A hundred years after human beings first flew a flimsy machine, new boundaries of flight have been reached. The successful testing by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the X-43A experimental vehicle, establishing a world speed record of nearly 7,700 kilometres per hour, marks a historic event. But its real significance goes far beyond the speed record, although that is unique and impressive in its own right. Coming as it does within six weeks of the Russian prototype test of a hypersonic manoeuvring vehicle in lower space, the developments promise to revolutionise military-strategic affairs — both in air power as well as in space — in the coming decades.The scientific-technological breakthrough in the successful testing of supersonic combustion ram jet (scramjet), air breathing engines powering space planes would have far reaching implications. At one level this takes man closer to the search for a single-stage-to-orbit space launch vehicle since the scramjet engine would draw oxygen from the low density atmosphere to burn with the small amounts of hydrogen carried in the vehicle. This, in turn, means that space launch payload costs per unit of weight could come down to as low as one-forth to one-twentieth of the current costs, since a much lesser quantity of fuel would have to be carried on board. Hypersonic flight could dramatically alter air travel. At another level, these developments will completely revolutionise military warfare. A space plane that can fly at 25-30 times the speed of sound, covering the distance from, say, Europe to India in 30-odd minutes, would be impossible to stop before reaching its objective. If it can also manoeuvre in lower-earth space while carrying a precision-guided conventional or a nuclear warhead, it would nullify any of the air and missile defences currently existing or which are now being planned. This is in fact what Russian President Putin claimed last month when the Russians tested their vehicle. Operationalising these systems may be a decade or more away. But this development puts the world much closer to the weaponisation of space and the ushering in of a whole new arms race in this century.
