Australia is already well down the track to having a hypersonic weapons platform by accident, having spent many years in collaboration with NASA on space planes / launch platforms with transonic / hypersonic capability. I suspect that AUKUS see this as potentially a hypersonic cruise capable missile as apparently many problems of transitioning between subsonic, supersonic and hypersonic flight have already been addressed by the research, math done now it's an engineering gig.
One has to wonder what the researchers will think when AUKUS hijacks the existing research and turns it into another weapons project. It's going to be bitter sweet for some, they'll get the funding they wish they had always had, but it won't necessarily translate to the new hypersonic public access transport system they had hoped for!
Of course the next step might well be a hypersonic weapons or surveillance platform.
A lot of it will go dark, blacker than my heart! :o
For those interested in some of the background, it's a project between UoQ and NASA, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20161...space-race
Oddly enough, I've worked with some of these people in the past, it turns out that R&D into additive manufacturing via kinetic spray requires the design of de Laval spray nozzles that just so happen to be ideal starting point for scramjets and hypersonic propulsion. I can tell you they won't be happy if the research gets restricted.
One has to wonder what the researchers will think when AUKUS hijacks the existing research and turns it into another weapons project. It's going to be bitter sweet for some, they'll get the funding they wish they had always had, but it won't necessarily translate to the new hypersonic public access transport system they had hoped for!
Of course the next step might well be a hypersonic weapons or surveillance platform.
A lot of it will go dark, blacker than my heart! :o
For those interested in some of the background, it's a project between UoQ and NASA, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20161...space-race
Oddly enough, I've worked with some of these people in the past, it turns out that R&D into additive manufacturing via kinetic spray requires the design of de Laval spray nozzles that just so happen to be ideal starting point for scramjets and hypersonic propulsion. I can tell you they won't be happy if the research gets restricted.
"Ruck, ruck, ruck, ruck ....... Ruck, ruck, ruck, ruck"