Lockheed Martin joins race to build hypersonic jetliners, weapons (WaPo)
By Christian Davenport March 25 Follow @_chrisdavenport
One was a spy plane, designed to fly fast and stealthily into enemy territory; on its final flight, it cruised from Los Angeles to Washington in an hour and four minutes, hitting 2,124 mph, a speed record.
The other was a sleek commercial jet for wealthy, time-is-money travelers willing to plunk down $10,000 for a ticket — or more — for the luxury of zipping across the Atlantic at Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound.
Today, the SR-71 Blackbird and the Concorde have been retired, sitting motionless as showcase exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum by Washington Dulles International Airport. But now, in conjunction with the Pentagon and NASA, Lockheed Martin is trying to develop new technologies that would build on their legacies, designing aircraft designed to go fast — really, really fast.
Worried that adversaries are limiting the U.S. military’s ability to strike when and where it wants, the Pentagon is pushing an effort to develop new hypersonic weapons capable of flying at Mach 5 and faster. There are also concerns about reports that China is developing hypersonic technology, which could give it a tactical advantage.
In a state-of-the-company speech recently, Marillyn Hewson, Lockheed Martin’s chief executive, highlighted the company’s work in hypersonics, saying the world’s largest defense contractor is developing technologies that would “allow quicker response times to increasingly mobile threats, and the ability to project strength more rapidly around the globe.”
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more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/lockheed-martin-joins-race-to-build-hypersonic-jetliners-weapons/2016/03/25/082b8d36-f2ac-11e5-89c3-a647fcce95e0_story.html
the speech: http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/news/speeches/0315-hewson-2016-media-day.html (search for the string 'hyper')
ETA: background info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_SR-72
The comments are interesting. Yes, we might be spending this money better on failing roads and bridges, but the decision to go ahead with this technology has already been made within the corridors of the Pentagon. Taxpayers just get to hear about it occasionally, and then often by accident.
OK, it's kind of neat, like an interesting experiment, or just to show we can do it. But is the ROI really worth it ?