SCOOP – #China has stunned US intelligence and military officials by testing a #nuclear capable #hypersonic missile that traveled through low orbit in space, making a full circle around the globe before speeding towards its target.

@US_Stratcom @NORADCommand What do you make of this?

China announced 77th launch of Long March rocket in July. Announced 79th Long March launch in August. No mention of launch #78 .

Interesting question now is how this will impact the #NuclearPostureReview that the Biden administration is conducting.

If you are a genuine expert on hypersonic weapons/space and are inclined to educate an Irishman (with a Greek name) can reach me on demetri.sevastopulo @protonmail .com or DM me for Signal details. Complete anonymity guaranteed.

Global Times responds to our scoop

Ever have one of those days where you wish you had a Phd in astro physics ? Asking for a friend.

@Dimi Testing the idea is one thing. But making it work on a practical scale is quite something else.

@Dimi To be fair, a nuke can be a couple of dozen yards off its target, and still turn the target to ash.

@Dimi Jesus I'm not familiar with science at all but throwing a dart from space and missing by like 24 miles sounds pretty damn accurate

@Dimi Oh, goody. Hopefully the proposed $2.5 Trillion increase in "defense" will take this into considerstion. After all, $10 Trillion oughta provide protection from a devastating strike. $3.5 Trillion to preserve life on this planet seems a pittance in comparison.

@Dimi @mattkorda Good - it may turn out that the only way to stop climate change is for another country to bomb us.

@Dimi Shouldn't be surprised that a first test missed - their engineers now have a ton of real-world test data to use to tune the system, which you can't get any way besides missing a few times.

@Dimi The idea that it’s an unexpected capability is idiotic. If one can orbit a satellite they can make a FOBS work

@Dimi @IntelCrab In all fairness, when it comes to strategic nuclear weapons, the need for total accuracy tends to drop. If it were tactical nuclear weapons, I'd be concerned about being off by more than a dozen miles, but we're talking about weapons in the megaton range here.

@Dimi How could they know where the target was supposed to be? I assume it hit the ocean, probably far from anywhere inhabited (because they're not morons). So how could they know its accuracy?

@Dimi It may be missed now. Missed tomorrow. But it will be accurate, soon enough. Missing target but still stunning...

@Dimi If they missed a couple of dozens of miles, then it would hardly work, right? What target is that large?