: Mark Lewis, former Air Force chief scientist who appeared at the hypersonics seminar with Hallion June 30 (see Hypersonic Breakthrough Coming Soon above), agreed with Hallion’s timeline for the fielding of a hypersonic missile. Lewis said hypersonic missiles—or aircraft, for that matter—would be well-suited to theater operations of less than 700 miles, but “don’t make much sense” for globe-spanning missions. The effective range limitation is a by-product of the fact that hypersonic weapons would likely consume vast quantities of fuel at such high speed.
The Senate Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces heard testimony from the Defense Department’s top missile defense leaders and demanded to know why the Missile Defense Agency's proposed $9.6 billion fiscal 2023 budget will not yield more reliable defense against hypersonic weapons already being fielded by adversaries, including Russia on…