Speed Peeled Skin Off Hypersonic Glider

[cigaretteman]

A test flight of an aircraft designed to whip around the world at Mach 20 failed when the high speeds peeled the skin off the unmanned plane, Pentagon researchers conclude in a long-awaited report.
For nine minutes in August, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency flew its Hypersonic Technology Vehicle at speeds reaching 20 times the speed of sound - fast enough to fly from New York to Los Angeles in less than 12 minutes. But then, something went wrong, and DARPA is finally explaining what happened.
"The most probable cause of the HTV-2 Flight 2 premature flight termination was unexpected aeroshell degradation," the research group explained in a new statement on the test flight.
Translation: The unmanned glider was streaking through the atmosphere when its outer skin started to rip off the airframe.

DARPA knew friction from the glider passing through the air so fast would cause it to heat up. It also expected "a gradual wearing away of the vehicle's skin as it reached stress tolerance limits," based on ground tests.
"However, larger-than-anticipated portions of the vehicle's skin peeled from the aerostructure," the statement said. "The resulting gaps created strong, impulsive shock waves around the vehicle as it traveled nearly 13,000 miles per hour, causing the vehicle to roll abruptly."
When that "anomaly" occurred, a safety computer slowed the glider down and it splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, where it's now probably an artificial reef with a moon roof.
The goal of the project is to create an aircraft that can fly anywhere in the world in under an hour to strike a target. The test plane was launched by a Minotaur IV rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, then separated from the booster and re-entered the atmosphere over the Pacific.

Skin-peeling speed doomed hypersonic glider, U.S. says – CNN Security Clearance - CNN.com Blogs

[CLONECONES]

The resulting gaps created strong, impulsive shock waves around the vehicle as it traveled nearly 13,000 miles per hour

[CycoCyclone]

that's bad ***

How many G's would the accel and decel put on a human?

[Goothrey]

Cool. I remember the reports of it failing and the criticism for running such a test. Fools.

[stateofmind]

So, I read the subject and thought it was skin off a person on a hang-glider.

[VeloClone]

So, I read the subject and thought it was skin off a person on a hang-glider.

Well, it is something like this, but only if Wile E. Coyote was 1064 feet tall.



EDIT: Hey, were did you question about propelling a Mach 20 vehicle go? It's absence ruins the entire joke!