When we think about speed, bullets fired from a gun often come to mind as one of the fastest things imaginable. A bullet can travel at speeds over 4000 ft/s, which is over 2700 mph or 4300 km/h. This got me wondering, are there any vehicles humankind has created that can surpass the speed of a bullet? In this article, I’ll go through some of the fastest vehicles and projectiles ever made and see how they compare to the speed of a bullet.
How Fast is a Bullet?
First, let’s establish a benchmark. How fast is a bullet actually moving when fired from a gun? The answer depends on the type of bullet and firearm used.
For a typical 9mm handgun bullet, the muzzle velocity is between 700 and 1600 ft/s. That converts to around 475 mph to 1090 mph. Rifle bullets are much faster. A high velocity .223 caliber / 5.56mm rifle round can achieve 3600-4000 ft/s at the muzzle, which is over 2450 mph.
Shotgun slugs are slower than bullets, traveling at around 1800 ft/s or 1225 mph from a 12-gauge shotgun. Shotgun shot pellets are slower still at under 1300 ft/s.
So in summary, a low velocity handgun bullet travels around 700-1600 ft/s, while a high velocity rifle round can exceed 4000 ft/s. We’ll use 4000 ft/s or 2730 mph as our bullet speed benchmark.
Rocket Powered Vehicles
The first category of vehicles we’ll look at are rocket powered. Rockets use explosive reactive propulsion to accelerate to extreme speeds by expelling mass at high velocity.
Missiles
Military missiles are designed to deliver explosive warheads quickly across long distances. Anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles can achieve speeds well over 4000 ft/s, surpassing our bullet benchmark:
- MGM-31 Pershing – Mach 10 = 7600 mph = 11,265 ft/s
- 9M96 missile – Mach 12 = 9000 mph = 13,200 ft/s
ICBMs or intercontinental ballistic missiles used for nuclear weapons delivery can be even faster:
- LGM-30 Minuteman – Mach 23 = 17,400 mph = 25,600 ft/s
So some specialized missiles easily exceed bullet speeds, with the fastest reaching over 25,000 ft/s!
Military Aircraft
High performance jet fighter aircraft can also surpass the speed of a bullet in a dive or with afterburners engaged:
- Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird – Mach 3.2 = 2,460 mph = 3,600 ft/s
- Mikoyan MiG-25 Foxbat – Mach 3.2 = 2,460 mph = 3,600 ft/s
- Lockheed YF-12 – Mach 3.35 = 2,275 mph = 3,840 ft/s
The fastest manned aircraft ever, the North American X-15 rocket plane, could exceed 4,000 mph and Mach 6.
So late 20th century military jet aircraft match or exceed bullet range speeds, but the fastest experimental aircraft and missiles are much faster still.
Land Speed Record Vehicles
Purpose-built land speed record vehicles use jet or rocket propulsion to try to achieve the fastest ground speeds possible. Several have broken the 4,000 ft/s benchmark:
- Blue Flame – Mach 1.00 = 739.666 mph = 1088 ft/s
- Budweiser Rocket – Mach 1.01 = 770 mph = 1134 ft/s
- ThrustSSC – Mach 1.02 = 764 mph = 1127 ft/s
So while no production street-legal car can exceed a bullet’s speed, some specialized land speed record vehicles have done so through the use of high power jets or rockets.
Experimental Hypersonic Vehicles
There are a number of in-development hypersonic vehicles designed to push aviation technology to new limits and travel at up to Mach 10-25 speeds. These include:
- NASA X-43 – Scramjet aircraft, Mach 9.6 in 2004
- Boeing X-51 – Scramjet test vehicle, Mach 5+
- Lockheed Martin SR-72 – Successor to the SR-71 Blackbird, proposed Mach 6 capabilities
- Avatar II – USAF hypersonic test plane, proposed Mach 20
- Lockheed Martin Falcon HTV-2 – Mach 20 hypersonic glider
- DARPA HAWC – Proposed Mach 20 unmanned craft
Although still in early development phases, these hypersonic scramjet and waverider designs aim to push flight speeds up to 15,000 mph ranges, far exceeding our bullet benchmark.
Accelerator Projectiles
Particle accelerators use electromagnetic fields to accelerate subatomic particles to incredible velocities. While not vehicles per se, the particles act as projectiles:
- Large Hadron Collider – Proton beams at 99.9999991% the speed of light
- Fermilab – Tevatron proton-antiproton beams at 99.99995% the speed of light
At these relativistic speeds, the projectiles would be traveling at over 670 million mph or 984 million ft/s – millions of times faster than a bullet!
Man-Made Objects in Space
Outside the Earth’s atmosphere, spacecraft and satellites can attain extremely high speeds:
- New Horizons probe – 36,400 mph = 53,500 ft/s
- Voyager 1 – 38,610 mph = 56,800 ft/s
- Helios 2 – 157,078 mph = 231,000 ft/s (record for fastest man-made object)
The combination of highly energetic rocket launches and long orbital trajectories enable these spacecraft to reach bullet-beating velocities.
Natural Celestial Bodies
Finally, celestial bodies in the cosmos can attain staggeringly fast speeds:
- Asteroids – average 25,000 mph = 36,700 ft/s
- Comets – 100,000+ mph
- Solar wind – 250,000 – 1 million mph
- Spacecraft slingshot maneuvers using planetary gravity can achieve over 150,000 mph
Utilizing the immense gravity of planets like Jupiter, some natural and man-made objects can accelerate to hundreds of thousands of miles per hour!
Faster than Light Travel?
According to Einstein’s theory of special relativity, nothing can accelerate past the speed of light in a vacuum (671 million mph). Traveling at exactly the speed of light is hypothetically possible for massless particles like photons, but prohibitive for spacecraft with mass. Space travel above light speed would require exotic theoretical concepts like wormholes or warped spacetime.
Conclusion
In summary, there are a number of vehicles and objects that can surpass the speed of a bullet in the right conditions:
- Specialized rockets like missiles can achieve speeds over 10,000 mph through explosive thrust
- Aircraft with ramjet or scramjet engines may eventually reach 15,000+ mph speeds in the upper atmosphere
- Land speed record vehicles have broken the sound barrier and exceeded 1,000 mph
- Particle accelerators can accelerate atomic particles to near light speed
- Space probes and satellites can whiz by at 150,000+ mph once in outer space
So while a bullet travels incredibly fast by everyday standards, several cutting-edge vehicles and objects have exceeded bullet velocity thanks to tremendous technological innovations, gravity assists, androttle, and access to the vacuum of space. The sky is not the limit when it comes to speed!