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

327 points · 403 comments · ilamont

  1. andyjohnson0 · · focus · HN ↗
    The Blackbird is a deeply awesome machine, and hn understandably loves it. But this initiative is almost certainly about agency funding and access to budget, not engineering.

    The Orange Entity sets the direction and his congress provides the money. My guess would be that NASA has been told that the direction that leads to there being money is to forget the space telescopes and other science, and instead to focus on national prestige projects (Moon, Mars) and things that will feed through to military applications (hypersonic flight).

    1. j4k0bfr · · focus · HN ↗
      Agreed, I can't imagine much scientific/engineering value that NASA would get from restarting the SR-71A by itself. There's an easier way to simulate the Blackbird's flight characteristics without having to magic the damn thing back into the sky.

      I reckon it's much more likely to be used as part of a training program (maybe related to the shiny new F-47?) or for destructive/non-flight testing and research.

      1. Tangurena2 · · focus · HN ↗
        Back in the 1990s, SWRI had access to one of the operational SR-71s in order to test satellites before launch. At the time, vacuum chambers left enough air inside them that bolting the satellite inside the nosecone and flying it at 85,000 feet in an aircraft that cost about $200,000/hour to fly was a better test to ensure that the satellite will survive/operate in space.

        <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Southwest_Research_Institute" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Southwest_Research_Institute

    2. glorth · · focus · HN ↗
      This is one hundred percent the kind of cover story you give someone to gauge their interest in a real classified project. Guaranteed the people who said yes to this are not working on the SR-71A.
      1. verzali · · focus · HN ↗
        Why would you go after long retired folks though?
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