The point of the hypersonic missile catastrophe was something I had not considered and is an excellent point. I think that is true with all critical infrastructure to some extent but a nuclear reactor would certainly have more fallout. I wonder if any designs have thought about that situation.
Nuclear conrainment buildings are the strongest non-military structures build, you need a specialized bunker buster munition to penetrate them.
Under the current aircraft protection rules, the containment building has to survive impact of a fully loaded large civilian airplane moving at speed of sound.
For example testing of samples of containment building was done using acceleration of F-4 Phantom mounted on rocket sledge towards the wall. The wall survived the impact without problems.
> you need a specialized bunker buster munition to penetrate them
Which already exists. For example, India (so that you cannot say "this is something only available to USA) has the Agni-V (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agni-V) that supports a 7.5 ton bunker buster with Mach 24 terminal velocity. It costs $5 million each (like a battle tank).
Your squishy 747 moving at Mach 1 is nothing in comparison.
What other countries do already have something similar, or will have something similar, let's say, in the next 5 years?
If your concern are military bunker busters attacking civilian nuclear power plants, I would like to remind you that attacks on large hydro-dams can bring as much death and destruction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnieper_Hydroelectric_Station#...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Derna_dam_collapse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure
Yup. We don't need even more juicy targets. The fewer, the better.