Thread

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

327 points · 403 comments · ilamont

yodon · 1790727412 · focus · HN ↗
The SR-71 is cool, but this article is not at all confidence inspiring on many fronts.
Guy being interviewed by a reporter about a secret project. A secret project that is trying to resurrect an antique plane that has been subject to weather and on display as a museum piece for many years.
It sounds like a clown-show staged around a cool looking plane that's older than 90+% of HN readers.
1. somenameforme · 1790730749 · focus · HN ↗
  There was something special about the 60s in the US. Your comment implies you might not appreciate how absurd the SR-71 was. The F-35 is our latest fighter jet. It has a top speed of 1200 mph, the SR-71 had a top speed of 2200 mph. The F-35 is capable of operating at around 50,000 ft, the SR-71 was capable of operating at 85,000 ft. The F-35 has a self fueled range of about 1350 miles, the SR-71 had a self fueled range of 2,900 miles.
  Look up aviation records and you'll find the SR-71. It even still holds the #1 spot for the fastest airflight (by a plane) ever. Basically, the SR-71 is old, but old doesn't mean antiquated. The 60s was the era that we went from knowing basically nothing about space, to putting a man on the Moon in 7 years (Kennedy gave his 'to the Moon' speech in 1962, first landing 1969), while we currently flail about trying to recreate it with a program lasting into the decades already. The SR-71 was another product of this era.
  1. fmajid · 1790731724 · focus · HN ↗
    The US also had two superlative poles of engineering excellence, Kelly Johnson's Skunkworks and Hyman Rickover's nuclear submarines. They've been since replaced by bureaucrats without an ounce of talent.
  2. driverdan · 1790732658 · focus · HN ↗
    No one questions the technical achievements of the SR-71. It doesn't make any sense to try to resurrect them though.
    somenameforme · 1790747619 · focus · HN ↗
    Why not? Losing that level of capability, and the ability to iterate upon it, seems like terribly poor strategic planning in the past - much in the same way that ending human space after landing on the Moon was also quite poor strategic planning. Reviving the SR-71, in much the same way that human spaceflight is also being revived, seems quite logical - especially because in the case of the SR-71, in contrast to rocketry, there is nothing remotely comparable in the commercial domain.
    Near the top of this thread, there's a lot of debate and discussion about what we must have 'secretly' concocted. Some think that the various sighted UFO/UAVs might be secret US tech. But I see no reason to think this is the case, in no small part because things like the decision to retire the SR-71. You don't get from A to E without going from B C and D.
    There's also other practical reasons. If we did have anything meaningfully advanced then it'd be being used, however grossly inappropriate it might be, in places like Iran. No chance the current administration holds anything back for the sake of some strategic edge in a possible future conflict. I also think secrecy in modern times is not especially realistic. Everybody has eyes in the sky, to say nothing of probable increases in human level spying and the like. And so forth. Basically the idea of rebooting the SR-71 would be precisely with the aim of eventually fulfilling these sort of 'fantasies.'
    Lumich · 1790799760 · focus · HN ↗
    If you like the SR-71, the U-2 CIA spy plane is at least as fascinating. All this was retired because of advancements in satellite technology.
    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_U-2" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_U-2
    « what we must have 'secretly' concocted » — Secrets are often dirty, which is why they're secret. Not for public consumption. Like, what is the secret behind Wikileaks Bradley Manning's “conversion” into “Chelsea” after whistleblowing secret dirty videos showing the world how dirty it really is in there? In that military? Did they castrate him in custody?
    Rather than wondering about “secret tech”, boyish fantasies fueled by Pentagon sponsored Hollywood movies glorifying guns and violence and blasting enemies (they always need enemies), ask yourself whether all of the stuff publicly and conspicuously trumpeted about (not only in past decades) did and does actually work and exist. ;)
  3. m4rtink · 1790761568 · focus · HN ↗
    F-35 can shoot stuff, unlike the SR-71.
    somenameforme · 1790781443 · focus · HN ↗
    There were armed variants like the YF-12. So far as I understand, the main reason the game changed is because missiles improved. Not much point focusing on things like speed when some missiles are reaching mach 16, contrasted against the SR-71's mach 3.3. In that context you simply have to pray your counter-measures work, and if that fails, then hope your ejection seat works.
    Tangurena2 · 1790793322 · focus · HN ↗
    Bullets are slower than the SR-71 - it would shoot itself down if it had a gun.
    bionade24 · 1790796225 · focus · HN ↗
    Newton disproved that more than a century ago.
    Lumich · 1790797535 · focus · HN ↗
    Did you mean Einstein? But it was only a “thought experiment” …
    bionade24 · 1790864822 · focus · HN ↗
    I was wrong, it was actually already Galilei: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galilean_invariance" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galilean_invariance
    who described that a motion happens in relation to its inertial system.
    Fact is, the claim that the SR-71 would fly into its own fired bullets is absolutely ludicrous.
    Lumich · 1790881053 · focus · HN ↗
    « claim … ludicrous » — Without knowing much about physics, I totally agree.

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