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Originally posted by ShadowXIX
I was just using a Stealth Shuttle as a example even though a Hypersonic plane might be a better application.
Thermal tracking wouldnt be a problem because your not putting off high heat while in orbit only during reentry.
Originally posted by ShadowXIX
Most cruise missiles are Subsonic that I know of, the US Tomahawk cruise missile only has a top speed of 550 mph.
Only a few of Hypersonic scramjets have been tested around mach 10. Im not sure of the thermal protection they use but none have been stealth that I know of. We have ICBMs that reach hypersonic speeds But I have never heard of a Stealth ICBM either.
Originally posted by roniii259
In Lockheed martin's proposals for the Global Reach/Global Strike development program they proposed to take unused ICBMs and put regular warheads on them so that the US could put a conventional munition any place on the planet in 2 hours. It would eventually be replaced by a hypersonic suborbital plane that would fire a small rocket to put a common reentry vechicle with a bomb on it to do the same mission at the fraction of the cost.