> After all, how much damage can the Russians inflict with 10 or 20 or, let's say, with 50 such missiles? Not much, maybe they'll damage a building or two, maybe there will be some casualties on US soil, but not enough, and by a large margin, to win a war. Or, to put it another way, if the US were to militarily fold as a result of 50 such missiles hitting them on their home turf then they wouldn't have stood a chance anyway, hypersonic missiles or not.
You (and the article, frankly) are pointing them at the wrong targets: the best application of hypersonics is to shoot them at the US's blue water navy. The combination of perfect, real-time information via synthetic aperture radar and highly maneuverable hypersonics turns an aircraft carrier into an extremely expensive floating coffin.
The distribution in manual labor includes major catastrophic injury. I'm 28, work in landscaping: the second day of this season I fell through a metal grate and was lucky to not snap my leg. I passed out at work last year due to dehydration/exhaustion after nicking my leg with a pair of electric hedge trimmers; it could have been much worse.
There's quite a few engineers I know that are fat and unshapely, and that likely takes a toll on their health, but I doubt any of them encounter daily situations where they're at decent chance of being maimed.
You (and the article, frankly) are pointing them at the wrong targets: the best application of hypersonics is to shoot them at the US's blue water navy. The combination of perfect, real-time information via synthetic aperture radar and highly maneuverable hypersonics turns an aircraft carrier into an extremely expensive floating coffin.