Aerodestructive

Imagine you could run so fast, your skin peeled off.

That's basically what happened with a secret hyper-sonic plane developed by DARPA - y'know, the lovable scamps from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency!  Apparently, a plane going 20 times the speed of sound may put a little pressure on the surface of the aircraft.  At least, that's the best guess as to what caused their HTV-2 to crash in the Pacific Ocean last August.  Not bad for an eight month inquiry.

DARPA expected the arrowhead shaped vehicle to lose some of its skin mid-flight, but as they say, "larger than anticipated portions of the vehicle's skin peeled from the aerostructure".  That may be an understatement, considering the shockwaves it experienced were more than 100 times what the vehicle was designed to withstand.  Well, that's what will happen when you make something that can get from Los Angeles to New York in about 12 minutes. Details of the  craft's design and stability system still remain classified, but it's likely tied to a test that the Army performed two months later on a system called the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon, that was (the kind designed to strike any target in the world in just a couple hours).