Seeing Blackbird fly again after all these years would be incredible. I’d love to know what NASA has planned for it.
Don’t you guys see it: If really crazy stuff happens and satellites are taken out of the sky, youre going to see to do some old-school reconnaissance.
It’s just trump living in the past we have drones now even if satellites were taken out
OK - so, Trump thinks they are cool and wants them back in action despite having better technology already in place. This tracks because of his dumb Trump-class battleship in development, which will be closed down soon after being commissioned because it’s a dumb idea.
It’s sad that that is the most likely explanation. No grand strategic vision, no plan, just being nostalgic for the eighties.
It’s like the entire US government is running a Make a Wish foundation scheme for Trump.
Let’s hope you’re right. Because of the implication.
“If you got a ton of money, maybe you can make it happen,” he told Aviation Week. “They went to the Moon, you know.”
That is SO funny.
I mean if it’s the fastest, why would it really be retired? It’d be like Michael Phelps retiring after his first gold medal.
They are expensive to fly and maintain and their primary purpose as a high-altitude spy plane has been taken over by satellites.
They are still really cool, we just don’t have a good use for them.
NASA is researching quieter supersonic flight, and I can’t help but think of how the (also Lockheed Martin) X-59:
Has a extreme wing profile/nose, not unlike SR-71:
Perhaps NASA is doing it to make a trophy that might impress the imbecile emperor in hopes of securing funding for space science.
Like in Rainbow Mars when the Time Travel Bureau has to go on safari to capture extinct pets for their imbecile emperor.
I guess we can put to rest the idea that the US government has successfully reverse engineered UFOs. Because if they had, there would be absolutely no need to do this if we could fly anywhere in the world in minutes or seconds and invisibly.
Maybe they have done that, they’re just really slow, and not actually any better than what we have?
UFOs are most likely manmade, or probably something other-dimensional like angels or demons. The distances in space are too vast for visitors, the idea breaks down in more than one way once you dig into it.
I’m enjoying this - “We’ve learned enough science now that we realize it’s more likely fantasy creatures would be visiting us than that technologically advanced sentients would be traveling interstellar distances to visit.”
That isn’t a terrible representation. And not necessarily unscientific.
What’s really funny is the Blackbird was absolutely the cause of more than a few UFO sightings, some that have been confirmed in hindsight.
We have no way of knowing if they’ve overcome the obstacle of traveling long distances in space.
Yeah but why would they do it to come here? I mean, gestures vaguely at everything
Also, if they were billions of light years away and they looked at our planet from afar, they would see our planet billions of years ago. No reason to visit. What are the chances of a random visit?
Also why does increased activity in that sphere always correspond with batshit political times. Also why are all the UFO celebs obvious fucking grifters. Also…
Or maybe thats just what they want you to think 🧐
To test against the SR-72.
They want a jet that works. It’s not NASA’s SR-71, the SR-71 was made by Lockheed.
F35s are chronically grounded with software issues. They want a plane that works.
The F-35 isn’t grounded, nor does it have anything to do with NASA.
Neither does the SR-71.
fucking Google F35 software issues, chronic problems. they can’t fix it.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/f-35-software-upgrades-stagnated-warns-new-report-ps-031726
Nor would an SR-71 play anywhere near the same role as an F-35 lol. They’re apples to oranges.
they are both hypersonic aircraft.
They are not. The F-35 has a top speed of Mach 1.6. It’s a supersonic aircraft.
The SR-71 has a top speed of Mach 3.2 lol. Literally twice as fast as the F-35 but still well short of the Mach 5 required for hypersonic flight.
The F-35 also has a flight ceiling of 50,000 feet, while the SR-71 has an 85,000 foot ceiling.
The SR-71 served exactly one role: Hypersonic aerial reconnaissance. No weapons, nothing. Just fly higher and faster than anything else on the planet.
The F-35 is a strike fighter and air superiority fighter.
They’re really not comparable.
Who cares why - this plane is so fucking awesome it’s an end unto itself.
Grandpa watched The Right Stuff last night, for the love of god someone disable his line to the Pentagon.
This is likely the majority of the reason anyway
Nasa’s plan: “Seeing Blackbird fly again after all these years would be incredible.”
X-Men did it.
The blackbird is a spy plane. It’s not something they can launch a payload from, not can it do anything space related. All it does is go super fast and snap pictures. Conspiracy theorists are going to have a field day with this because the only thing NASA might want it for is to surveil UFO’s. There are all sorts of stories of energy orbs and weird stuff being seen and then helicopters showing up later, after they’ve vanished.
On the contrary, NASA mounted stuff to it for research in the 90s:
I was worried at first, why do they need that right now? But looking over the specs, this would be like taking a classic corvette to a bank robbery. So this is for sure for show and possibly to add more sensors to record data they couldn’t previously record. Me thinks they want to make another that could maybe go to space proper and deploy something.
This is pure speculation, I’m not an expert.
To speculate further, the stated reason for attacking Iran was nuclear weapon development. Perhaps there are sensors to track that, that can’t operate from satellite
If it were about Iranian nuclear weapon development, it wouldn’t be NASA doing the surveillance. Although weather phenomena is in NASA’s purview.
We already had high confidence intel before the war Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapon. But since then, Trump has expressed that a nuke is the only thing he would respect.
If there were, they’d probably be on the U-2.
Whenever nasa’s involved it’s always something to do with airflow dynamics or something. If it was the US military I would assume that though.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re trying to use it to concept test something related to aero for the x-37
We know that NASA is doing research on both supersonic and hypersonic airflow. There are extremely few existing aircraft they could use for hypersonic testing
The reason they got rid of surveillance jets is that satellites can do it without any risk to a pilot and on a 24 hr basis.
During the Cold War, it had to overfly Russian airspace to be able to see far enough. They were within their rights to shoot at unauthorized aircraft in their airspace.
However, it could see a lot higher percentage of Iran without overflying, and Iran can’t legally shoot at something in international airspace
Blackbird didn’t overly the USSR. The U2 did, and they learned the hard way that Soviet missiles went a lot higher than anyone thought.
Any country involved in a shooting war is within their rights to shoot at any object they have reason to believe is a military target, regardless of where that object is.
Outside their airspace, in international waters, inside another country, on the fucking Moon - the limits are technological, not legal.
If the object isn’t a military target, then they aren’t within their rights to shoot at it no matter where it is. Not that that has stopped attacks on civilians in the past (e.g. Russian ballistic missile attacks on apartment blocks, US drone strikes of fishing boats), only that the laws of war forbid such things.
I chuckled the other day when I heard that the planned attack on the UK airbase used by the US for attacks on Iran, is being blamed on Iran, and also being called terrorism.
I don’t think it’s terrorism when it’s a legitimate military target that takes place during war time. While it is possible for terrorism to exist during a war (you know, something like bombing schools, hospitals, residences, etc), an attack on an enemy’s base doesn’t fit.
Terrorism is, by definition, by a non state actor. If a government does it, it’s just a war crime.
All the Arab countries condemning Iran for attacking US bases and US military personnel conducting the war on Iran from their land is just as comical.
International airspace isn’t out of bounds when there’s an active conflict going on.
