US plans hypersonic bomber
 

BBC website 1st July 2003
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. But then again, it may just be good old fashioned electioneering and more jobs for their pals in the defence industry. :*

I thought that is what Intercontinental Ballsitic Missiles are for;)

But if it is an aircraft rather than a missile they might hope to bypass the arms reduction treaties about ICBMs? No that can't be it. :p

Yep, they should have gotten the approval of the Royal Society of Architects before starting this program...

The same story has something about dropping bombs from space.

Firstly, militarisation of space is a Bad Idea - it should be treated like Antarctica or something. Some of the Americans seem to think they own space - but they weren't even the first people there!

Secondly. Really, has someone been watching Aliens too much? "Let's nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure".

Still. I'm sure this announcement has given UFO-nutters and conspiracy theorists food for thought..
(*cough* Aurora *cough*)

is this the "Sonic Bruiser" then?

The Aurora is not the SR-71 replacement your all thinking of. It is in fact the parachutist-capable transport variant of the B2 for dropping sneaky CIA spies into enemy terrority undetected :8

Another source
 

Here is another source for this project:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/...988612,00.html

See Ya!

This is an isea that goes back to the German SANGER bomber project from WW2 - the US picked up the scientists who worked on it during the NAZI firesale in 1945.

It was then resurrected in the 1960's, 70's and then in the 80's as part of the COPPER CANYON project for a strike/recce project. Eventually it became the NASP X30 project. Now it looks like they have dragged it up again.

NASP
http://www.fas.org/irp/mystery/nasp.htm

There are a large number of project studies to be found on google.

How accurate will bomb drops from a hypersonic aircraft be? The faster the aircraft/missile/ufo etc. the more inaccurate the target becomes, or not?

I remember the last hypersonic missiles or whatever they were didn't do too well...

It is lessons learned from the Iraq war. First of all, we must be self-sufficient. No more the 4th Division stuck off of Turkey, no more worries about overflights. Second, we need something to knock out underground bunkers in a non-nuclear fashion. The solution: we base weapons in space. Also, we are not putting nuclear weapons in orbit - we simply direct the titanium rods down from space and let gravity and physics do the trick - problem solved with no fallout and no need to consult allies.

46Driver

The ballistic projectile from orbit is a good story but it's a
little tricky in the execution if you want to hit anything
other than preloaded map references.

Your orbital release vehicle will be below the physical horizon
of your potential targets...controlling the impact point of
manoeuvering, re-entering hypersonic projectiles is
beyond our current state of the technical art.

-- Andrew

I agree.. treat space like the Antarctic. Australia already claims 1/3 of that..

of course no-one else will recognise it :)