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19FortyFive: A place where experts analyze defense, national security, foreign policy, and politics. We welcome all viewpoints and ideas.
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News
The Mach 3 US Air Force SR-71 Blackbird Ran on a Fuel So Stable You Could Put Out a Match in It. Then They Had to Invent a Way to Light It.
16+ hour, 36+ min ago (1397+ words) The SR-71 Blackbird JP-7's real work was not burning. It was absorbing about 700 kilowatts of heat off the airframe and arriving at the burners already at 600 degrees Fahrenheit....
Russia Built a Titanium Hulled 'Golden Fish' Nuclear Submarine That Could Hit 44 Knots That Had 2 Reactors. The Goal Was to Hunt US Navy Aircraft Carriers
17+ hour, 45+ min ago (396+ words) At full speed the fastest submarine ever built, the K-222 (also known as the Papa-class or Project 661) was so loud it announced itself. The thing it relied on to escape pursuit was the thing that told pursuers where it was....
To Fly the US Air Force SR-71 Blackbird at Mach 3 and 85,000 Feet You Needed an Astronaut's Body, Iron Nerves, and the Stomach to Outrun Soviet Missiles
19+ hour, 6+ min ago (812+ words) SR-71 Blackbird crews took the same physical NASA gave its astronauts. Above 63,000 feet, an unprotected human body's fluids begin to boil, and the SR-71 cruised far higher than that....
China Bolted an Electromagnetic Railgun to the Bow of a Type 072III Landing Ship in December 2017 and Has Kept It at Sea Ever Since. The US Navy Spent About $500,000,000 Over 15 Years, Never Got Its Gun to Sea at All, and Cancelled the Program in July 2021.
19+ hour, 24+ min ago (1350+ words) The American railgun needed a new barrel after about two dozen shots. Chinese researchers claim 120 consecutive rounds without a failure. That one number is the whole argument....
The Soviet Union Soft-Landed 8 Venera Spacecraft on the Surface of Venus Between 1970 and 1982, in 870 Degrees Fahrenheit and 92 Times Earth's Atmospheric Pressure. The United States Has Never Landed on Venus Once.
20+ hour, 20+ min ago (479+ words) America won the Moon, owns Mars, and has flown past everything else. On Venus it finished a distant second to a country that stopped existing in 1991....
NASA's X-43D Was Designed to Hold Mach 15 — About 11,000 Miles per Hour, 3 Miles Every Second — for 30 Seconds of Powered Flight. Development Was to Begin in Fiscal Year 2005, Run 4 Years, and End in 3 Flights a Year Apart. Not One Vehicle Was Ever Built.
1+ day, 8+ hour ago (682+ words) Thirty seconds at Mach 15 generates heat no conventional structure survives. The X-43D was not a faster X-43A. It was a new aircraft that needed active cooling, and it priced itself out....
How US Navy Nuclear Submarines Stay Underwater for Months Without Surfacing
2+ day, 7+ hour ago (476+ words) A nuclear submarine makes its own air and its own drinking water. The only two things that force it back to the surface are the food it can carry and the people aboard....
Japan's Electromagnetic Railgun Has Fired More Than 100 Shots Without Replacing Its Rails. The US Navy Spent About $500,000,000 on Its Own Railgun and Shut the Program Down in 2021.
2+ day, 11+ hour ago (709+ words) At times, the electromagnetic railgun has looked like the future of naval warfare. Replacing gunpowder and rocket propulsion with electrical currents that generate magnetic forces sufficient to accelerate a projectile down two conductive rails, the railgun promised to offer so…...
A Laser Shot Costs a Few Dollars. The US Navy Estimates the First Real Shipboard Laser Program Would Cost About $1,000,000,000 Before a Single Destroyer Is Fitted With One.
2+ day, 15+ hour ago (730+ words) The Navy’s reasons for pursuing laser weaponry are obvious. Conventional air defense systems rely on expensive physical ammunition. For example, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer can carry roughly 90–96 missiles in its Vertical Launch System (VLS) cells. Once those missiles are depleted,…...
NASA Spent About $230,000,000 Over 8 Years and Flew the X-43A 3 Times. Its Scramjet Held Mach 9.68 for About 10 Seconds on 16 November 2004, and the Funding Ended Within Weeks — Before the Team Had Published the Results.
2+ day, 19+ hour ago (1210+ words) The X-43A set the air-breathing speed record on 16 November 2004 with a 10-second burn at Mach 9.68. Hyper-X funding ended within weeks, before the results were written up....