"New York to L.A. in less than 12 minutes", the highly anticipated Falcon Hypersonic Test Vehicle (HTV-2) has apparently done its job a bit too well since the US military lost contact with the vehicle this Thursday during a test flight.
The unmanned vehicle had successfully separated from the launch vehicle and was performing "glide phase" maneuvers meant to test its aerodynamics when around 36 minutes into the flight contact with the plane was lost.
Earlier in April 2010 something similar has occurred with another Falcon Hypersonic plane (HTV-1), only then a loss of contact occurred in barely 9 minutes into the flight. But those nine minutes of testing didn't seem to be completely in vain since the flight has provided some key information about flying 22 times faster than a commercial jetliner.
The HTV-2 vehicle -- a prototype for a Prompt Global Strike weapons program -- is built to be capable of reaching Mach 20-approximately 20 times the speed of light. At that speed a vehicle could fly from Los Angeles to New York City in 12 minutes, according to DARPA.
DARPA: "The ultimate goal is a capability that can reach anywhere in the world in less than an hour".
Whether it will be possible or not, one thing is for sure: this is one badass expensive project and seeing the current standings of the American economy, I don't know if now would be the right time to be spending money on this.
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