The Hypersonic Arms Race: What You Need to Know

Hypersonic weapons have been in the headlines a lot over the past year as Russia, China, and the US race to develop the next generation of high-tech missiles. But are these supersonic sensations all hype and less hype-r? Let’s have a look.

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[wisdomleader]

I heard even North Korea learned how to make hypersonic missiles from Skillshare, and they succeeded in this April.

[rustynails]

Modifying the existing missiles to keep up with competition sounds Boeing.

[therealdonaldtrumpjr]

I like how the apparent culmination of the universe’s complexity and pinnacle of creation devotes most of its time trying to get really good at destroying itself.

[jerry]

You have an excellent sense of humor, thanks! You also put a lot of effort into your presentations, thanks again! Finally, thanks for being interested in so many things; kudos to you!

[nirpilot]

Main problem for missle is to know where it is, since it finds itself in a cloud of plasma, which interferes with gps. Check hyper for its accuracy, it’s something to pay attention to during comparison

[johnwollenbecker]

I think they’ll be most useful when the aliens arrive.

[grizzlednerd]

I think the point of the Pentagon is that research can sometime produce unpredictable capabilities. If you lag behind, there's a risk that only your adversaries have access to those capabilities. The Pentagon is aiming ahead of the target, not at where it currently is.
Put another way, if the next generation of hypersonics turn out to be game changers then any country which hasn't invested in keeping up with the research might find itself in at a significant disadvantage. Investment in research isn't about current capabilities.
Also, generally, money spent on research goes into the broader national economy. It doesn't vanish into a puff of logic. So that "cost" isn't the same concept as what we consider when we're balancing our personal budgets.

[igorkulishov]

Thank you Sabine, great video! I like humorous "if it helps us annihilate each other few mins faster". How creative we are in self destruction.

[shaider]

M7*, Curious Droid and Perun has good videos on the specifics of the design of hypersonic weapons.

[lvecsey]

There are some great videos on YouTube about fluid dynamics. It seems like that is a big part of what is being researched here. I imagine a sort of sheering of different high speed layers, especially as these things are maneuvered.

[skinnyTheCat]

Great Video Sabine! Appreciate the wild variety of subjects you serve! :)

[donm]

MACH 5? Thats the car SPEED RACER drove.
Go SPEED RACER Loved that show as a kid.

[nikitaelizarov]

My fave youtuber and my fave physicist at the same time. The best of the two worlds. Thank you, Sabine, for being.

[MarcinMoka]

Glad to see you’re getting the respect you deserve. Making science seem approachable

[eveillanderson]

to anyone who likes to point out her accent she definitely says 'mach' better than anyone i've ever heard

[FSennema]

You are exaggerating how easy it is to shoot down ballistic missiles. Usually ballistic missiles lose their boosters and only a RV (Re-entry vehicle) remains, which has a an insanely high speed and is hard to detect due to its small size. There is a reason why the Russians have such a hard time shooting down SRBM ATACMS with their S300/S400

[bro_dBow]

Good job, you are my list to check military tech now!

[Taomantom]

Delta V baby! Most expensive turn you can wish for....where's my fuel?! Sabine: the physics world loss has been our immeasurable gain! Thanks for all your hard efforts and clarity of thought!

[brianmulholland]

As much as I love Sabine's work, and this primer is better than how the media at large is treating the subject, I find there are some deficiencies in this treatment. If you're interested in this topic, I recommend watching the various videos on hypersonics done by Sandboxx (yes, two X's). This topic is more in his wheelhouse and he covers the strategic, tactical, economic, and everything in better depth and with more context because he's more of a military specialist.

Sabine's general conclusion that hypersonics are overrated is accurate. But they do have a role. The alternative to hypersonics defeating an air defense network is volume. Anyone watching the Ukraine war closely knows that Ukraine and Russia seldom shoot lone missiles at one another. They go in large volleys so that the air defense can't shoot them all down. But you can't control WHICH missiles will get through (you can improve your odds, but not guarantee it). So if you're aiming at one high value target, you have to send alot of missiles at it, or accept that you may destroy other stuff, but not that one.

Hypersonics allow the defeat of AA without volume. But they cost 20-50 times what a conventional missile does. And that's probably optimistic. The US is attracted to this idea because it tends to like to be surgical about things. Proportional responses and what-not. China likes this because it means the US has to keep it's precious aircraft carriers further away.

[jeffborders]

I think swear when I was a kid, the information about hypersonic implied mach 10 to mach 30. I feel like the threshold was reduced in order to make it attainable enough to print often in news headlines as if "just a little bit faster" is a bigger achievement than it is. I mean it is a big achievement. But it's not a collapsing neutron star kind of big achievement.