Science

DARPA To Launch Falcon To Reach Speed Of 13,000 MPH

Ready for a 12 minute flight from New York to Los Angeles? Well, those daring guys at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are about to launch Falcon HTV-2 — an arrow-shaped aircraft that will travel 20 times the speed of sound today.

The Force Application and Launch from Continental United States (FALCON) project craft will be launched on a rocket and then glide at hypersonic speeds of 13,000 mph through the Earth’s atmosphere. The problem? The in-flight movie can be no longer than a Sponge Bob episode and the baggage fees are out of this world.

Source: Parabolic as first seen on Reddit.

32 thoughts on “DARPA To Launch Falcon To Reach Speed Of 13,000 MPH”

  1. It looks like JT has a new column out tomorrow on the congressional page program if anyone wants to get their comments in early:

    http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-turley-congressional-page-20110811,0,4622009.story

    In my view the program is being ended so that congress is not seen as providing pages for the sexual gratification of elected representatives. The reality is that those abuses will continue whether they are called interns, pages, or anything else. It is regrettable that the idealism that JT discusses is not actually present in those who actually obtain office.

  5. Holy shit. The pentagon comes out with a new, massively overpriced way to kill people youve never met and everyone suddenly forgets we’re in the middle of a global depression. I see how that works. Hooray death.

  6. popeyemoon, if you used the form below the comment box the first line is for your email addy (which doesn’t show up) and the second line is for your screen name. The third line is for a link to your website etc. Always check those lines, you can edit those lines.

    If you use Gavatar and Disqus you might have incorrectly filled the info lines regarding name/screen name and now some weird auto-fill thing is going on, you might want to check there also.

  8. We won’t get to fly in it. It will be used to drop bombs on wedding party tents in Middle Eastern countries. Or should I call the wedding tents “Hamas Headquarters” like the CIA does?

  10. My B.I.L. works on this,if all goes as plan, it will flip on its back and land like that so the ram jet is not damaged.

  12. For when it absolutely has to get there within 1/4 hr — like a vaccine, an antidote, an organ transplant?

  14. AY,

    I’ll take the shake
    But not one so very thick
    That I can’t finish it.

  15. pardon me?

    Do you want french fries with that? Would you care to increase your order with and orbital shake….

  16. I wanna fly it. There is only one best seat in the house. Unfortunately, it will be unmanned–or unwomanned.

    As an alternative, maybe Burt Rutan is taking applications for somebody to fly his spaceship. He already is using a senior citizen for a test pilot.

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