---
title: "The Geniuses at Fox News Said That a New Jet Flies at Twice the Speed of Light"
description: "Fox and Friends told its audience that a Russian jet was capable of doubling the speed of light. That, to be clear, is total nonsense."
date: "2021-07-23"
modified: "2021-07-26"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/fox-news-russian-jet-twice-speed-light"
categories:
  - "Physics"
  - "Science & Energy"
tags:
  - "fox news"
  - "military technology"
  - "physics"
  - "Russia"
  - "the digest"
---

# The Geniuses at Fox News Said That a New Jet Flies at Twice the Speed of Light

![Fox and Friends told its audience that a Russian jet was capable of doubling the speed of light. That, to be clear, is total nonsense.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/fighterjet.jpg>)
*Dragisa Braunovic / Futurism  https://unsplash.com/@bato8 \<em\>Image: \<a href="https://unsplash.com/@bato8" target="\_blank"\>Dragisa Braunovic / Futurism\</a\>\</em\>*

## Screw Your Physics

If you watch *Fox News*' morning talk show "Fox and Friends," you may have heard some unsettling news about Russia's military prowess.

Apparently, Russia has learned to violate the singular, [most unbreakable law of physics](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/star-moving-fast-warps-spacetime>), the speed limit of the universe that allows every other law of science to fall into place, all in the name of building a fast jet plane.

That's right — "Fox and Friends" told its audience of 1.2 million that Russia developed a jet that "…can fly at a speed of almost twice the speed of light" in a clip that was [shared on Twitter](<https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1417852883232600064>) by Ron Filipowski, a former Florida state commissioner who [resigned over the police raid](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/police-raid-home-covid19-whistleblower>) of data analyst and COVID whistleblower Rebekah Jones' home.

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1417852883232600064

## One-Way Trip

Needless to say, what the "Fox and Friends" host said is incorrect. And impossible. Like actually, physically, math-doesn’t-work-that-way impossible.

Propelling an object to the speed of light requires an infinite amount of energy. A jet traveling at that speed would immediately crumble into dust from the intense wind resistance, [killing its pilot](<https://futurism.com/could-i-climb-into-a-spacex-cargo-rideshare-and-yeet-myself-into-space>) as all their blood pools, unable to circulate.

It would also be wildly impractical as a military tool, since one second of travel time would bring the pilot's unrecognizable corpse [way beyond the Moon](<https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/how-far-away-moon#:~:text=How%20far%20is%20that%20in,seconds%20away%20from%20the%20Earth.>).

## Okay, Okay

To be fair, this is almost certainly a gaffe on the part of *Fox News*. Just moments before, the same host refers to the jet as "hypersonic," which means significantly faster than sound. But to be fair to *Fox News*' audience, that’s still a colossal screw-up.

One of the first rules of science journalism is to gut-check your data. That means making sure that you're not saying "billion" when you mean "million" — and making sure you don't imply that a Russian aircraft would punch a hole in the fabric of spacetime when you mean to say "it goes pretty fast."

Yeesh!

**More on horrifying trips through space:** *[Could I Climb Into a SpaceX Cargo Rideshare and Yeet Myself Into Space?](<https://futurism.com/could-i-climb-into-a-spacex-cargo-rideshare-and-yeet-myself-into-space>)*

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)