China is developing a 6,000 mph hypersonic nuclear missile engine. Interestingly, this advanced nuclear missile engine design was previously discarded by the US national space agency, NASA.
A team of Chinese researchers then built and tested a prototype based on the radical design. The design was proposed by Ming Han Tang, a Chinese-American who was the chief engineer of NASA's hypersonic program in the late 1990s.
The Boeing Manta X-47C, a program to test designs developed by Tang, was discarded by the US government in the early 2000s because it was deemed too expensive.
But now, under China's rapidly advancing militarization, money is no problem, especially if the goal is to put China ahead in the arms development race.
According to the New York Post, professor Tan Huijun and his colleagues, at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in the eastern province of Jiangsu, built a prototype machine based on Tang's blueprints.
"The design has attracted attention, because understanding its mechanism of action can provide important guidance for hypersonic aircraft and engine development," Tan and colleagues said in a paper published in the Journal of Propulsion Technology.
Nuclear missile engines can switch to high speed mode and accelerate to more than five times the speed of sound. Last October, China fired a hypersonic missile and the US was shocked to see the terrible military might.
US military and intelligence officials were also reportedly stunned after China launched a rocket in space carrying a hypersonic glide vehicle. This hypersonic vehicle can circle all corners of the Earth before speeding towards its target.
Sources reported that the test alarmed US officials, and showed how China had made astonishing progress in its development of hypersonic weapons.
To note, hypersonic missiles travel five times faster than the speed of sound and can reach a range of up to 1,500 miles. Russia has used the technology to build cutting-edge missiles in recent years.
