Hypersonic Plane Officially Dead

Darpa Cancels Blackswift After Congress Axes Funding
-- Aviation Week

DARPA has cancelled the Blackswift reusable hypersonic testbed program. Not surprising, really, after Congress cut its Fiscal 2009 budget from $120 million to just $10 million - slicing $60 million from DARPA's budget request and eliminating all $50 million the U.S. Air Force sought for its share of the program. (You can read the story here.)

I'm not sure what I think about this. Disappointed, certainly, but not surprised. Congress was skeptical of Blackswift's technical feasibility and operational utility. I always had the uncomfortable feeling the research agency was trying to run before it could walk - tackling the "DARPA-hard" challenge of reusable hypersonics before it had some of the enabling technologies firmly in place.

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