There are many articles and reports from Newsweek or other media sources that complain that the US military is behind China and Russia on hypersonic weapons. This is because Russia and China have rushed to deploy some hypersonic warheads boosted on regular rockets.
China and Russia each have some hypersonic glide missiles. The warheads are tiny and most are just slightly faster conventional rockets.
The US has been testing more advanced hypersonic missiles with scramjet engines but has not deployed them.
However, there is a US hypersonic bomber that is in development that outclasses all of the other hypersonic weapon systems. It can travel up to 20 times the speed of sound and will have a range of 8000 miles. It will be able to start and restart its engines to change direction or increase speed. It will have a payload of up to 200-350 tons. This weapons payload is up to ten times the 35 ton payload of the B-52. This US future hypersonic bomber is the SpaceX Starship. This is just the upper stage of the Super heavy starship.
The hypersonic SpaceX Starship will be about 2 to four times faster than the hypersonic missiles, which fly at about Mach 5 to 6.
The China DF-21 missiles cost about $10 million each. The SpaceX Starship has six engines that each cost about $250,000 to $500,000. The Starship is made of stainless steel. A mass produced SpaceX Starship can cost $10 million each.
Most of the hypersonic missiles have warheads that weigh 350 kilograms or less. The 200 to 350 ton payload of SpaceX Starship will enable about 1000 times the weapons capacity of the hypersonic missiles.
The SpaceX Starship can just be filled with metal objects like large ball bearings. The kinetic energy from the mass of something moving at 20 times the speed of sound is over 4 times the mass in TNT. This means the 1200 tons of propellant accelerates 200-350 tons of payload to very high kinetic energy. The Starship will be fully reusable. It can refueled and reloaded with more metal projectiles that have no chemical explosives. The objects for kinetic energy weapons can have some guidance systems for guide to precise targets.
China and Russia Hypersonic Missiles
China DF-ZF (developed and deployed) / Mach 5-10 [probably 100-400 kilogram warhead]
China YJ-21
Russia Avangard (developed and deployed) / Mach 20–27
Russia has some air launched hypersonic weapons : Kh-47M2 Kinzhal (probably a 400 kilogram warhead)
3M22 Zircon (hypersonic cruise missile with a scramjet engine, boosted with a regular rocket fired from navy ships, 300-400 kilogram warhead)
R-37 (an air to air missile that can reach mach 5-6, 60 kilogram warhead)
France Hypersonic weapon development
VERAS (program launched in 1965 and cancelled in 1971)
VMaX (first flight test took place on June 26, 2023 from the DGA’s site in Biscarrosse and was successful)
VMaX-2 (under development; first flight test expected in 2024 or 2025)
India HGV-202F (under development)
Japan Hyper Velocity Gliding Projectile (HVGP) (under development)
North Korea Hwasong-8 (under development)
United States
Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (experimental)
OpFires (under development)
Common-Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB) (in development for US Army (LRHW) and US Navy Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS))
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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Let’s be real. How fast can a Starship be fueled and launched? In case of a nuclear weapons exchange – about the only circumstance where a weapon of this capacity makes sense – you need to be able to launch in less than half an hour (assuming the US isn’t doing a first strike, of course), or the launch complex will simply be gone. And you can forget about landing and reuse in any case, even with sea-going launch platforms.
Of course, you could argue that we could use Starship to put bombs in orbit ahead of time – yep, that’s a great way to make nuclear war inevitable.
Or maybe we could just focus on developing Starship ASAP to get humanity off Earth, tapping the effectively infinite energy and material resources of the solar system, before the contagious insanity inherent in multiple paranoid hierarchies of government destroys us all.
Elon would do everything in his power to ensure the military doesn’t waponize his beloved Starship.
But, that’s not to say the U.S. couldnt just build one themselves though.
This is the kind of thing that completely removes the need for nuclear weapons. It’s probably one of the closest things we’ll have to a “clean” weapon of mass destruction, in the context of not irradiating things.
Range is unlimited not just 8000 miles. Drop off a bomb in orbit and return. Bomb loiters then deorbits by itself when and where it’s needed.
It is against international treaty to not militarize space.
SpaceX Starship second stage has a gross weight of 1,300 metric tonnes, about 75 tonnes of which is stainless steel.
I’m no physicist, but I believe dropping even an empty 100 tonne Starship from orbit pointy end first onto a target would likely cause more damage than a conventional Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) which is the most powerful purpose-built non-nuclear weapon in the public domain and weighs a mere 14 tonnes.
Starship in expendable configuration (and this one certainly wouldn’t be reused) can also carry 250 tonnes of ‘payload’ to orbit, and back to earth again on a one way trip.
Rods from god
Yes, I’ve given considerable thought to the strategic advantage that Starship will provide the US.
In short.. It is colossal!
It’s not just the ability to carry warheads and weapons into space in bulk.
1) Economic. Starship ensures the US dominance of the space economy will not only continue indefinitely but will grow.
Realistically for at least another 30 years and probably much longer.
2) Technology. Starship has catapulted the US into an unassailable position regarding rocket technology and mass rocket manufacturing. It is very hard to see how China gets out in front of them now when they still haven’t landed an orbital class rocket and don’t look like doing so anytime soon. US lead is 10-15 years.
3) Strategic relationships. Starship opens up huge opportunities with allied or potential allied countries to host a Starship port and to boost their own presence in space at a fraction of previous costs. This will cement long term strategic relationships and accelerate free world development.
4) Cultural dominance. Starship represents a paradigm shift in space. This will flow through to the collective imagination of the global population that will see the benefits
and hope for an exciting future. This ethos change will flow directly to the US/Western democratic free enterprise model as obviously the most superior system.
5) Military. I put this last because it is the most obvious point. Clearly Starship allows the US military complete dominance in space on all levels. And it will essentially allow the US to remain the dominant military power for many decades to come as controlling the space domain becomes critical in projecting power into the future.
But it only does all that if the government gets out of the way, instead of being directed to hobble Starship development in a fit of political pique.
Very true. Some sane regulation regarding mitigation safety, environmental, and wildlife concerns is prudent, but it is urgent the Starship is brought online.
It could be used single stage in limited circumstances or with Superheavy booster as an orbital bomber that can hit anywhere on earth within less than an hour.
This would presumably be a military version for US SpaceForce operated from their own bases presumably starting with a Starship launch/landing facility at SLC-6 Vandenberg SFB. SpaceForce could get its own ocean launch facilities.
It could drop hypersonic conventional or orbital kinetic weapons but also deliver the full arsenal of smart weapons – smart torpedos, mines, surface drones, cruise missiles, aerial drones of various types, various missiles etc. from orbital re-entry drop boxes that release weapons very much like the Air Force Rapid Dragon system that drops them from Cargo planes.
It could drop them off anywhere in the world in less than an hour at lower cost than an AirForce Cargo plane but with zero risk to crew.
Drop boxes could also deliver military cargo to the ground by parachute much like airlift cargo planes.
Drop boxes are likely pretty easy to develop out of Starship stainless steel + thermal tiles + SpaceX maneuvering rockets to slow for reentry + SpaceX parachutes.
Unlike a conventional heavy bomber, Starship based SpaceForce ships (need a new name just like military version of StarLink is StarShield), can overfly any territory because it’s in Space. Once launched it can orbit over potential targets passing over them many times per day indefinitely at no extra cost until employed or used. Unlike Thor it isn’t propositioned in Space but it can be launched but kept ready for a specific target.
SpaceForce Starships could be ordered in crewed versions to do various other things (and help recruiting and morale) but the main ship is a Cargo Starship. It can be made quite defensible with its own anti-missile laser system + the ability to be polished and spin so ground based lasers would have a hard time damaging its Stainless Steel skin.
SpaceForce Starships are “The Third Offset” which was much discussed 2014-2018 in military planning. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA454-1.html
Oh my God, you’ve finally figured it out. Even as a child, I discussed with my father that a breakthrough in weapons should be like this.
But there are several inaccuracies. Obviously, the suborbital strike option is not the main one, just like a strike with hypersonic weapons.
The main horse will be a combination of 1 – orbital strike senior ship, 2 – earth orbit refueler, 3 – earth orbit bomb transporter.
The main strike weapons will be containers with conventional gliding smart bombs, which will quickly decelerate in the atmosphere to normal speed and open up releasing conventional bombs. Also, the ship will initially be able to launch nuclear warheads + their guidance module as for an ICBM. Also, the orbital module will be equipped with kinetic interceptors of ballistic missiles.
As a result, the result will be an average between a submarine, a bomber, an ICBM, and a missile defense carrier ship.
And now an unpleasant question. Why is it that in your country, critical military technologies, and indeed all cool technologies, are in charge of a person who supports any enemy of America?
Not sure that militarizing Starship is a good idea unless we want to invite adversaries to start taking pot shots at Starships if they are nervous about intent, much less accidentally trigger nuclear exchange if they are fearing nuclear first strike.
Right. Let’s hold up the show of the most important rocket ever so that you can play politics.
Single Stage Starship is only useful as a bomber if the target area is beneath the flight path starting and ending at a launch/landing facility. You could use it as the launch vehicle for a boost glide/scramjet weapon Starship deploys that and then boosts back to where it came from. Two stage Orbital Starship could be used as a bomber as it can launch on any path and wait to reenter until it lines up with a landing facility. This would require a launch facility in a remote or open ocean area to allow flight paths in all directions. Changing orbital inclination is energy intensive at low altitude. You could keep a lot of loaded Starships in various orbits or you could keep fewer of them in higher orbits to change inclination easier but at the expense of time needed for the payload to come back down. Starship can be used as a bomber but it is limited and I think not as cheap and rosy as Brain makes it sound.
star ship could simply be used expendable at 10 million a pop to be honest. i would swap them out in a few icbm silos to test rapid launch.
Better just drop off the bomb in orbit. It deorbits itself when nd where it’s needed.
You do not need multiple orbital Starships to strike locations far away from its launch locations. A Starship re-entering the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds can strike many targets & land in any Allied nations/ pre determined ocean destination thousands of miles from its targets.Even emergency landed in water. You do not waste time money and fuel by just sitting multiple sets of Stars waiting to find a target.