4 ms·

China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile in Aug that circled the globe

• neximo64 5y ago
  Great, now theres going to be radioactive exhaust all over the place from everyone doing this.
  • perl4ever 5y ago
    Normally "nuclear capable" in the context of missiles means capable of carrying nuclear weapons, not having some sort of nuclear propulsion. Nothing in the FT article seems to suggest the latter. There was some attempt in the 1960s to develop nuclear ramjets, but it was canceled. Allegedly because it would encourage an arms race.
  • GaryTang 5y ago
    Missles that are more than five times faster than the speed of sound and you’re worried about the environment?
    • neximo64 5y ago
      Maybe you need to find out how they work, even just to test them without detonation. The propulsion variant.
      • perl4ever 5y ago
        The propulsion variant of what?
• ren_engineer 5y ago
  the average US citizen has no idea how badly our military has rotted, we have nothing that can counter this. Trillions wasted by corrupt military contractors and morons in the Pentagon We can't even manage a successful retreat from Afghanistan and people think we can do anything to contain China. The CIA and military have admitted pretty much all of our spies in China got wiped out while China has infiltrated us at all levels
  • snypher 5y ago
    >we have nothing that can counter this As much as I may dislike it, 4000 nukes say otherwise.
    • sudosysgen 5y ago
      The nuclear capability is an extra goodie in case the US manages to make an ABM system that actually works after 60 years of trying. The main use case will be to hit high value targets like carriers, you won't be using nukes as a responses.
  • not-elite 5y ago
    I believe the United States slow walked its own Prompt Global Strike [1] program because it was perceived to be needlessly escalatory [2]. That sounds like sensible policy making. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prompt_Global_Strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prompt_Global_Strike [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20121220071303/http://defense.aol.com/2012/12/17/pentagons-global-strike-weapon-stuck-in-limbo-congress-fears-a/ https://web.archive.org/web/20121220071303/http://defense.ao...
    • sudosysgen 5y ago
      Not really. The reason PGS was deemed "escalatory" is because it was indistinguishable from a nuclear first strike but had a conventional payload, and that the payload itself was fairly small. This missile certainly has completely different objectives to PGS.
  • perl4ever 5y ago
    I don't think anything you say is relevant, true or false, to why or how it should be "countered". Do you have any opinion on that?
    • ren_engineer 5y ago
      we've spent a ton of money on our anti-ICBM missile shield which is now useless. Even before we really weren't confident it would work but now it's definitely worthless. As far as first strike and retaliation, we can't even be sure our subs aren't detected by China considering we just tried to do a drill in Chinese water and our sub collided with an "object" which did significant damage. Wouldn't be surprised if China was giving us a bloody nose https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58838332 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58838332
• 8bitsrule 5y ago
  Keep thumpin. Gotta keep the war machine alive. Next thing you know, people will want their planet saved, and there goes that sweet honeypot.
• ipnon 5y ago
  My first thought was that this may explain the mysterious "boom" that occurred in New England recently.