Thread

1. scrumper · 1790779923 · focus · HN ↗

   The general tone here seems to be against the effort, but separate the circus from the ringmaster and there is a lot to like here.

   Having a manned, very high altitude, very fast research plane is undoubtedly useful for all sorts of development purposes.

   But more than that, we are as a civilization doing a bad job of preserving cutting edge expertise from the past. We keep letting entire areas of engineering and technology die out without really trying to preserve them even though we know at some point they will come in useful. The skills, processes, even institutional confidence developed in just trying to get an SR-71 flying again will teach us a lot about resurrecting other such dead ends. Aerospace in particular is full of them. That will, for sure, get us out of trouble or speed up something we need at some unknown point in the future. I'd think of it more as developing a general capability than the world's most expensive vintage aircraft hobby.

   1. runjake · 1790780542 · focus · HN ↗

      Look, I'm certified as the world's biggest SR-71 fan. As a kid, I saw it fly a number of times, got to see it up close, and had a family member who worked as an engineer on the program. I believe it may have even been this Blackbird, 844. It impacted me so much that I later went on to work on my own black and other military aircraft.

      I'm assuming that, if this rumor is true, somebody in the Trump campaign forced somebody at NASA to do this out of some misguided nostalgia. My hope is that if they're going to resurrect the Blackbird, they'll at least retrofit modern engines into the thing.

      But there are much more modern, cost-effective ways to build very-high-altitude, very-fast aircraft. I'm doubtful that going manned is the right approach. It takes a lot of weight and space to carry a person and the required life support systems. That capacity could be better utilized for more fuel and sensors.

      There's better technology that's far cheaper to maintain and operate. And you could potentially get hypersonic, or at least near-hypersonic, performance.

      1. dofm · 1790782990 · focus · HN ↗

         > I'm assuming that, if this rumor is true, somebody in the Trump campaign forced somebody at NASA to do this out of some misguided nostalgia.

         Came here to say this is exactly my guess.

         FWIW I think it's almost always a good idea to keep at least one example of any plane flying, just out of simple cultural principle (I feel this way about the Avro Vulcan and I think it's really sad that none can do more than taxi anymore) so I am not sure it's stupid for them to ask, but I can see why keeping an SR-71 in any kind of functional condition might be implausible.

         I would guess this is not a serious project to get it flying, but more a recognition that it will take more than two years to do it, could be cancelled at the two year mark without really wasting vast amounts of money, and ensures some very easy, regularly replenishable goodwill from the man who thinks the USA has planes that are literally invisible.

         There is precedent, after all: his insistence on a return to steam launchers on carriers.

         1. robocat · 1790839454 · focus · HN ↗

            > Avro Vulcan

            For anyone interested, they're referenced here:

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

         2. dghlsakjg · 1790885911 · focus · HN ↗

            I like the idea of keeping an example of everything flying from the perspective of my inner child, but it would be such a colossal waste of resources in reality.

            This plane had its own special blend of fuel, meaning it had its own special tankers too since it needed to refuel immediately after takeoff, and custom rubber blends for the tires.

            So we would need to have a refinery that can make the fuel, a tire manufacturer to make the rubber and tires, and a tanker program to fuel the thing.

            All this for a plane that is incredibly dangerous to fly (37% of them were destroyed in crashes, none due to enemy action), and that adds no capability.

            1. dofm · 1791052632 · focus · HN ↗

               Yeah. This one just does not seem plausible, and the reasons why are as you say.

               I&#x27;d be really surprised if this was not Trump-nostalgia-driven, and in that sense it deserves a bit of cynicism.

               However, it doesn&#x27;t seem particularly wasteful to have people in a room whose job is to see how far that could go in principle, even if the real value in that project is that it would keep historical technology decisions about that plane in people&#x27;s active working knowledge, passing institutional and personal recollections down to a custodian etc.

               The past is prologue, really — and not all history is nostalgia. Sometimes things that weren&#x27;t practical because of cost become practical, but are almost forgotten; exercises like this are possibly worth doing for almost every legacy project when the original team are nearing the end of their lives.

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