Hypersonics

Hypersonics, to those who’ve been paying attention, have been all the rage in the national security tech world for the last couple of years. There’s some interesting new research on hypersonic boost vehicles in particular that’s helpful for understanding their limitations:

A new article by Dr. Cameron L. Tracy of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Global Security program and Dr. David Wright of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering in the journal Science and Global Security calls into question whether hypersonics have the technical qualities to make an impact on the strategic balance of power.