Brilliant Pebbles seems *way* more practical today than 1987. Lots of exotic 80s... | Hacker News

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		brucethemoose2 on May 24, 2023 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: Hypersonic missiles are misunderstood Brilliant Pebbles seems way more practical today than 1987. Lots of exotic 80s autonomous systems are now commercial and mundane, and launch costs are plummeting. Sending up a space laser seems particilarly absurd when one could send up 100(?) drone interceptors for the same cost with less R&D, especially when a drone constellation is far more resilient against anti satellite weapons.

empedocles on May 24, 2023 [–]

I agree, though the cost of an exoatmospheric kill vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exoatmospheric_Kill_Vehicle is probably high.

And one way to avoid this is the other part of the hypersonic renaissance, which is the ability to dip down into the atmosphere.

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