5EA set to skyrocket, page-281

It has been reposted on Twitter a few times. I didn't take it too seriously. It might be more interesting to speculate what might be developed or exist behind closed doors over in the US.

This provided some ok commentary to the SCMP article
https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/chinas-boron-powered-supersonic-missile-torpedo

• Boron is a highly reactive light element that reacts equally well with water as it does with air to release vast amounts of heat.
• The U.S. Air Force experimented with boron in the 1950s to increase the power of its supersonic bombers. However, the project was shelved since ignited boron is hard to control and also forms a layer of debris that impacts rocket performance.
• China have previously experimented with solid fuel that contains boron nanoparticles for its air-breathing scramjet engines used in hypersonic weapons.
• The U.S. Navy have also successfully experimented with boron nitride nanotubes in its hypersonic weapons.
• Chinese researchers is working on developing supersonic weapons using the same fuel.
• Conventionally, boron-powered missiles are meant to be used only in the air.
• The researchers have made design changes, such as adjustable inlets and exhaust nozzles aimed at allowing the fuel to burn in either environment effectively.
• The typical fuel composition of boron-powered missiles contains up to 30 percent of boron with other chemicals used to control its ignition occupying the bulk of the weight.
• The research team has doubled the boron concentration to produce greater thrust in the water.
• To tide over the potential problems this may cause, the researchers plan to make modifications to the boron particles and improve the manufacturing process.
• The bottleneck in the scaling up of the method would be the availability of boron itself.
• China imports half of its boron ores, most coming from the U.S., so it would be hard to see it through if the Asian nation was planning to weaponize it.