Thread

NASA asked several former SR-71A staffers to help secret restart

327 points · 403 comments · ilamont

walrus01 · 1790727565 · focus · HN ↗
I'd be more astonished if there isn't something superior to the SR71 (likely unmanned) that has been flying around at night from facilities like Groom Lake for years. Look at how long the RQ180 was flying around in semi-public and known about before it became seen in daylight by plane spotters in Greece. And a long time before that there were public relations approved photos of the Lockheed Martin Polecat.
There were a series of extremely public quotations from senior DoD officially recently about how they plan to aggressively retire the Global Hawk program (which is a mostly non stealth aircraft), reading between the lines it's because they have something much better.
edit: for those who haven't seen the RQ180: <a href="https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=RQ180+greece" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=RQ180+gre...
edit 2 (apologies for the X link): <a href="https://x.com/MechDesignxyz/status/2041281689838584193" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/MechDesignxyz/status/2041281689838584193
1. hilsdev · 1790727775 · focus · HN ↗
  I suspect everything comparable of late has been orbital, which begs the question what is it they’re worried about with orbital? Satellite warfare is already accelerating if the rumors are true, is it that this is untouchable still? Is there some new camera sensor where eliminating that extra atmospheric diffraction or slowing down (lol) is needed?
  1. walrus01 · 1790727944 · focus · HN ↗
    I am sure that the orbital capabilities are also vastly improved from what the public has ever seen. But I think there's likely a high degree of tactical value in having something that can keep station over a certain active conflict area (as an RQ180 can, maybe flying in a racetrack pattern at altitude, with sensors aimed down).
    If you've ever seen the publicly released videos and audio of an RQ9 operator in communication with ground units watching the activity of a group of men/vehicles on the ground, in live real time, something like that.
    As compared to periodic revisits by LEO orbit satellites that don't maintain persistent live coverage, or the extreme distance and data acquisition problem that aiming sensors in geostationary orbit at a 10x10km target area might pose.
    Demiurge · 1790730404 · focus · HN ↗
    There are satellites in geostationary orbit that have realtime live feed and agile pointing capability. However, besides the SAR, RGB style observations are limited by clouds, and also you can’t switch out the sensors on a whim. Airborne platforms are always more flexible and cheaper for certain missions.
    walrus01 · 1790730520 · focus · HN ↗
    Without leaking anything that's even remotely close to classified, WAMI (wide area multispectral imagery) sensor systems that can mount on even relatively medium sized group 3 UAV are really damn good these days. This is a pretty basic unit compared to the things that aren't publicly known:
    <a href="https://www.logostech.net/products/redkite/" rel="nofollow">https://www.logostech.net/products/redkite/
    <a href="https://www.logostech.net/products/blackkite-i/" rel="nofollow">https://www.logostech.net/products/blackkite-i/
    jauntywundrkind · 1790733633 · focus · HN ↗
    This guy has been working on their own SAR drone for a while, just had another really nice blog post. Definitely looks like it weighs <10 lbs. He post-processes, but I doubt that's that hard to rework. <a href="https://hforsten.com/interferometric-synthetic-aperture-radar-drone.html" rel="nofollow">https://hforsten.com/interferometric-synthetic-aperture-rada...
    walrus01 · 1790734313 · focus · HN ↗
    It looks like a DIY implementation of some of the commercial land surveying SAR payloads that companies will sell you (for $60,000) to fly below a DJI M400 or similar size craft for tasks like monitoring open pit mines, etc. Also not realtime data return over RF data link, it's a download and post-process workflow.
    adastra22 · 1790731526 · focus · HN ↗
    I think you are confused. Spy satellites do not use geostationary orbits.
    walrus01 · 1790731837 · focus · HN ↗
    It's not something I can cite with any public URL to a website that's an authoritative source, but if by 'spy' you include SIGINT satellites in that category, yes they absolutely do... Ever seen a diagram of a Boeing (Hughes) 702 series satellite bus and antenna system built for L/S-bands like frequency ranges similar to those used by Thuraya, Inmarsat and Iridium handhelds?
    It's widely accepted in the commercial two way satellite telecom industry that the NSA has comparable things with big unfolding umbrella-like antennas in geostationary which serve a similar purpose for signals collection.
    ErroneousBosh · 1790753741 · focus · HN ↗
    > It's widely accepted in the commercial two way satellite telecom industry that the NSA has comparable things with big unfolding umbrella-like antennas in geostationary which serve a similar purpose for signals collection.
    How does that even work, do people just accept that their satellites hang around suspiciously close to other geostationary satellites and hoover up the very edge of the beam somehow?
    Because if you're transmitting stuff *to* geosynchronous birds you have to aim pretty accurately.
    walrus01 · 1790754980 · focus · HN ↗
    Handheld S/L-band things like Thuraya, Iridium, Globalstar, Inmarsat phones don't transmit in a very directional way at all. Or things like a Garmin inreach that have an Iridium modem in them. They're omnidirectional enough that the broad requirement for a user is to be outdoors with a good view of the sky.
    If you have a NSA-type geostationary satellite somewhere in approximately a 1/5th arc of azimuth along the equator of the earth that can 'see' an area on the ground, with antenna systems aimed at the area of interest (let's say, Afghanistan), it's not necessary for your NSA satellite to be anywhere close to the actual service provider's satellite.
    Note that Thuraya BGAN-like devices and handheld phones talk to geostationary, Iridium is LEO (but likely some combination of LEO, molniya orbit and geostationary can "sniff" it), Globalstar is similarly LEO in its service provider architecture, and Inmarsat is geostationary.
    Also lots of conjecture out there that sigint platforms exist which are good enough to capture ordinary handheld device cellular traffic or VHF/UHF radio traffic that's not intended by its users or terrestrial operators to go into space at all. This is probably done from a combination of low earth orbit platforms and more complicated orbits or what we would call MEO (maybe about the same height as an o3b satellite?) to achieve longer dwell times over an area of interest.
    ErroneousBosh · 1790756677 · focus · HN ↗
    But then with the difference in distance from LEO stuff like Iridium (RIP - I actually saw the ground flash of an Iridium flare once!) you'd need a truly *massive* antenna to hear that out at geosync.
    walrus01 · 1790761766 · focus · HN ↗
    An Iridium 9555 handheld phone talking to Iridium satellites in LEO with its antenna extended transmits in approximately the same frequency range and about the same tx power as an inmarsat isatphone 2. The former is LEO, the latter talks to geostationary.
    Same concept for an Iridium 9555 or its successor in a dock plugged into the small coaxial cable that goes to the external hockey puck sized antenna. This is all happening between approx. 1400 to 1700 MHz in either system.
    Look up the detailed RF specs for the isatphone 2.
    Both of these only work because the channel size is extremely narrow.
    The antenna on the commercial satellites that do two way S/L-band to handheld stuff (or INMARSAT BGAN size terminals) from geostationary is massive, I've no reason to believe that a high budget billion dollar NSA satellite at MEO or higher altitudes wouldn't have a similarly gargantuan unfolding antenna.
    T-A · 1790763327 · focus · HN ↗
    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(satellite)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(satellite)
    adastra22 · 1790809092 · focus · HN ↗
    The NSA does have comparable things. You can even find amateur photos of them in this day and age. But they are not in GEO.
    LorenPechtel · 1790813889 · focus · HN ↗
    The ground units do not have any sort of narrow beam capability, thus you don't need to be anywhere near the satellite to intercept them. I have a low end satellite device: Garmin InReach (text only, provides tracking and emergency communications in the middle of nowhere.) It has a preferred orientation, not a required orientation.
    Demiurge · 1790734916 · focus · HN ↗
    Why do you think I am confused? Is this a form of internet condenscension, or are you able to diagnose my mental state based a single comment? No, I don't think I'm confused.
    adastra22 · 1790809341 · focus · HN ↗
    Because GEO is about 100x further than LEO, which means the signal is about 10,000x weaker. Also the risk to geo communications from having multiple birds in the same slot is huge and treaty violating. Why put that risk and insane demand when you can still get global coverage from a dozen or so birds in high polar orbits?
    Nobody does what you are saying, because physics, which leads me to believe that you are confused.
    walrus01 · 1790812844 · focus · HN ↗
    If you think the US doesn't have a plethora of DoD things in geostationary orbit you would be extremely, terribly wrong. In addition to well known programs like AEHF, WGS for two way military satcom purposes, a person with an amateur grade telescope can literally spot the satellite that keeps station near an existing commercial Thuraya satellite:
    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-202" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-202
    <a href="https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/thuraya-2.htm" rel="nofollow">https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/thuraya-2.htm
    <a href="https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/thuraya-4.htm" rel="nofollow">https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/thuraya-4.htm
    adastra22 · 1790826000 · focus · HN ↗
    Those are geosat communications, not surveillance. Surveillance is not happening in GEO.
    crote · 1790760605 · focus · HN ↗
    The problem is that "can loiter over an area" and "SR71-like" are fundamental contradictions.
    The whole point of the SR71 is to be stupidly fast, to the point of being impossible to catch. It could outfly missiles, and the mission was done and over by the point anyone could scramble a proper defense. Have it fly circles over a target and you're negating its one main unique selling point.
    Want to loiter over a target? Use an RQ9. Want an impossible-to-stop snapshot camera? Use a satellite. So what's left for the SR71? I guess there are some missions where 1) you don't have air superiority, and 2) the target can hide in time from well-known satellite orbits, but 3) the target can't hide with 15-minute warning from a plane - but are those really common enough to justify the massive investment it'll take?
    walrus01 · 1790765109 · focus · HN ↗
    I was replying to a comment from a person who was talking about satellite ISR, referring to 'can loiter over an area' for why the RQ180 or similar exists and is used in certain tactical scenarios instead of satellite, not to justify some absurd reactivation of the SR71. Please read the comment I replied to and what I wrote again.
    The RQ9 is fine to loiter over and watch an area that has little to no air defenses, more stealthy things are needed if there's some form of credible air defense. There's a number of non faked photos of downed rq9 in yemen in the past couple years that were shot down by fairly basic air defense systems the Houthis acquired from Iran.
    mrguyorama · 1790780988 · focus · HN ↗
    >There's a number of non faked photos of downed rq9 in yemen in the past couple years that were shot down by fairly basic air defense systems the Houthis acquired from Iran
    We have confirmed the loss of like 40 reapers in Iran.
    mrguyorama · 1790780945 · focus · HN ↗
    Also the SR71 can barely loiter at all. It has a turning circle at altitude and speed of 80 miles
  2. morkalork · 1790737353 · focus · HN ↗
    Well there's also the X-37B Orbital "Test Vehicle" that performs some long-run missions. Satellite warfare? Observation instrument tests? Who knows!
    somat · 1790927025 · focus · HN ↗
    My theory is satellite retrieval, Not ours, theirs. Play the long game, year two of a three year mission, do a little unannounced orbital dance, somebody's spy satellite has a unexpected failure, while really it is now in the rf shielded environment of the x-37's payload bay. Year three, bring it down for study.
    Yeah, probably way to much science fiction there, way too many things would go wrong, and spy satellites tend to have huge antenna have fun trying to stuff that in a rather small payload bay. However... One of the space shuttle mission profiles was to deorbit a satellite. Officially, the space shuttle never did this. But I think the airforce really liked the idea and wanted to retain the capability.
  3. MadrasTh0rn · 1790743947 · focus · HN ↗
    Orbital is becoming less reliable due to escalating threats
  4. numpad0 · 1790752155 · focus · HN ↗
    Satellites are defenseless and easily shot down, either one by one using ballistic missiles or by creating a sweeping ring of debris, in a full scale WW3 where things like treaties and sanctions don't matter
    wafflemaker · 1790754912 · focus · HN ↗
    Pluss any fuel costs 100x the fuel mass on launch.
    So you're sitting in your orbit and any changes (especially so close to the massive body) are super expensive. Which means sending anything after you must be pretty trivial (once the missile is already in orbit).
    Spaceship just launched 30+ starlink v3 sats on its first orbital flight two days ago. It might as well have been flat disks of missile sats, even multi missile per each disk. Sitting there waiting, getting energy from solar, only having to expand fuel when a strong solar storm temporarily increases atmospheric drag on LEO + some minimal station keeping. A missile type sat with completely different budget for fuel and mass has a big advantage.
    Maneuvering for a rendezvous (intercept), given 5-40 hours time, is very cheap in terms of ∆V (fuel used).
    walrus01 · 1790755348 · focus · HN ↗
    > Maneuvering for a rendezvous (intercept), given 5-40 hours time, is very cheap in terms of ∆V (fuel used).
    Only if you're in approximately the same orbital inclination. Plane change maneuvers once in LEO are very expensive in delta V.
    dotancohen · 1790757806 · focus · HN ↗
    The attacking bird needs to raise apogee to GEO anyway - after that the plane change is relatively cheap. They might not even raise perigee.
    walrus01 · 1790765355 · focus · HN ↗
    I was replying to a comment where the person was talking specifically about LEO. Interfering with things in geostationary orbit is a whole other question.
    dotancohen · 1790769686 · focus · HN ↗
    Even for LEO. Plane changes are expensive - and you've got to then wait potentially many orbits to get a collision. To shorten that timeframe you'd change your apogee or perigee anyway.
    Raising the apogee, then changing the inclination there is relatively cheap - and you can adjust the plane change and apogee to time a collision. Remember - there is no need to recircularize. Just collide. If the goal was to recircularize then I don't know if raising the apogee would be worth it, maybe for extreme cases. But not for a collision.
    LorenPechtel · 1790814076 · focus · HN ↗
    Plane change is extremely expensive--but you only need to match inclination at launch. Put your interceptor at a different elevation, wait until the planes align.
    numpad0 · 1790778593 · focus · HN ↗
    More like, you can just launch couple rings of sand into the polar orbit of Starlink altitude ranges. It'll wipe them all off like a window wiper over few days or so. Or the killer sat could have thrusters to rendezvous with each one, but it'll be more complicated with the size of Starlink constellation.
    gosub100 · 1790769500 · focus · HN ↗
    You forgot lasers
    numpad0 · 1790779053 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah, China can probably do that too in a WW3 situation. A nuclear PSU wherever low enough latitude with a telescope next to it shooting up anything moving it sees. LEO satellites can't avoid covering everywhere on Earth where latitude is lower than its inclination. It probably has to be articulating and tracking, not like fixed Minecraft beacons, but even that will do its job eventually.
    gosub100 · 1790782366 · focus · HN ↗
    or space based lasers, there's no atmosphere to dampen the pulse
  5. bob1029 · 1790755607 · focus · HN ↗
    There are some mission profiles that simply don't work from orbit. You need too much resolution and frame rate.
    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARGUS-IS" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARGUS-IS
    Imagine implementing the above from LEO.
    m4rtink · 1790768876 · focus · HN ↗
    So you have these LEO Internet satellite constellations with thousands of satellites that have a number of satellites above any place on Earth at any given moment...
    bob1029 · 1790779416 · focus · HN ↗
    The optical system required to achieve this is infeasible to deploy at the scale required to compensate for concerns like orbital motion at 15+ fps.
    m4rtink · 1790782642 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah, that would be the main issue for optical imaging. Still rapid change detection could be doable and of course sigint.
2. King-Aaron · 1790728047 · focus · HN ↗
  I know it's probably a forbidden topic around these parts, but the 'tic tac' thing that those FA18 pilots saw several years ago may be indicative of what Lockheed etc are flying up there. It's a hot topic in conspiracy circles but it wouldn't surprise me if a bulk load of ufo sightings were black projects being tested.
  1. bigyabai · 1790729949 · focus · HN ↗
    If those tic-tac videos were actually a classified aircraft, those airmen would have signed an NDA before they left the carrier. The fact that we know about it (and see the FLIR videos, regularly, released by the government) suggests that they are exactly what they claim to be; UFOs. It could be phenomena, it could be noumenon.
    We've seen a lot of the stuff that used to be classified from Skunk Works, none of them are supersonic orb prototypes or flying tic-tacs. I'm not saying they can't develop that technology and hide it from the public, but it's unclear how all of the puzzle pieces we have fit together to support "Lockheed sends flying orb to Syria without telling CENTCOM" in any way.
    walrus01 · 1790730024 · focus · HN ↗
    The Tacit Blue is kinda tic-tac shaped (with wings sticking out the sides), but it's also a historical museum artifact now and, as far as I know, was quite slow and cumbersome.
    ngc248 · 1790767419 · focus · HN ↗
    check these out <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC97wdQOmfI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC97wdQOmfI and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnofCyaWhI0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnofCyaWhI0 . But Syria et al would have have been the right kind of environment to test results of black projects, no?
    bigyabai · 1790788621 · focus · HN ↗
    I've seen those. Exoatmospheric interception vehicles like that rely on the inertia of a rocket booster stack and the thinness of the atmosphere/gravity when it is released. They cannot accelerate to supersonic speeds at ground-level, and have enough drag that it's probably impossible to break the sound barrier without a payload fairing. I don't think the spheres or tic-tacs are a hard-kill interceptor.
    > But Syria et al would have have been the right kind of environment to test results of black projects, no?
    Would it? Testing your billion-dollar taxpayer project in sparsely the populated Syrian countryside seems like a great way for ISIS to get their hands on it. Or the Druze, or the PKK, or the IRGC, or any number of other outfits that would sell a crashed interceptor to China in exchange for air defenses and RPGs.
    I'm going to go out on a limb here, and suggest that the US prefers to test it's billion-dollar black projects in places where they cannot be stolen, damaged or interrupted.
    ngc248 · 1790943735 · focus · HN ↗
    The point is this Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle tech is form 1989, how the tech would have evolved 40 years later who knows.
    bigyabai · 1790960923 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
  2. krapp · 1790736359 · focus · HN ↗
    >but it wouldn't surprise me if a bulk load of ufo sightings were black projects being tested.
    Sure, I'd bet a lot of "black triangle" sightings are exactly that. But if the "tic-tac" lore is to be taken at face value, the implication is that the US military has invented antigravity technology, or reverse engineered it from alien spacecraft. I really don't think that's plausible. If the US had that kind of technology we would be so far ahead of the rest of known science that there would be no value in keeping it secret.
    King-Aaron · 1790745584 · focus · HN ↗
    I frankly do like to entertain much more exotic explanations for it, but the overall most prosaic explanation does land on exotic human craft being tested, and the observers not being fully aware of what they're seeing - The tic tac just being an example.
    The rest of my thoughts on it probably aren't as grounded for a HN discussion.
    ricksunny · 1790750988 · focus · HN ↗
    >The rest of my thoughts on it probably aren't as grounded for a HN discussion
    If everyone self-censors tabooed topics around here it’s not going to advance the tenor of the HN discourse.
    King-Aaron · 1790751932 · focus · HN ↗
    It's more that I'm currently having a real bad time and don't have the heart for the discussion.
    ricksunny · 1790752635 · focus · HN ↗
    I’m sorry. Hope whatever the difficulty is neutralizes.
    For what it’s worth, I do endeavor to pepper oblique references to the phenomenon on HN when it seems relevant to, sometimes suffering downvotes for it but who cares.
    King-Aaron · 1790755013 · focus · HN ↗
    Thanks man, everything passes eventually but it's still rough.
    And yeah I do like seeing the odd reference to the phenomenon here, I'm just quietly hoping that it doesn't all spill out with the current administration and we end up with an Iron Sky scenario lol
    Tangurena2 · 1790792691 · focus · HN ↗
    Some of the "hovers then flies off at great speed" reports match how an SR-71 flight could appear to a ground observer. They took off almost empty of fuel (which isn't made any more), flew as slow as they could to a tanker aircraft (which flew about as fast as it could), refuel then accelerate to Mach 3. When the tanker + SR-71 flew roughly towards you, it looks like it is hovering. Then when it turns and accelerates away it looks like it tears off at a 90 degree turn.
3. stickfigure · 1790728108 · focus · HN ↗
  > I'd be more astonished if there isn't something superior to the SR71
  Makes me wonder if this whole operation is just public cover for something like that.
  1. walrus01 · 1790728166 · focus · HN ↗
    Or something as mundane as cleaning up and fixing something that's been out in the weather for 20 years so it doesn't look shabby at the front gate of their base.
    Waterluvian · 1790728281 · focus · HN ↗
    I don’t know anything but I can’t imagine they need specialists if it’s just a cosmetics job for a monument.
    walrus01 · 1790728549 · focus · HN ↗
    Or the whole "retired guy in his late 70s gives a quotation to aviation week" is a red herring intended for US adversaries, which seems like a fairly basic ruse, but might have been put together as a coordinated plan. It could have its own value of sending opposing nation state intelligence agencies and air defense people down a man-hour wasting dead end of investigating something that'll never happen.
    HelloNurse · 1790761616 · focus · HN ↗
    There might be a side dish of catching foreign spies by waving a carefully prepared objective in front of them, not only confusing them.
    A less generic strategic possibility: hiding something new and useful in the middle of crazy engineering, supply chains and training for the useless SR-71 restoration.
    dreamcompiler · 1790728777 · focus · HN ↗
    If they were doing that they would say so. In fact if they were smart they would say that regardless of the true story. The fact they aren't saying that means they're either stupid or playing 4D chess. I know which I'd bet on.
    walrus01 · 1790729841 · focus · HN ↗
    Another theory is that some smart people already know better, and they know they're going to waste many millions of dollars investigating its feasibility, but they've been given an order from Whiskey Pete and have to at least go through the motions of writing a study/detailed report on why it's not possible to reactivate in a reasonable amount of time or budget. Never underestimate how often the US military will send a group of subordinate people to do what is effectively busy-work.
  2. tclancy · 1790728649 · focus · HN ↗
    The problem is the people in charge now have not earned that kind of faith. If they’re truly trying to relight these things, my heart goes out in advance to the neighborhood in the Southwest that burns down before they rethink it.
    sippingabonedry · 1790731072 · focus · HN ↗
    > The problem is the people in charge now have not earned that kind of faith.
    If you set partisan politics aside for 90 seconds, you might realize that regardless of the administration publicly in charge, the government is always doing stuff behind closed doors that your brain could not even begin to comprehend how they pull it off.
    Stories like this hilariously implausible "grizzled old man casually leaks secret program to Aviation Week" is like throwing a cat a ball of yarn.
    stickfigure · 1790733177 · focus · HN ↗
    On the other hand our commander-in-chief (engineering expert that he is) has ordered the Navy to switch back to steam catapults on an already half-built carrier. That will also require bringing back 70 year old retirees. Pretty sure Trump would switch back to coal if he could find any living boilermakers.
    Sometimes bad ideas are just stupidity.
    walrus01 · 1790735888 · focus · HN ↗
    Political scientists are well acquainted with madman theory, but have we defined "dementia theory" yet?
    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory
    Irrational and volatile as a play-act is one thing, actually being irrational and volatile is a whole other ball game...
    ajb · 1790755048 · focus · HN ↗
    I guess I'm the past, rulers old enough for that also usually collected enough other health issues to be largely inactive. I can think of a few cases where countries had to wait a year or so for the old ruler to die, but not another case where they were still active while demented. Maybe Ivan the terrible? <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_the_Terrible_and_His_Son_Ivan" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_the_Terrible_and_His_Son_...
    lostlogin · 1790749323 · focus · HN ↗
    > Pretty sure Trump would switch back to coal if he could find any living boilermakers.
    He has been propping up coal.
    <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0209r62k5o" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0209r62k5o
    jasomill · 1790759009 · focus · HN ↗
    My god, this reads like The Onion.
    <a href="https://theonion.com/new-apple-ceo-tim-cook-im-thinking-printers-1819572893/" rel="nofollow">https://theonion.com/new-apple-ceo-tim-cook-im-thinking-prin...
    not_kurt_godel · 1790735797 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    lostlogin · 1790749349 · focus · HN ↗
    Someone is thinking of the children.
    lostlogin · 1790749227 · focus · HN ↗
    > If you set partisan politics aside for 90 seconds
    You realise that government agencies including the pentagon have been gutted, and filled with conmen and frauds?
    It would be funny for the rest of the world if we didn’t also have to pay for the people America elected.
    drstewart · 1790768397 · focus · HN ↗
    The rest of the world should maybe try take care of its own problems first, starting with the active wars in Europe.
    Too bad all's they can do is sit back and condemn things, by your own admission.
    netsharc · 1790776621 · focus · HN ↗
    High oil price -> Iran war -> who started that? -> can we ask them for compensation?
    Refugee crisis -> Middle East chaos -> Let's look back 20 years and see who decided to go into Iraq with a giant force of incompetence (or as that fuckwit said "Unknown unknowns") and created insurgent forces that grew into ISIS, etc? -> Can we ask them for compensation?
    When grandparent said "The rest of the world has to pay", I don't think they'd disagree with the 2 above examples...
    MentalM · 1790802521 · focus · HN ↗
    > I don't think they'd disagree with the 2 above examples...
    I think that is very easy.
    "If Muslims get their nuclear weapon (chemical weapon, Jerusalem, that particular abandoned piece of desert, any other random crap, choose whatever you like) they WILL DESTROY THE WORLD. How we can see, the world is still existing. So compensation? That would be pretty nice of them, we are ready to start getting compensation at any moment".
    lostlogin · 1791207010 · focus · HN ↗
    Pakistan has nuclear weapons.
    Tanjreeve · 1790752549 · focus · HN ↗
    >If you set partisan politics aside for 90 seconds
    About the people who gutted every major agency and meddled constantly making forces less effective in the name of the most partisan of partisan politics? Most people won't and that is a completely self-created problem.
    dTal · 1790786104 · focus · HN ↗
    That USA government - the mythical "deep state" one with all sorts of hyper-competent stuff happening behind closed doors - is dead. To the extent that it ever existed, Trump credits himself with killing it.
    adastra22 · 1790731571 · focus · HN ↗
    This is Isaacman we're talking about. He is about as good faith as they get (low bar, I know, but for real this time).
  3. adventured · 1790731775 · focus · HN ↗
    The SR-71 is because they need to test for speed.
    That serves a huge number of things both offense and defense: engagement, radar, missiles, trying to boost the speed capabilities of new planes & weapons. And it applies both to manned and unmanned planes.
    Russia is less of a concern now, however China is coming on very fast in terms of leveling up their military capabilities. I'd be very surprised if the US military isn't looking to push its capabilities around increasing speed generally, just as it does any other aspect. There hasn't been a significant leveling up in US Air Force speed capabilities in many decades (since the F22 supercruise three decades ago?).
4. tiffanyh · 1790730705 · focus · HN ↗
  Didn’t satellites with superior optics and realtime video streaming … kill the need for an SR71 update?
  1. t2r3121 · 1790731068 · focus · HN ↗
    For visual and SAR, sure, but there are other missions like electronic warfare and signals intelligence that are still well served by aircraft.
    adastra22 · 1790731421 · focus · HN ↗
    Not by a mach 3+ aircraft. Good luck getting signals through the plasma of your own wake!
    LargoLasskhyfv · 1790734302 · focus · HN ↗
    Plasma is electrically conductive. Modulate it as needed, in realtime.
    Enjoy the dynamically phased plasmarray.
    HelloNurse · 1790761790 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't think the Blackbird has the sort of engine that likes being "modulated".
    LargoLasskhyfv · 1790803078 · focus · HN ↗
    What do the engines have to do with plasma around the hull, or rather its leading edges, caused by supersonic speed, which never ever even enter them?
    And if you're thinking of the exhaust, why would that matter at all for signals reception and transmission, with the exception of a small cone from right behind?
    qingcharles · 1790746398 · focus · HN ↗
    Those wouldn't likely fall under NASA's remit and budget, though?
    actionfromafar · 1790753618 · focus · HN ↗
    No, but in Trumpistan, does it matter?
  2. pwg · 1790778317 · focus · HN ↗
    The official public reason for NASA having an SR-71 back when they were still flying one was for extreme high altitude atmospheric tests/experiments. No other plane (at least at the time) could fly at the altitudes the SR-71 could.
    Whether that was a cover story for additional spying by the NASA SR-71 is unknown to those of us without the necessary security clearances.
5. greesil · 1790730810 · focus · HN ↗
  This has got to be a trump thing. "Big beautiful ramjets!" And so on
  1. c0nducktr · 1790731918 · focus · HN ↗
    Yeah it seems most likely it's because someone connected to the administration just thinks they're cool.
    Trying to find reason behind so much of this shit is a fools errand. Vibes based presidency.
    kridsdale1 · 1790747402 · focus · HN ↗
    I’d much rather have them invest in this than half the shit they’re doing
    actionfromafar · 1790753503 · focus · HN ↗
    While I agree, these "military projects" are probably grifts, Russia style.
    greesil · 1790811988 · focus · HN ↗
    Por qué no los dos
6. fivefifty · 1790743578 · focus · HN ↗
  The 'SR-72' timeline makes for interesting reading, LM was talking about it for a while when it was their private concept then suddenly scrubbed all mention of it from their website a few years ago, which some suggest that it became an official government funded black project. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_SR-72" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_SR-72
  Not sure why they would need an old SR-71 unless maybe they plan to test out something like new generation engines at very high speed, maybe with plausible cover to hide the newer more secret aircraft as flying at Mach 3+ tends to cover a lot of distance so it would be difficult to keep within secret test areas.
  1. PaulRobinson · 1790761362 · focus · HN ↗
    The SR-71 is mostly analogue. It has remarkable battlefield resilience including ability to operate when EMP and nuclear radiation are issues that would affect a lot of digital systems.
    Worried about how to navigate if the GPS systems gets knocked out by an adversary? SR-71 has an analogue system, use that. Worried about how an adversary could use cyberwarfar against your avionics? SR-71 has you covered, use all of that.
    And sure, you could take all the designs and hand them over to the SR-72 team at LM and say "yeah, all of that please", and they could figure it out, but you know what might be handy? A working SR-71 they could play with. And who knows, maybe the answer is to take an SR-71 in its entirety, and just upgrade a few parts to get the SR-72 performance (Mach 6) that you're after.
    leeter · 1790772044 · focus · HN ↗
    Side note: IIRC a lot of the star tracking tech still exists and is used by Trident D-5, B-52, B-1, and B-2 etc. IIRC. Most of it is analog, although I think only the B-52s version is a mechanical computer assuming its still in service. You never design your second strike capability to require a system that will be knocked out in the first round.
    imglorp · 1790774971 · focus · HN ↗
    > mostly analogue
    Crucially, the engine inlet spikes were computer controlled. And since it's an observation platform and not a bomber, is it going to be EMP hardened? That was probably classified at the time. /shrug
    <a href="https://saemobilus.sae.org/papers/sr-71-digital-automatic-flight-inlet-control-system-851977" rel="nofollow">https://saemobilus.sae.org/papers/sr-71-digital-automatic-fl...
    <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px9YLM6R6MM" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px9YLM6R6MM
    Anyway, don't you think the modern platforms are prepared for a little ECM action?
    browsingonly · 1790785091 · focus · HN ↗
    The SR-71 mission set included trans-attack reconnaissance for SAC, where it would overfly a radiating Europe and USSR perform nuclear bomb damage assessment for follow-on strikes. Aside from nuclear bursts and leftover detritus from the ICBMs etc., it was anticipated to operate in an environment where nuclear-tipped SA-5 and other Soviet SAMs would be bursting here and there. It's EMP-hardened.
    adolph · 1790779717 · focus · HN ↗
    The astro-inertial navigation systems in the SR-71 and ICBMs predate GPS by a lot.
    <a href="https://www.twz.com/17207/sr-71s-r2-d2-could-be-the-key-to-winning-future-fights-in-gps-denied-environments" rel="nofollow">https://www.twz.com/17207/sr-71s-r2-d2-could-be-the-key-to-w...
7. ThePowerOfFuet · 1790746263 · focus · HN ↗
  Non-Google, non-Musk link: <a href="https://theaviationist.com/2026/04/06/incredible-footage-emerges-rq-180-spy-drone/" rel="nofollow">https://theaviationist.com/2026/04/06/incredible-footage-eme...
8. ricksunny · 1790748086 · focus · HN ↗
  I wonder if people are 1. proud, 2. in awe, 3. regretful, 4. spiteful of the people (engineers, technicians, administrators, executives, and back office people) who make secretive kinetic hardware like this under USG contract / prospective contract.
  1. walrus01 · 1790749416 · focus · HN ↗
    In strictly military technology terms, an ISR platform isn't a kinetic anything, though it would enable the targeting of something kinetic.
    ricksunny · 1790750457 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes. Though some ISR platforms are more adaptable than others. (i.e. you’re not the only one here with lived DIB experience..)
    But an easy illustrative reference is the Predator drone loosing Hellfire missiles during the War on Terror.
    walrus01 · 1790755651 · focus · HN ↗
    Very possible. Once you've gone to the massive engineering effort/budget to produce something like an RQ180, I'm sure someone will come up with an idea boiled down to essentially "hey what if we took the radar-resistant bay door design and internal munitions bay mounting from the F22 and shrunk it a bit, we could fit at least four 500 lb JDAMs in this bad boy"...
    Things get re-used in weird ways with other stuff grafted onto them, I'm pretty sure the people who originally designed the F-A/18 never imagined it would be turned into the EA18 growler.
    m4rtink · 1790769177 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm not sure how an unmodified JDAM would handle highly supersonic slipstream. Best case is the guidance section just falls apart. Worst case - the bomb smashes into the aircraft on release, killing the crew.
    Would not be the first for the related A-12 program - the D-21 drone program managed top get 3 people killed due to crashes on release.
    ricksunny · 1790787842 · focus · HN ↗
    “Yes we know, Mrs Lincoln, but how did you like the show?”
    Classic HNer fixating to something technical because it’s safer than engaging on moralistic lines with broader topic at hand. And this is how unaccountable military technical monstrosities get built.
    m4rtink · 1790819306 · focus · HN ↗
    "Never liked participatory theater & this one finally ruined it to me for life."
    walrus01 · 1790801843 · focus · HN ↗
    I was referring to the rq180 or similar design which is very much not a supersonic aircraft.
9. rightnutwingjob · 1790753148 · focus · HN ↗
  You’re not going to apologise for posting a Google link?
10. throwawayffffas · 1790762572 · focus · HN ↗
  I would not be so sure, the environment that led to the development of the SR71 is not there any more.
  For one thing space based observation is very good and has a much faster turn around now days.
  Back then photography was film based, satellites would fly take pictures and release the film in a pod to reenter and be recovered mid flight[1].
  And on the other hand altitude and speed does not buy as much survivability as it did back then.
  Fighters flew at a maximum of 1.5 mach and missiles at 2-2.5 mach.
  S-400s for example can launch interceptor variants that can intercept targets at almost a hundred thousand feet moving at 14 mach. I know that is for ballistic targets, but I doubt an aircraft flying at a similar altitude even at hypersonic speeds would have much luck.
  1. evilduck · 1790775816 · focus · HN ↗
    We've had public reports of space based weapons usage this month. The environment is changing.
    Perhaps this is placing a bet that Kessler syndrome is a real threat to surveillance capabilities and they want these in case the satellites go down.
  2. j4k0bfr · 1790776025 · focus · HN ↗
    I agree that any military on equal standing would blast the SR71++ to smithereens. But how many wars does the US fight against equals? And on the reconnaissance side, there are pros and cons to satellites. They're hard to replace and easy to track & destroy. Plus even the best space sensors lose quality due to distance.
    Do I think an SR72 is a good idea? Hell no, but I don't think like the US military haha.
    cryptonector · 1790777388 · focus · HN ↗
    > Do I think an SR72 is a good idea?
    It's idiotic. Unless the goal is to waste money and opportunities, then it's brilliant.
    Between spy sats and drones we don't need a spy plane, not even a mach 6 spy drone.
  3. postingawayonhn · 1790782174 · focus · HN ↗
    Based on the war in Ukraine S-400s aren't really able to intercept much at all.
    hylaride · 1790792923 · focus · HN ↗
    Like most things militarily Russian, the S-400 over-promises and under-delivers, but that doesn't mean it's not potent. It's probably incapable of hitting most ballistic missiles in real world conditions, but a plan flying in a straight line would be a lot easier, ignoring any stealth capabilities.
11. whalesalad · 1790776607 · focus · HN ↗
  What we imagine as next-gen sr71 (ie, reconnaissance) is not going to be a plane. It's satellite based. You don't need a super fast plane and pilots going in and out of dangerous airspace if you are not even operating in airspace.
12. cryptonector · 1790777108 · focus · HN ↗
  There is no need for a spy plane in a world where we have tons of spy sats and drones.
13. hn_submit · 1790778791 · focus · HN ↗
  I talked to Lockheed engineers (at a party) thirty years ago about the supposed successor to the SR-71 which was all the rage back then: the Aurora. Obviously they didn't tell me anything but it was nice joking about it.
  It struck me they were trained to respond to questions about classified stuff. When you asked them a question they responded with a question.
  So yes, most probably something has been flying for decades that's at least as fast as the Blackbird. Prototypes which may or may not have been put into production.

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