8.03.2025

The Hermeus Quarterhorse aircraft at Edwards Air Force Base during a press event in December. Credit: Hermeus

The world has taken notice of the hypersonic technology that China and Russia are touting as unstoppable. Capable of maneuvering unpredictably at extreme speeds within the atmosphere, these weapons are difficult to track and even harder to intercept, forcing an urgent response time that adds yet another layer of complexity.

They are ultra-expensive, exquisitely engineered weapons that the United States does not have a compelling response to, even after decades of research and development. We find ourselves stuck pouring billions into the same stagnant development strategies without producing viable operational systems.

In this hypersonic arms race, we are behind. Our move to jump ahead should not be to match our adversaries dollar for dollar, but to play to our strengths — leveraging the entrepreneurial roots of what has always made America great in deterring conflict or winning quickly. Those roots are built on rapid, iterative development.

The world’s most complex technical challenges, like hypersonics, are solved quickly and affordably by relentless real-world testing of full systems.

Same old approach, same old outcomes

The goal of national defense is quite simple: to deter conflict and, when that fails, win quickly.

The defense industry typically tries to solve this two ways: by expanding capability by producing highly advanced technology, and by expanding capacity by producing more of existing technology.

Neither approach will work for hypersonics.

When it comes to capability, we do not have time on our side. Our attempts to future-proof requirements, ensuring investments made today don’t become obsolete, is wishful thinking and, frankly, old fashioned.

We are in a rapidly evolving threat environment and cannot count on our exquisite, expensive technology that was conceived 10-20 years ago to be relevant today. Technology is advancing too quickly, and our adversaries have become too sophisticated.

As for capacity, do we really want to base our strategy solely on competing toe-to-toe with China at manufacturing? That’s their playing field.

Even if our manufacturing base was stronger (and it absolutely needs to be), that’s not enough. The capacity game is not one we want to play. We do not want to find ourselves in a war of attrition that favors the side willing to absorb the most losses.

What we need is a sustained asymmetric capability advantage at scale. The best way to achieve this is by building and testing in short periods of time and rapidly de-risking new capabilities over and over.

Iterative development is the answer

At a time when threats evolve rapidly, the U.S. must embrace frequent prototyping and real-world testing. Instead of spending years perfecting a system on paper, we should be building, flying and learning from hardware — fast.

This is not a new idea. In the mid-20th century, you could argue that American aerospace was defined by those who put action over analysis — even at personal risk.

Let’s start with “the Aviator” — Howard Hughes. When developing the H-1 Racer, he didn’t wait for perfection. During a 1936 test flight, he flew the plane himself, broke the world airspeed record and crash-landed in a beet field. He reportedly told his team, “We can fix her, she’ll go faster.”

How about the X-15 — the world’s first hypersonic rocket plane. The program was a masterclass in rapid, real-world learning. In one particularly dramatic episode in 1959, an X-15 landed so hard that the airframe broke in half.

If something like this happened today, the program would probably be over. But instead, the X-15 team got that very same aircraft put back together, recertified and back in the air in just three months. That kind of resilience — fix, fly and learn — allowed the X-15 to make 199 flights over its lifetime, gathering invaluable hypersonic flight data.

And then there’s the legendary Kelly Johnson, head of Skunkworks throughout most of the mid-century. Johnson oversaw the development of more than 40 aircraft. Famously, the F-104 Starfighter, U-2 Dragonlady and the SR-71 Blackbird.

One aircraft stands out though, the P-80, America’s first turbojet airplane. It was designed by just 130 elite engineers. Johnson believed adamantly in small teams, the reduction of red tape and giving contractors “more than normal responsibility.”

The customer (the U.S. Army Air Forces) wanted the plane delivered in 180 days. With such a tight timeline, an important aspect of their design strategy was iteration — at every step of the process. They needed their drawings and blueprints to be flexible and changeable. The best designs rose quickly to the top. This recipe proved to be even more successful than expected and they delivered it in just 143 days.

Today, new aircraft are never delivered early. Development and fielding timelines are now four to five times what they used to be from 1945 through 1975.

Guess what happened in 1975: Johnson retired from Skunk Works.

Fortunately, we don’t need to look far to see that rapid iteration can still deliver today. The commercial space industry has proven the approach is alive and well in the 21st century.

Two decades ago, the idea that private companies could build and launch their own rockets was considered unrealistic. Yet, in less than 20 years, SpaceX went from Falcon 1 — a small experimental rocket that failed to reach orbit three times — to Starship, developing a suite of game-changing and boundary-pushing technologies along the way.

The reason for this success? Hardware-rich, fast-paced testing cycles. SpaceX doesn’t wait for perfection before launching; it builds, flies, learns and repeats.

We need to bring this mentality to hypersonics. Instead of sinking billions into decade-long programs that may never fly, let alone field a single system, we should flood the space with test vehicles. The more hardware we get into the air, the faster we learn, the more we de-risk and the better our operational capabilities become. This approach also builds flexibility into the development process, ensuring the technology can adapt to ever-shifting requirements and emerging challenges.

How to enable our rapid, iterative future

Kicking this approach into hyperdrive (pun intended) requires unleashing America’s superpowers: capitalism and innovation.

American companies are the envy of the world, and that’s no accident. Our unique economic system fosters risk-taking, allowing bold ideas to thrive. Venture capital is a major force behind this. Access to massive private investment is a relatively new phenomenon in aerospace, but it’s already transforming the industry. Investors see the incredible success of SpaceX and think: “Who else is taking big swings in hardware?”

And when this private capital is paired with smart government contracts, we unlock the full potential of American innovation and build the future of hypersonics at a pace no adversary can match.

However, even with the right funding and strategy, we’re held back by another problem that needs to be urgently addressed: our ability to test.

There are two critical components that must be addressed. First, America’s physical infrastructure is lacking. We need more hypersonic wind tunnels. Right now, there’s a massive bottleneck with years-long waitlists. It’s so expensive and inefficient that flight testing is often the faster, less expensive route.

What little testing capacity we have has been heavily neglected. According to a Government Accountability Office report, of the 26 wind tunnel facilities capable of supporting hypersonic research, 14 were constructed prior to 1970.

In order to test more rapidly, we must invest in new infrastructure and modernize what currently exists.

And then there are the regulatory hurdles — bureaucratic red tape slows down real-world testing, making approvals complex and time-consuming. Let testing be limited by how fast we can build hardware and test it safely — not by how long it takes to get a signature.

To accelerate iterative development, we must remove administrative roadblocks. That means reducing the drag of the National Environmental Policy Act on infrastructure projects and flight operations, strengthening FAA-DoD partnerships to speed up developmental flight testing of uncrewed aircraft, and shifting from bureaucratic “safety theater” to rigorous, first-principles reasoning that actually protects the public.

If we can develop and safely fly a new aircraft in less than a year, our regulatory system must enable rather than impede that pace of iteration.

Hypersonics is one the greatest challenges in aerospace and we’ve been treating it like a science project that is always 20 years from being complete. But now, we’re rightfully treating it as a national security crisis — and crises demand action.

It’s time for America to take back the lead in hypersonics the same way we always have — by building, testing and flying faster than anyone, anywhere.

A.J. Piplica is cofounder and CEO of Hermeus. Prior to founding Hermeus, Piplica served as the CEO of Generation Orbit Launch Services, Inc. where he led the inception and development of the X-60A, a U.S. Air Force hypersonic X-plane. His background is in aerospace systems design, including spacecraft, launch vehicles, and hypersonic aircraft. Piplica holds both Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees from the Georgia Institute of Technology focused in aerodynamics and fluid mechanics.

This article first appeared in the March 2025 issue of SpaceNews Magazine.

Quelle: SN