DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, has made public its best guess about what might have caused its unmanned arrowhead-shaped Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (HTV-2) to suddenly lose contact and crash in the Pacific just a few minutes after slicing through the sky at Mach 20 last August: it was going so fast its skin peeled off.



After an eight-month investigation, DARPA concluded that even though the HTV-2 was expected to lose some of its skin mid-flight, "larger than anticipated portions of the vehicle's skin peeled from the aerostructure," the agency said in a statement Friday.

The agency said it expected the HTV-2, which goes so fast it can make the commute from New York to Los Angeles in 12 minutes, to experience "impulsive shock waves" at such speeds, but shocks it experienced last August were "more than 100 times what the vehicle was designed to withstand."

While the test was very public, the details of the HTV-2's design, stability system and potential purpose remain highly classified.

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"Too Soon from the Cave, Too Far from the Stars"

If one of my designs failed due to forces that were underestimated by two orders of magnitude, I'd be looking at a pink slip...

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Fantom Thrust - SHW Battlebot
Dell M6300 - loaded
Dell M6700 - loaded
X1 X2 X3 X4 X5 X6 X7 X8 X9

I get a kick out of "They expected to lose SOME skin.." That's like launching a new ship and expecting it to "sink a little" or a new car and expecting it to "not always steer".

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"Too Soon from the Cave, Too Far from the Stars"

Haven't these people heard of duct-tape?!

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History shows again and again how nature points up the folly of man