Is there anything about this new strike vehicle that would preclude a nuclear warhead in place of the conventional one? If so, it must have pretty serious payload limitations. If not, why would we expect global opinion to be any cheerier about this new toy than about the old one? Is it simply designed to be less visible to sensors than an ICBM?
A mach 20 aircraft would be an awesome piece of technology. I'm sad to see this research end.
It went over 88mph...The question is when did it go??
They'll find it in the last place they look. I'd start with the hall closet.
Poor John Crichton, lost in space now and surrounded by puppets, I mean aliens.
Now they get to justify another $5 million to replace it: $1 million for the aircraft, plus $4 million for administration.
(No, this isn't a joke. This is a perfect example of how the business of government operates.)
It went forward in time, no to worry though, it'll come back to our time and cause a self fulfilling time loop.
http://www.tvacres.com/images/spacecraft_pota_movie2.jpg
Have you ever lent someone money because they were hard up, then found out they bought some expensive trinket with it?
This reminds me of that.
That's just great. Somewhere there's a jet going Mach 22 and no one knows where it's headed.
In other news an entire flock of migrating birds were vaporized by a UFO going mock 20.
It's merely a question of how much yield you're trying to achieve. Half a century ago, a Hiroshima sized bomb could be fit into a 15cm artillery shell ...
Basically, there is nothing that distinguishes those "tests" from the military posturing of Iran or North Korea and it pursues the same aim - to intimidate the enemy.
I'm off to go shoot pheasants with Hugo Drax. I've a feeling he may be involved.
nonsig. unsig. desig.
Something that is sufficiently hypersonic generates a lot of heat. That has been known to create ionization and interfere with radio communication. It's the same problem that space to ground kinetic weapons have.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment
My company sold DARPA the telemetry transceivers, and I'm pretty sure there was nothing wrong with them.
--
ilikejam
CEO, Acoustic Data Transceivers Inc.
C-x C-s C-x k
Why don't we just use GPS. Oh right, God damn commies.
After launch did Anonymous hack it and take it over.... now flying into a secure location near you!
Perhaps using SONAR to track a hypersonic glider was not the best option...
a brilliant high speed fireball was seen crossing the horizon during the test, and littering the ocean with fine debris. DARPA has thus far refused to acknowledge any connection with today's test, and is still in the process of "processing telemetry data".
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Didn't we just discuss that they were given an ultimatum to have a successful test this time around or get their contract cancelled?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
maybe somebody who jumps off the Empire State Building glides down to the street.
Using the same cover story twice also raises to many suspicions.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
I hope my plane won't hit that thing!
I don't see why this is a big deal. It hit 88MPH and its flux capacitor kicked in in the upper atmosphere when it hit a pocket of lightning. It's not gone, just in a
I'm sure it was Zaphod Beeblebrox. He stole the ship!
When this baby hits 88 mph. . . . . you're gonna see some serious shit . . . .
-Doc Brown
In a related story, nothing has been heard from Iran for 18 hours.
I seem recall a "Land of the Lost" episode where the family met a pilot from Texas who became lost while flying his "hypersonic glider". (At least I think it was what he called it?). Does anyone else remember this?
How many millions did they spend on this thing? What could be recovered by third parties that could be of useful intel? They didn't even confirm the could locate pieces of the thing from what I read. How do we know some other nation state isn't harvesting the tech as we speak?
The LA Times headline is, "Test of hypersonic aircraft fails." Now let's look at it from the perspective of an engineer, not a drive-by journalist. The first flight sent back nine minutes' worth of telemetry. Today's test transmitted telemetry for 20 minutes. That's a 122% improvement. Any engineer would be happy to get credit for that accomplishment!
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Was tasty!
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Where was Twitter when they lost their marbles?
So. What would it look like if we found it, and in what general area might we find it. I guess there's a good chance it went into the ocean, which is tough. OTOH, maybe it could have spiraled in towards land. There's an awful lot of state park, national park, and BLM land in california. It'd be quite a find for somebody hiking in the desert, if they knew what they had just found was something other than ordinary aircraft wreckage or part of an old jeep that somebody set on fire.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
This plane is pretty cool, but it is a waste of money. It's not working, it costs $BILLIONS, and its "justification" is to rush nukes to some WWIII target. There is no reason at all to spend this money on it. It's nothing but military corporate welfare.
But instead Americans will have to kiss goodbye our pensions and old-age healthcare. How goddamn stupid.
--
make install -not war
They lost two of 'em? Without a trace? ...
Bullshit.
I am reminded of a bunch of kids lighting a firecracker. Then it goes BANG! and vanishes.
No explanation needed.
But lets do it again.
It looks like it's a weapons delivery system capable of avoiding terminal ballistic missile defenses. A MARV (MAneuverable Reentry Vehicle).
I thought we (the U.S.) were the only ones with a (semi)-robust missile defense system (well I guess the Isrealis also). I guess DARPA's just planning ahead for the day when the Chinese decide to redress the strategic balance by spending their Trillions on a good BMD. Also I'm thinking it must be so expensive that the only kind of warhead that's worth placing on board is nuclear. But then again maybe there are VERY specific soft targets which you absolutely positively have to kill in an hour (because that's all you know they'll be in that location for). Then a "conventional" warhead could do (or at 13,000MPH just a bunch of tungsten rods "Rods from God" would do. Think of it as an intercontinental sniper rifle with bullets that can swerve around defenses. Good for "decapitating" an enemy, (I guess a lot of threats we face would go away if we could take out just the top few people/person: are you listening Kim Jong-Il? Qaddafi? S&P ratings board?).
Or maybe (as another poster mentioned on a previous slashdot forum), it's a (Chinese) carrier killer. In that case, the speed and maneuverability would be needed to avoid the presumably very intense defenses around the high value target. Unless we were willing to use nukes (which would open the door to nuclear retaliatory attacks) this would be the only way to take out such a target. That's assuming that our hunter killer subs couldn't get through their escorts and ASW.
I was kinda hoping DARPA was working on a (much) faster version of the Wave-rider hypersonic aircraft. Oh well, guess even they can't beat the laws of physics (and our lack of a good propulsion system).
Even "cooler" would be a laser that could be quickly lofted into space and would zap a target on the earth below. Unfortunately, "Real Genius" notwithstanding we don't have any lasers compact enough to be launched in anything short of a Saturn V (I don't think Dr. Teller's nuke pumped X-Ray laser was ever shown to work). That pesky outer space treaty prohibits us from placing weapons in space so we can't just have laser satellites floating around picking off people we don't like I guess.
Anonymous is getting pretty bold, jamming the downlink like that.
+++OK ATH
but they don't know where it is.
!st scientist "last time we ran this test we lost our toy"
2nd Scientist "lets' rerun the test"
1st Scientist " test 100% successful we've lost this one too"
Protips, Mr DARPA, the "vehicle" is certainly gone back to 1985, Hill Valley, California.
Don't mention it, for that was my pleasure.
Bet it will show up on the news in China in 3 to 6 months.....