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

327 points · 403 comments · ilamont

  1. walrus01 · · 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&#x27;t seen the RQ180: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;search?client=firefox-b-d&amp;q=RQ180+greece" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;search?client=firefox-b-d&amp;q=RQ180+gre...

    edit 2 (apologies for the X link): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;MechDesignxyz&#x2F;status&#x2F;2041281689838584193" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;MechDesignxyz&#x2F;status&#x2F;2041281689838584193

    1. stickfigure · · focus · HN ↗
      &gt; I&#x27;d be more astonished if there isn&#x27;t something superior to the SR71

      Makes me wonder if this whole operation is just public cover for something like that.

      1. adventured · · 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 &amp; 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&#x27;d be very surprised if the US military isn&#x27;t looking to push its capabilities around increasing speed generally, just as it does any other aspect. There hasn&#x27;t been a significant leveling up in US Air Force speed capabilities in many decades (since the F22 supercruise three decades ago?).

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