14. The waves are directed into magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) generators to create a current pulse that could be scaled up to gigawatt scale, given enough argon gas to feed into the MHD generators. Shipping Transport consumes energy for three purposes: overcoming gravity, overcoming air/water friction, and achieving terminal velocity. The reduced trip times and higher flight altitudes reduce the first two, while increasing the third. Proponents claim that the net energy costs of hypersonic transport can be lower than those of conventional transport while slashing journey times. Stratolaunch Roc can be used to launch hypersonic aircraft. Hermeus demonstrated transition from turbojet aircraft engine operation to ramjet operation on 17 November 2022, thus avoiding the need to boost aircraft velocities by rocket or scramjet. See: SR-72, § Mayhem Weapons Two main types of hypersonic weapons are hypersonic cruise missiles and hypersonic glide vehicles. Hypersonic weapons, by definition, travel five or more times the speed of sound. Hypersonic cruise missiles, which are powered by scramjets, are limited to below ; hypersonic glide vehicles can travel higher. Hypersonic vehicles are much slower than ballistic (i.e. sub-orbital or fractional orbital) missiles, because they travel in the atmosphere, and ballistic missiles travel in the vacuum above the atmosphere. However, they can use the atmosphere to manoeuvre, making them capable of large-angle deviations from a ballistic trajectory. A hypersonic glide vehicle is usually launched with a ballistic first stage, then deploys wings and switches to hypersonic flight as it re-enters the atmosphere, allowing the final stage to evade all existing nuclear missile defense systems, which were designed for ballistic-only missiles. According to a CNBC July 2019 report (and now in a CNN 2022 report), Russia and China lead in hypersonic weapon development, trailed by the United States, and in this case the problem is being addressed in a joint program of the entire Department of Defense. To meet this development need, the US Army is participating in a joint program with the US Navy and Air Force, to develop a hypersonic glide body. India is also developing such weapons. France and Australia may also be pursuing the technology. Japan is acquiring both scramjet (Hypersonic Cruise Missile), and boost-glide weapons (Hyper Velocity Gliding Projectile). China China's XingKong-2 (星空二号, Starry-sky-2), a waverider, had its first flight 3 August 2018. In August 2021 China launched a boost-glide vehicle to low-earth orbit, circling Earth before maneuvering toward its target location, missing