Skunk Works Reveals Proposed SR-71 Successor: the Hypersonic SR-72

cold fjord writes "Aviation Week reports, 'Ever since Lockheed's unsurpassed SR-71 Blackbird was retired ... almost two decades ago, the perennial question has been: Will it ever be succeeded by a new-generation, higher-speed aircraft and, if so, when? That is, until now. After years of silence on the subject, Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works has revealed exclusively to AW&ST details of long-running plans for what it describes as an affordable hypersonic intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike platform that could enter development in demonstrator form as soon as 2018. Dubbed the SR-72, the twin-engine aircraft is designed for a Mach 6 cruise, around twice the speed of its forebear, and will have the optional capability to strike targets. Guided by the U.S. Air Force's long-term hypersonic road map, the SR-72 is designed to fill what are perceived by defense planners as growing gaps in coverage of fast-reaction intelligence by the plethora of satellites, subsonic manned and unmanned platforms meant to replace the SR-71.'"

Comments

I would have had a frosty..

[Anonymous Coward]

But my SR-72 was in the shop...

Re:I would have had a frosty..

[Anonymous Coward]

Oscar and Mike are great mechanics. Good work takes time.

Re:I would have had a frosty..

[Anonymous Coward]

I probably wouldn't have drink holders anyway. SR-71 pilots had to be suited up almost like astronauts. Making a pressurized cabin for extremely high altitudes is costly.

Re:I would have had a frosty..

[davester666]

"and will have the optional capability to strike targets"

So, it's now an option controlled by the manufacturer whether the plane can be crashed into a specific spot on the ground?

Finally

[binarylarry]

I was feeling naked with all this NSA spying and no air surveillance.

I'm glad things are back and track and I can be monitored in my backyard and abroad, for my safety.

Thanks for looking out for me, big brother!

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont worry - they've been using drones.

Re:Finally

[SirGarlon]

The U-2 spy plane is still flying and it can carry a 5,000-pound payload of surveillance equipment. So there is plenty of air surveillance; you just didn't know about it.

Re:Finally

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Which is kind of stupid if you consider how much surveillance equipment actually weighs today and that the pilot isn't really all that useful in the plane.

Re:Finally

[JeffOwl]

When the equipment gets smaller, they just put more of it on. One reason the U2 is still in use is because it actually costs less to operate than the Global Hawk, for example.

Re:Finally

[cheesybagel]

Global Hawk also works reasonably well on this role.

Re:Finally

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I just wonder if the operating cost issue is unavoidable or just coincidental.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

by "actually" you mean "if you believe air force accounting designed to kill the global hawk. Hell, they put the day care center at Beale Air Force Base and the U-2's communications eavesdropping equipment on the global hawk's bill to pull off that lie.

Re:Finally

[DMUTPeregrine]

A lot of it is quite small and light, but some things will remain heavy and large for the foreseeable future. The optics are the main part of this, you need a large aperture to gather enough light to get clear shots while moving, and you need a long focal length to get good shots from high altitude. That means a pretty big set of lenses. And you want a lens for each camera. Now, it's nowhere near 5000 pounds, but it will be quite a bit heavier than your cell phone's camera.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, 5000 pounds of surveillance equipment. It's definitely not rated to carry nuclear bombs through the stratosphere. Says so in the schematics: it can carry surveillance equipment only.

Re:Finally

[tsotha]

These aren't cell phone cameras we're talking about here. One of the reasons the CIA has sort of grudgingly continued U-2 flights in lieu of the RQ-4 is the latter doesn't have enough payload (along with other considerations, like price).

Re:Finally

[M1FCJ]

Why would you bother, a ICBM or even non-intercontinental versions are way faster compared to a hypersonic plane.
If you want stealth, USA used to have stealthy nuclear-capable cruise missiles, now phased out because they were unnecessary.

Re:Finally

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Believe it or not, but I actually do happen to have a few fancy terms such as the Airy disk and the diffraction limit and what not in my vocabulary. I even happen to remember that your ordinary astronomical telescope has a resolving power in seconds of arc approximately 120 divided by D as the entrance pupil measured in millimeters; a fact that I learned when I was eleven or so. The fact remains that having to ferry people to high altitudes and keep them alive is more costly than not having to do that. I don't even want to think of the maintenance costs for the aging airframes (even though I assume the don't fly with jet airliner frequency anyway).

Re:Finally

[K. S. Kyosuke]

What is it with you people and cell phone cameras? I don't understand why "because it's not a cell phone camera" should be a reasonable answer to that, nor do I understand how many people seem to have the irresistible urge to say that.

Re:Finally

[ahabswhale]

The Global Hawk is a fucking joke. They costs $222 million each. You have to be fucking kidding me. So yeah, the U-2 is a much cheaper option, even if you throw in the cost of a day care center. Maybe if Northrop Grumman could actually build something that doesn't end up costing nearly 10x the original budget, you might have an argument to make.

Re:Finally

[LifesABeach]

I think there appears to be enough spy stuff that's working. How about joy rides? I'm thinking Ferris Bullers Day Off in an SR72. With its speed, couldn't it go to the ISS? One day Papa Johns, still steaming, in the box, to the ISS. Now that would be good marketing, and cheaper than making 2 SR72's. Now where are we going to put the Red Bull logo at?

Re:Finally

[tsotha]

Is it really that hard to understand? For the multi-spectrum, satellite quality sensors you're going to find in a high altitude spy plane the extra ton the U-2 can carry is a real operational consideration.

Re:Finally

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I was referring to your knee-jerk reaction referring to "cell-phone cameras", not to the (lack of) desirability of carrying interesting payloads. Of course, you don't carry satellite quality sensors on reconnaissance planes because reconnaissance planes are not satellites. They don't have to qualify for the environmental condition ranges peculiar to space operations, they don't even have to endure the kind of maintenance-free operation that is regularly required of space equipment. (And also, since they operate in the stratosphere, not in the exosphere, the design considerations for the same objectives are different - different focal lengths required, different speed of the imaging platform, different ways of coping with seeing and other atmospheric influences, etc., but I digress here, as this is not as much about equipment quality but rather about its purpose and design.)

Re: Finally

[gzuckier]

Nice thing about undetectable weapons is that you don't actually have to have any, just say you do.

Re:Finally

[tsotha]

I was referring to your knee-jerk reaction referring to "cell-phone cameras", not to the (lack of) desirability of carrying interesting payloads.

There was nothing knee-jerk about it. I'm tired of people spouting idiotic nonsense about magical sensor packages.

Of course, you don't carry satellite quality sensors on reconnaissance planes because reconnaissance planes are not satellites. They don't have to qualify for the environmental condition ranges peculiar to space operations, they don't even have to endure the kind of maintenance-free operation that is regularly required of space equipment. (And also, since they operate in the stratosphere, not in the exosphere, the design considerations for the same objectives are different - different focal lengths required, different speed of the imaging platform, different ways of coping with seeing and other atmospheric influences, etc., but I digress here, as this is not as much about equipment quality but rather about its purpose and design.)

When I say satellite quality sensors I"m talking about things like resolution and tracking. Obviously.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

the pilot isn't really all that useful in the plane.

If that wasn't the last thing you said I would've stopped reading right there.

Broken window fallacy

[Anonymous Coward]

An arms race is not a viable long-term strategy for keeping the economy going, especially when there's no one to run against.

Re:Broken window fallacy

[Anonymous Coward]

It worked fine in practice for the entire second half of the 20th century. Sorry that it doesn't work in theory.

Re:Broken window fallacy

[ShanghaiBill]

It worked fine in practice for the entire second half of the 20th century.

Except for the inflation and economic stagnation of the 1970s, caused by excessive deficit spending on the Vietnam War. Or the recessions in 1961, 1979, 1991, 2008, etc.

Sorry that it doesn't work in theory.

Military spending can promote economic growth if there is insufficient aggregate demand (e.g. Germany in the 1930s). But economically, it is better to spend that money on something else, such as infrastructure (roads, bridges, ports), because in the end, you will still have the infrastructure. With military spending, you end up with either a war, or unused weapons.

Re:Broken window fallacy

[Anonymous Coward]

It used to be that a lot of military spending included R&D that drove technology forward.

Unfortunately that's no longer the case - As a result of some unscrupulous contractors bilking the public, there is now so much oversight that every contractor is so scared shitless of failure that no one takes on anything that could amount to even the slightest amount of risk these days.

End result is even platforms considered "advanced" by the military are running two-decade-old operating systems on decade-old hardware. Because god forbid we risk the slight possibility a new OS might break something...

Re:Broken window fallacy

[interkin3tic]

End result is even platforms considered "advanced" by the military are running two-decade-old operating systems on decade-old hardware. Because god forbid we risk the slight possibility a new OS might break something...

Advanced compared to where we would be if we were still in an arms race with a superpower? Definitely we're behind. But we're mainly fighting the rednecks of the middle east. They have pipe bombs and decades-old rifles. I'd argue we should be considered "extremely advanced" as of a decade ago.

Re:Broken window fallacy

[ShanghaiBill]

It used to be that a lot of military spending included R&D that drove technology forward.

You cannot justify spending on weapons because some of the money trickles down to R&D. If you want R&D, then you should just spend the money directly on R&D. DARPA seems to put our tax dollars to good use. Spending billions on SR-72s to spy on hermits in Afghanistan is probably not so wise.

Re:Broken window fallacy

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the inflation and economic stagnation of the 1970s, caused by excessive deficit spending on the Vietnam War.

Deficits don't matter. Stagflation hit in the 1970s because of the OAPEC boycott. We had a suddenly reduced supply of an important natural resource and it fucked everything up. Go figure.

Re:Broken window fallacy

[Noughmad]

The summarization of the summary of the summary comes into play again. The funny thing is, if you try to spend extra money on infrastructure like roads, power generation and distribution or healthcare, people will no longer vote for you. If you spend the money on war, you can play the "patriot" and "fear" cards, and they will love you.

Re:Broken window fallacy

[Anonymous Coward]

Remind us that you said that, early next year when the Republicans hold the entire world hostage to their ideology.

Re:Broken window fallacy

[Electricity Likes Me]

It used to be that a lot of military spending included R&D that drove technology forward.

You cannot justify spending on weapons because some of the money trickles down to R&D. If you want R&D, then you should just spend the money directly on R&D. DARPA seems to put our tax dollars to good use. Spending billions on SR-72s to spy on hermits in Afghanistan is probably not so wise.

Though conversely, more investment in hypersonic engine physics would be great for progress towards a workable SSTO launch vehicle. But I very much doubt secret military spy planes are the most efficient way to get it.

Re:Broken window fallacy

[Dzimas]

The arms race simply converted finite physical resources into desert boneyards filled with billions of dollars of scrapped and utterly useless aircraft: http://chemtrailsplanet.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/boneyard-a.jpg

Re:Broken window fallacy

[ShanghaiBill]

If you spend the money on war, you can play the "patriot" and "fear" cards, and they will love you.

Is that why so many people love George W. Bush?

Re:Broken window fallacy

[Anonymous Coward]

It was Dick fucking Cheney who coined the damn phrase! "You know, Paul, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter."

I get that Eisenhower is a communist by current Republican standards.

I get that Reagan would barely fit into the current GOP.

But they're already to the right of Cheney? Really?

Re:Broken window fallacy

[tsotha]

Not actually true in practice.

Re:Broken window fallacy

[Anonymous Coward]

[citation needed]

Re:Broken window fallacy

[M1FCJ]

Reliable source you got there, chemtrailsplanet... Are you allowed to access the net w/o wearing your tinhat foil?

Re:Broken window fallacy

[Noughmad]

GWB was especially incompetent for a president, yet he still was elected twice. I don't know how much this was caused by his patriotic speeches and how much by his father's, but he certainly wouldn't be in office if he spent the war money on something like a nationalized power distribution system.

Re:Broken window fallacy

[Dzimas]

It's a link to a photo found through a web search. I don't give a damn who's hosting it or how tightly the tinfoil is screwed into their noggins. I do, however, find it perplexing how the general population tends to react very strongly against socialism, yet the US military is the largest trickle-down social program in the history of the planet, with millions of engineers, scientists, administrators and soldiers on the public payroll. The same people who become absolutely apoplectic at the thought of universal medicare think nothing of wasting tens of billions of dollars on a fleet of F-35s.

Re: Broken window fallacy

[gzuckier]

Didn't work out so well for 50% of the arms racers. And the " winning" side is just the one which got bankrupted slower.

Re: Broken window fallacy

[gzuckier]

The argument was that the war(s) in the Middle East was keeping the damage from terrorism over there. The truth is that it was keeping the damage from the bottomless incompetence of the Bush administration over there. If they'd have dedicated themselves to establishing a new improved power grid we'd still be trying to put out the flames.

Re: Broken window fallacy

[gzuckier]

Exactly. While manufacture and sale of a car, for instance, results in further benefit to the economy as somebody gets the mobility to get a job or a better job, to shop, to spend money on leisure, etc military expenditures are either parked waiting for conflict, involved in a conflict waiting to either get destroyed or parked again, or reaching obsolence and scrapped. Good business for the manufacturer, but minimal multiplier effect on the economy. They're kind of the ultimate luxury good, rather than part of the utilitarian economy; even to the point that there's no well defined demand that can be filled so that any more would go unsold, the demand is determined solely by how much cash is available, or how far into debt the purchaser wants to go.
This isn't exactly new to people who read economics texts or articles, even those by the WSJ or the Cato Institute. The difference is that right wing economists make the assumption that the effect on the economy of the government building a road or a school is the same as the effect of building a cruise missile; but I've never heard anybody say anything like "business has sure picked up since they built that new cruise missile between here and the city".
And of course the lowest strata of the right wing which subscribes to their authority figures' belief that government spending is bad and building a road is a waste of money if the government does it instead of a private company, but they go off on their own tangent with the fictitious belief that military spending is economically beneficial, not like that darned government spending.

SR-71 needed replacing

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if you need realtime intelligence you're not going to get it with satellites now that several countries have the capability of destroying them.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Which, ironically, is probably why they didn't bother upgrading the spy plane until now. Countries that could shoot it down could shoot it and any successors down, and those that couldn't couldn't.

The idea of a new plane to fill the gap, not from earlier planes, but from satellites being shot down, or just not being in the correct spot when you need extremely fresh data, is interesting.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[ArbitraryName]

How would they know which ones to destroy? Are you going to destroy every satellite that tracks over your country?

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[bob_super]

What makes you think that they can't shoot an SR72 down?
Ballistic missiles and satellites are less maneuverable, but faster. And it doesn't take a lot of damage for a Mach-6 bird to disintegrate.

On the same topic, I'd really like to see a Mach-6 weapon deployment.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[Anonymous Coward]

They retired the SR-71 like fifteen years ago. It cost too much to operate and used a special fuel, JP-7, that no other plane used.

It still has the speed record for manned air-breathing aircraft. (And, from the looks of the SR-72, will continue to hold it -- I don't see a cockpit in the SR-72 in the picture in Aviation Week)

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[Ralph Wiggam]

I assume that a plane flying Mach 6 would turn a human pilot into chunky salsa with any kind of maneuvering. Generally, an aircraft can be a lot smaller and cheaper if you don't have to worry about keeping a person alive inside of it. Same thing with spacecraft.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes you think that they can't shoot an SR72 down?
Ballistic missiles and satellites are less maneuverable, but faster.

Didn't you just answer your own question?

Back when the F-16 was hot shit, it was designed to win aerial combat (read: plane vs. plane) by out-turning enemy planes. If the SR-72 is a hair slower but more maneuverable than ballistic missiles, what makes you think the SR-72 can't use the exact same tactic to evade the munitions?

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[Antipater]

Nobody's using a ballistic missile to shoot anything down. Ballistic missiles are used to deliver (sometimes nuclear) warheads to a land-based target, and are the things that interceptor missiles are designed to try to shoot down. GP's point is that if an interceptor missile can shoot down a ballistic missile and/or a satellite, then it can shoot down an SR-72. Whether the SR-72 is more maneuverable than an interceptor missile is unknown, but doubtful.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[intermodal]

That's because manning the aircraft is pointless. The pilot is the most valuable thing on the plane.

That may seem a bit emotional, but look at the costs. Life-support, weight, cockpit space and the associated drag, the need to provide some way of seeing, the ability to get the pilot out in an emergency, visible screens or gauges, interior lighting, pilot training, survivor benefits/retirement pay, salaries, all needing to withstand the forces at that speed, and all protecting the least predictable part of the combination.

And that's added to the idea that we have to care whether we can recover the pilot in an emergency.

Just tack some sufficient self-destruct mechanism to sensitive equipment. Even disable external control on any craft that may need to loiter, and pre-program the entire route if you want. At worst, we lose a robot.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[amorsen]

The interceptor missile cannot use maneuverability for much. Ballistic missiles have little to no maneuverability at the time that the interceptor missile strikes them, so all the interceptor missile has to do is figure out where the ballistic missile is going and put itself there. An SR-72 would be able to see the interceptor missile coming and turn out of the way, and the interceptor missile cannot go Mach 6 to follow. The only way to hit an SR-72 would be to simply fire enough missiles and hope the SR-72 blunders into one.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[jandrese]

The SR-71 wasn't maneuver limited by the pilot, but by the airframe. The turning radius on the SR-71 was the size of some states!

That said, I wouldn't put too much stock in the artists rendition. That looks an awful lot like the cover of Popular Mechanics, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was made in a similar way (mostly with bullshit).

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[jandrese]

The point is that this plane is going to be flying so high and so fast that an interceptor missile won't be able to get up to speed and altitude before the plane is gone. That's how the SR-71 operated, and it was never shot down by enemy action. The only reason it's feasible to shoot satellites down is that they fly on predictable paths and can't maneuver much. Even a limited maneuver on this aircraft is going to translate into a wildly different location in just a few seconds.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if you need realtime intelligence you're not going to get it with satellites now that several countries have the capability of destroying them.

The problem with satellites isn't that countries can destroy them. The problem is that they travel in well known, predictable orbits.

They generally travel in low earth orbit where they can see any particular place about twice a day. So even poor countries can predict when they'll come over, throw some camo over their equipment while they pass over and a few minutes later uncover their equipment and get on with killing people.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[Anonymous Coward]

The US has states that are only 100 miles in size? (Not a US citizen.)

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[weiserfireman]

Shooting down a Mach 6 aircraft is extremely difficult.

Lets say an SR-72 was going to go the full length of Iran, and Iran had recently deployed S-300 missiles from Russia. The S-300 is considered a world-class air defense weapon (despite having never been fired in combat). It has a 5 minute deployment time and a 24 mile range.

Mach 6 is roughly 4,567 Miles/hour or 1.26 miles every second.

It will cover the 48 mile engagement envelope of an S-300 (24 miles each way), in 38 seconds. What this means is a missile site can't detect and engage the target. Someone has to detect and transmit targeting information to air defense sights in the path of the plane, so they can be ready to lauch, when it gets within range.

Just some moderate maneuvering and route planning, keeps the SR-72 out of range most of the time.

There was rumor that the SR-71 was detectable with long range radars, but stealthy to weapons guidance radars. Add in stealth characteristics and the task becomes even more difficult.

From looking at a map, the absolute longest flight path over Iran appears to be about 2000 miles. Meaning the SR-72, worst case, would only be over Iranian airspace for less than 30 minutes. If a plane came in over the Caspian Sea, crossed over Tehran, then turned for the nearest border, they could be in and out of Iran in less than 5 minutes.

All in all, a very challenging exercise.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems possible, but from what I understand it's still quite difficult if not impossible to hit the SR-71 with existing systems. First you need to get a radar lock on it, since you don't know what direction it'll approach from. (Unlike a satellite where you can predict the orbit after a pass or two.) Once you manage to do that, the SR-71 also knows it has been detected and will start making course adjustments. So now it's no longer on a predictable track which you can use to lead your target. Although there are a lot of hypersonic missiles, there is still the problem of getting that missile up from the ground to the SR-71. It takes quite a bit of time for that missile to accelerate, so the SR-71 gets a pretty good lead. And even on a missile the size of a telephone pole, that fuel goes rather fast. Once it's gone, that missile can't go any faster and starts slowing down in short order.

So what happens (in some article I read about it): SR-71 flies over some "hot" area, SAM site locks on, SR-71 crew sees an "idiot light" or some other indicator, they turn and burn. A missile might get launched, but SR-71 still manages to get out of range and the missile runs out of fuel before even getting close. Russians also had the Mig-25 which hypothetically may have been able to match speed to the SR-71 to a limited extent (a couple minutes at most), but doing so would burn out it's engine. However matching speed doesn't mean you'll close distance when your target already has a lot of lead time, so it's not really worth spending hardware on.

Anything that might fly faster than the SR-71 at what may be a lower altitude will be pretty near impossible to hit short of having a weapons-grade laser.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[bob_super]

Agreed, but by the time your Mach-6 bird is actually ready to fly over Iran, the S-301 may have a 500-mile engagement envelope and an even faster interception speed. It's a lot easier to make a bigger rocket than it is to fly safely an hypersonic spy plane.

Because the Chinese and Russian can do that math too. And they're not about to just say "let them fly over, we'll never stop them". They've been expecting the blackbird to be upgraded ever since they first saw one, and especially given the recent developments in scramjets.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are confusing the value of an entire pilot program with the value of one airframe. Yes, a pilot needs to fly a plane (that isn't a UAV). A plane also needs fuel to fly. But that doesn't mean the fuel (with all the storage tanks and indicators for the pilot unit to monitor) is worth more than the airframe. In the case of something like the B-2, which is worth the lifetime gross of thousands of citizens, that is clearly not the case. A pilot is a replaceable component for the aircraft. If one breaks and you are able to recover the aircraft, then you can swap out the broken one with another. And an ejection system is just a method to minimize damages. Just because you have lost the plane doesn't mean that you need to lose a pilot unit.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[ArbitraryName]

What does "100 miles in size mean"? There are no states that are anything close to 100 square miles, no. But there are certainly states whose dimensions don't (or barely) exceed that in the northeast. Connecticut, for example, is approximately 110 miles by 70 miles. The smallest state, Rhode Island, is 40 miles by 30 miles.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[osu-neko]

Because if you need realtime intelligence you're not going to get it with satellites now that several countries have the capability of destroying them.

Um, no. You don't get instant, real-time intelligence from satellites because they're in orbit, not because they can be shot down. You either have to wait until the next time the satellite will pass over the target in its current orbit, which could be days away, or you have to alter the inclination of the orbit so it'll pass over the target on its next orbit, which requires huge amounts of delta-V, more than most satellites have the fuel to do regularly.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[osu-neko]

How would they know which ones to destroy? Are you going to destroy every satellite that tracks over your country?

Only enemy spy satellites, presumably. This is surprisingly easy information to figure out. Launching things into space isn't exactly subtle (everyone for hundreds of miles around knows every time anyone launches anything into space), orbital mechanics are well understood and easy to work out, and satellites, like aircraft, are kinda out in the open with nothing to hide behind, and quite easy to track, even by amateurs with backyard telescopes (and there are quite a few enthusiasts who do precisely that). Anyone with the capability of shooting down one of our satellites already has a complete and accurate list of them.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[Chuckstar]

The other important distinction is angle. A ballistic missile is roughly headed directly towards the interceptor. A spy plane is roughly headed on a 90-degree angle to the interceptor.

If you imagine it like duck hunting, much easier to hit one that's headed directly at you, than one that's just flying by.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[cheesybagel]

I kind of doubt that the SR-71 could not be intercepted. The Russian ABM system or some variants of the S-300 PMU would probably fit the bill. You have to remember they made entire systems to defend against XB-70 Valkyrie bombing attacks including the AA-9 missile system used in the Mig-31. The XB-70 Valkyrie had similar specs in terms of speed and performance compared to the SR-71 IIRC.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[ArbitraryName]

You're missing the point. Yes, it's very easy to monitor satellites. But how do you know which one is an "enemy spy satellite"? Sure, there some confidential launches that are probably for surveillance and that's a good place to start. But there's loads of satellites flying around up there in orbits that are suitable for surveillance despite having some other declared purpose.. How do you know a US based company isn't collaborating with the NRO to launch their payloads on their commercial sats?

Also if you start destroying satellites that's going to become a Pyrrhic victory very quickly. The orbital debris is going to affect your own sats just as badly.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[Anonymous Coward]

SR-72 fast ha...
What's faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.?
"Look, up in the sky!"
"It's a bird."
"It's a plane".
"It's Stupidrman!"

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[Anonymous Coward]

"Agreed, but by the time your Mach-6 bird is actually ready to fly over Iran, the S-301 may have a 500-mile engagement envelope and an even faster interception speed. It's a lot easier to make a bigger rocket than it is to fly safely an hypersonic spy plane."

Too late we have been flying the Aurora AKA the SR-72 for years now....

Just remember this, by the time the US admitted to flying the SR-71 how many years had it already been flying?

If your finding out about it now. That just means they are getting ready to launch its successor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(aircraft)

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[0123456]

An SR-72 would be able to see the interceptor missile coming and turn out of the way, and the interceptor missile cannot go Mach 6 to follow.

In a bad Hollywood movie.

If I remember correctly, an SR-71 took a couple of hundred miles to turn ninety degrees at full speed. An SR-72 would require four times the distance to turn at the same g. Being unmanned, it might allow a higher acceleration, but I'm pretty sure the SR-71 was limited by the airframe, not the pilots.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you could, you know counter the sr 72 with another sr 72 designed not to carry much of a payload except enough mass to damage the sr72's airframe.

seemes easy enough to me.

Everything can be countered with a little bit of work. And a counter that is cheaper than an implementation is sufficient at deterring/stopping attack if that counter can be continually deployed alongside the attack.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[kimvette]

> ou have to remember they made entire systems to defend against XB-70 Valkyrie [wikipedia.org]

They may claim to have. . . but were that the case they'd have succeeded in downing the SR-71 in the 29 years following the XB-70's cancellation. They never did succeed, and it was not for the lack of trying.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[bogjobber]

At Mach 6 I imagine it probably *is* a spacecraft. Pretty close at least.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[lxs]

That picture does indeed fit the descriptions in reports of alleged sightings of the Project Aurora plane. Disappointed that they don't call it F19 though,

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[M1FCJ]

That must be partly to the fact that SR-71 did not fly over Russia (a big no-no) and Communist Russia did not sell S-300 to their remote satellites. After the collapse of the USSR, they started to sell cut-down versions to various countries but without the well-trained crews and well-tested operating procedures, it could be never successful. Any S-300 on non-Russian soils right now are there because of post-fall of Communism sales.
Even more, not a single S-300 was fired under combat, yet.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[GrahamCox]

Look up "ballistic" in the dictionary. Basic error, educate yourself.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[eriqk]

I assume that a plane flying Mach 6 would turn a human pilot into chunky salsa with any kind of maneuvering.

As long as you don't crash, it's okay.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[Anonymous Coward]

The SR-71 was stealthy, but there was nothing stealthy about it at speed. It lit up radars like Christmas trees. They theorize that what the radars were seeing was the large bubble of ionized air around the plane.

Re: SR-71 needed replacing

[Anonymous Coward]

If you need Intel that badly couldn't you just bribe a local $200 mill or so and gift em a really nice Nikon?

Save a bucket.

Re: SR-71 needed replacing

[gzuckier]

Hell I've seen trucks that couldn't turn around in Rhode Island.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[bob_super]

*facepalm*

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[intermodal]

Apples and oranges. The B-2 is the worst example you could have used, as it is extremely and unnecessarily expensive in this day of cruise and ballistic missiles. The idea of needing to "stealth bomb" something instead of simply firing a bunch of missiles is silly. Making it a manned operation with a reusable vehicle is not only inefficient but unnecessarily risky.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[jwilso91]

It will cover the 48 mile engagement envelope of an S-300 (24 miles each way), in 38 seconds..,,

Think about this. If you're intercepting a Mach 6 target with a missile whose peak speed is Mach 6, the only geometry that works is effectively a head-on collision. If the target passes even a few miles to either side of the launcher, it will be safe. If it gets within a few miles of the launcher, it's safe - a missile will not have time to climb to its altitude. If it gets past the launcher at all, it is absolutely safe.

The S-300 missile operator will realistically have a window of perhaps less than 10 seconds in which a launch against an approaching Mach 6 target at altitude can put the missile in the path of the target. His best chance would be to launch early, before the target is in engagement range, lofting his missile higher than the target so that it will have speed to manuever with on the way down. Very few air-to-surface systems support this kind of "loitering" engagement, however.

BTW, read the specs of weapons systems - particularly those not tried in combat - with a more critical eye than the third-world potential customers they are marketed to. Iraq bought vast quantities of sexy Soviet air defense technology and French combat aircraft in the '70s and '80s; it's all so much scrap metal now.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[Anonymous Coward]

This is pretty much the case. By the time you know it's there, it's too late to shoot it down. There have been attempts to shoot them down, but it was too high and fast to catch. The interceptor may be faster, but the SR-71 always had a good head start and a longer range. In that case you don't have to be faster, just fast enough and outlast the interceptor before it can get to you.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[Anonymous Coward]

The SR-71 was not built for weapons deployment. It's not easy to deploy a weapon at those speeds. Opening a bomb bay door could really screw up your airframe. You can't shoot bullets, as the muzzle velocity is slower than you're going. A lot of missiles are slower than you, too, and also mounting them so they can be deployed without getting sheared off by the speed isn't as easy either. When you're going M6, it's just easier to BE the weapon rather than deploy one.

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[Anonymous Coward]

Aircraft maneuvers are limited by physics and intelligence. Sure, their are planes that can generate enough g-force to cause the pilot to blackout. For the tactical fighter engineered to withstand such forces, onboard systems monitor vital signs of the pilot and takeover should this occur. For a 'plane' like the SR-72, flying at its top speed of Mach 6, (~1.25 miles/sec), using 'fly by wire' tech, you don't fly so much as suggest a maneuver. The aircraft won't fly at all without the onboard computer(s), and the software won't let a pilot self-destruct intentionally. (So, sorry, but no salsa spontaneously spews forth in the cockpit.)

For those interested in the Standard Rate Turn, here's the link that will allow you to guestimate just what the turning radius might be. I'd guess they use a 'half rate' turning rate of 1.5 degrees per second, which would result in a 2 minute course reversal. (Assuming you can simply multiply the Mach 1 speed of 761 mph by 6 in order to get to the Mach 6 speed at whatever altitude the SR-72 requires, which you can't), at ~4500 mph, that would require a diameter of around 95 miles (assuming you can simply multiply Mach 1 at standard elevation and temperature by 6, which you can't).

180 degree course reversal @ 1.5 degree / sec = 120 seconds or 2 minutes,
4500 mph / 60 minutes hr * 2 = 150 miles on course, which is 1/2 a circle of circumference 300 miles.
Circumference = Pi * d -->
300 / 3.14 = ~95

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[Rich0]

You only have to hit a few of them before the debris takes out everything in orbit, so which ones you shoot at doesn't really matter all that much...

Re:SR-71 needed replacing

[Rich0]

It will cover the 48 mile engagement envelope of an S-300 (24 miles each way), in 38 seconds..,,

Think about this. If you're intercepting a Mach 6 target with a missile whose peak speed is Mach 6, the only geometry that works is effectively a head-on collision. If the target passes even a few miles to either side of the launcher, it will be safe.

Not quite. Assuming that it could climb high enough you could hit an SR-72 with a Cessna launched from 200 miles away, as long as you knew where it was going to be in 2-3 hours. You don't fire at an aircraft when it is directly overhead - you fire at it while it is still heading your way on a lead intercept trajectory.

How far off-course it can be fired depends more on the missiles range and your radar system than on the missile's speed. What the missile's speed probably does affect is the ability of the target to evade the missile. The Cessna example only works if the SR72 doesn't change course - if it even turns the slightest bit there is no way the Cessna could move to a new intercept point in time.

Missiles generally burn through their propellant fairly quickly - they're gliding towards the target for much of their trajectory. Their rockets generate far more power than an aircraft, but their fuel capacity delivers far less energy over time. Towards the edge of their engagement envelope they're much less likely to hit a maneuvering target - especially one that is fast and which undoubtedly is more optimized for operation at those crazy-high altitudes.

The best defense for the SR72 is to avoid flying too close to a launcher. The best way to counter this is to have lots of launchers, and a good integrated radar system so that the range of the launcher's radar isn't the limiting factor.

Re: America... FUCK YAH!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because we made a technology deal with ETs in exchange for human genetic material.

The X-Men ...

[c0d3g33k]

... can finally replace their old beater with something a little more hip and modern. Party at the mansion!
.
.
.
.
http://marvel.wikia.com/X-Men_Blackbird

Re:The X-Men ...

[synapse7]

Mach 6 on a budget!

But the REAL Issue is...

[bubulubugoth]

Will it be as beautiful as the SR-71?

Re:But the REAL Issue is...

[cold fjord]

It doesn't look like it to me. It's a pity.

Aye

[Anonymous Coward]

...and if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a wagon

Re:Aye

[GarethIwanFairclough]

Now now Mr Scott, young minds/fresh ideas!

Mo money, mo money

[Anonymous Coward]

A defense contractor, a tea partier, and a teacher sit down to a plate of 10 cookies. The defense contractor takes 9, leans over to the tea partier, and says "psst, the teacher is trying to steal your cookie"

Re:Mo money, mo money

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, all the problems with the government, spending, taxes, incompitence is all directly the fault with the defense contractors.

Re:Mo money, mo money

[Anonymous Coward]

A defense contractor, a tea partier, and a teacher sit down to a plate of 10 cookies. The defense contractor takes 9, leans over to the tea partier, and says "psst, the teacher is trying to steal your cookie"

You sir (or the person you are paraphrasing from) is a goddamn sarcastic genius.

I hope to never forget this joke.

Re:Mo money, mo money

[Anonymous Coward]

incompitence

oh, the ironing is delicious!

Re:Mo money, mo money

[intermodal]

Doesn't matter, unless the Tea Partier was forced to bring the set amount of cookies only to have them taken away. Most Tea Partiers are angry about what they were forced to bring only to see it wasted, not upset about what other people might offer them.

Re:Mo money, mo money

[interkin3tic]

The incompetent ones are the tea partier and the teacher. The defense contractor is EXTREMELY competent. That's ONE problem with the budget.

Two straw man arguments and a spelling mistake all in one line. Expert trolling. (golf clap)

Re:Mo money, mo money

[cold fjord]

A defense contractor, a tea partier, and a teacher sit down to a plate of 10 cookies. The defense contractor takes 9, leans over to the tea partier, and says "psst, the teacher is trying to steal your cookie"

That joke isn't so much funny as it is weird. The goal of the Tea Party is for there to be less spending, so there would be fewer cookies to begin with. It even fails as a "guns versus butter" joke given the actual the realities of the budget.

Re:Mo money, mo money

[cold fjord]

incompitence

oh, the ironing is delicious!

That is too crewl.

Re:Mo money, mo money

[deadweight]

You see the Tea Party as rational actors. Many of us see them as deluded fools - or "usefull idiots" - stirred up by puppet masters who have NO intention of actually bringing about TeaHadi Paradise.

Re:Mo money, mo money

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I read the joke as if there were supposed to be 20 cookies in first place anyways, by cutting them, the "government cut" (salaries for congressman etc) was obviously still on the table. The teachers probably won't see anything but crumbles anyways.

Re:Mo money, mo money

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, unfortunately, it doesn't actually work like that.

Re:Mo money, mo money

[Anonymous Coward]

so sew me

Re:Mo money, mo money

[Anonymous Coward]

A obama voting welfare recipient, a tea partier, and a teacher sit down to a plate of 10 cookies. The obama voting welfare recipient takes 9, leans over to the tea partier, and says "psst, the teacher is trying to steal your cookie"

FTFY

Re:Mo money, mo money

[Jimme Blue]

A obama voting welfare recipient, a tea partier, and a teacher sit down to a plate of 10 cookies. The obama voting welfare recipient takes 9, leans over to the tea partier, and says "psst, the teacher is trying to steal your cookie"

FTFY

You are Bruce Tinsley, and I claim my five pounds!

Re:Mo money, mo money

[fahrbot-bot]

Most Tea Partiers are angry about what they were forced to bring only to see it wasted,...

"Wasted" in this case meaning anything they don't care about and/or doesn't affect them and/or is spent on people they don't like.

Re:Mo money, mo money

[fahrbot-bot]

A obama voting welfare recipient,...

The phrases "Obama voting" and "welfare recipient" might mot be as accurate as you think.

You might find this interesting. From Slate.com (and others):

The top ten states that got the most back in federal benefits (9/10 are Red states): New Mexico (Blue), Mississippi, Alaska, Louisiana, W. Virginia, N. Dakota, Alabama, S. Dakota, Virginia, Kentucky.

The bottom 10 states - that give more than they receive in federal benefits (all Blue states): New Jersey, Nevada, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Illinois, Delaware, California, New York, Colorado.

In addition: About the assumptions surrounding Mitt Romney’s now infamous comments about the indolent “47 percent” of Americans who regard themselves as victims and therefore pay no taxes. As the American Conservative magazinepointed out recently, nine of those 10 states are in the Old Confederacy.

Re:Mo money, mo money

[imikem]

So which two of Alaska, N. Dakota and S. Dakota were in the old Confederacy?

Re:Mo money, mo money

[LordLimecat]

I knew there was a reason I came to slashdot: noone else does strawmen quite the same way.

Re:Mo money, mo money

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't read the article. I states that:

To save space below, “pension benefits” include both Medicare and Social Security; “anti-poverty aid” includes Head Start, Low Income Home Energy Assistance, Food Stamp and nutrition programs for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), and several school-lunch-style benefits.

This does not include other federal programs that make the list pretty much the opposite of what you stated and what slate.com has.

Re:Mo money, mo money

[tsotha]

You see them as deluded fools because you're deluded fools.

Re:Mo money, mo money

[Dereck1701]

The Tea Party, like any political group, is a mix of people with a varied political mindsets. You have many very reasonable Tea Party members, a few "far right" (shutdown the gov, defund everything, etc) and a few "far left" (support the unions, regulate everything, etc). The same can be said of any political group. There is no doubt that the Republicans have tried to co-opt them as a wing of their party, but every Tea Party rally I've ever seen (admittedly only a few) has been equally disappointed in both mainstream political parties. The Tea Party in and of itself is probably never going to bring about meaningful change, but the fact that they have shook up the political landscape a little, forcing some of D.C.s issues (debt, waste, pork, political favors, etc) out into the open I feel is a very good thing and hopefully will continue for many years to come.

Re:Mo money, mo money

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you get actual figures on this? The slate.com article just references the home page of the Tax Foundation. Without anyone to check their figures, I'm suspicious.

Re:Mo money, mo money

[Anonymous Coward]

The Tea baggers is about as far right as you can go. They are far from Christians, though they like to think they belong to that group, lets talk about the Confederate flags they have at their rallies.

Re:Mo money, mo money

[intermodal]

Last time I checked, that's how representative-based governance (and grievances related to the same) work.

Re:Mo money, mo money

[deadweight]

I think wasting 24 BILLION dollars on a stupid political stunt is about as far from a very good thing as you can get. This would be like my wife getting annoyed at me going to strip clubs and cashing in our 401Ks and burning the money in a bonfire to get attention. Not that I go to strip clubs. That you know of. This week.

Re:Mo money, mo money

[fahrbot-bot]

Except, in this case, Tea Party rally members complaining about the evils of Government from their Medicare paid-for motorized scooters - as reported by Rolling Stone in (The Truth About the Tea Party) - seems a bit disingenuous.

Scanning the thousands of hopped-up faces in the crowd, I am immediately struck by two things. One is that there isn't a single black person here. The other is the truly awesome quantity of medical hardware: Seemingly every third person in the place is sucking oxygen from a tank or propping their giant atrophied glutes on motorized wheelchair-scooters. As Palin launches into her Ronald Reagan impression — "Government's not the solution! Government's the problem!" — the person sitting next to me leans over and explains.

"The scooters are because of Medicare," he whispers helpfully. "They have these commercials down here: 'You won't even have to pay for your scooter! Medicare will pay!' Practically everyone in Kentucky has one."

A hall full of elderly white people in Medicare-paid scooters, railing against government spending and imagining themselves revolutionaries as they cheer on the vice-presidential puppet hand-picked by the GOP establishment. If there exists a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents, I can't imagine it.

Re:Mo money, mo money

[intermodal]

*shrug* even if you don't like the system, if you're paying for the system you may as well reap what you can from it. After all, the money one would have used to pay for the scooter was already spent by the government somewhere when they took it as tax money.

Re:Mo money, mo money

[Dereck1701]

At our current rate our government spends our nation over $4.2 billion further into debt every day. That $24 billion was less than a week of normal federal debt growth. If it can even start us down the road towards a balanced budget it will be well worth it. That is if Standard & Poor's "estimate" is even accurate, more than a few articles have remarked that their numbers are questionable at best.

Re:Mo money, mo money

[deadweight]

So....wasting money and screwing up everything will save money? WTF??? Is this like lighting yourself on fire because you are too cold?

Re:Mo money, mo money

[Anonymous Coward]

You already have several responses, so I will keep this brief. While your argument makes sense, so far I have only seen the Tea Party run candidates against existing Republican seats. When the Republicans don't fall in-line with Tea Party ideals they have to legitimately worry about their gerrymandered districts suddenly having a viable competitor. This doesn't happen to the Democrats as far as I am aware.

Why isn't it built, and w do we know about it?

[mrchaotica]

This is the kind of thing where I'd have expected them to say "here's the successor to the SR-71, and oh by the way it's been operational for 20 years." (And that they'd only be saying it now because the next black project is coming online and it's obsolete.)

But instead they're saying they actually didn't have anything in-use during that time? I'm disappointed!

Re:Why isn't it built, and w do we know about it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember all those spy satellite launches the media was talking about?

Exactly.

Trouble is sometimes you need intel in places you didn't already put something with an intersecting orbit (turns out Russia is kind of boring these days)

Re: America... FUCK YAH!

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, we let ET preview our flying bike technology and ET gave USA some gene info.

aviationweek.com down

[synapse7]

Crashed and /.ed.

Affordable?

[Antipater]

TFA won't load. But how "affordable" are we talking, here? Manhattan Project levels of affordable, or F-35 levels of "affordable"?

Re:Affordable?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Eh, less than $120,000/flight hour, pinkie swear!

Re:Affordable?

[fnj]

What do you think "Manhattan Project" level of spending is? The whole frikkin deal only cost 2 billion 1940s dollars, or 26 billion 2013 dollars. For an earth shattering game changer, it was cheaper than dirt. That was out of about 300 billion 1940s dollars the US spent on WW2 in its entirety.

For comparison, the B-17/B-24 four engine bomber building program (28,000 planes between the two) cost very roughly 7 billion. They battered Germany for some 2-1/2 years, but it still took a colossal ground invasion on two fronts to force the Germans to surrender. But two B-29s plus two nuclear bombs finished Japan without a single boot on the ground of the Japanese homeland.

Re:Affordable?

[timeOday]

I'm more impressed that all of WWII cost the US only 300 BN. That's $3.7T in today's dollars, which happens to be equal to the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars put together:

The most recent major report on these costs come from Brown University in the form of the Costs of War project, which said the total for wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan is at least $3.2-4 trillion.

Of course the cost of WWII to the US was very small compared to the costs to nations where it was actually fought.

Re:Affordable?

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair on the price, those planes lacked such things as computers or really electronics of any kind, a pressurized cabin or much of anything in the way of "life support," rockets, missiles, fly-by-wire, guidance for bombs beyond an X on a telescope, jet engines, air-to-air weapons beyond a couple machine guns that required crewmen to point and shoot...you get the idea. Doing the math, that's about $250,000 each for basically a much larger flying 40's Buick.

I'm not saying there's not a LOT of contractor waste that happens now (like how the F-35 has parts made in 48 of 50 states. Even being generous, I could only think of at most 20 that really should have any part to play in it at all.), I'm just saying that technological advances have gotten to be significantly more expensive. Again, see making a fission bomb vs making ITER work and produce more energy than you put into it.

Re:Affordable?

[Antipater]

That...was kinda my point, if you didn't realize.

Re:Affordable?

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, this aircraft will have 1/6 the flight hours for the same mission.

Re:America... FUCK YAH!

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they were funding their infrastructure?

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/american_prosperity_consensus/2013/10/american_prosperity_consensus_is_crumbling_infrastructure_the_most_important.html

More defence pork

[benjfowler]

More defence pork, more hopelessly expensive boondoggles of dubious usefulness for an already outrageously overpowered military.

Totally misconceived as well; something moving that fast is going be as noisy as hell, not to mention the fact that it'll stand out like dog's balls on IR. Undoubtedly, everyone else will be scrambling to develop lots of nasty defensive weapons to counter it.

Guess the spoilt brats in the military industrial complex need another cash cow; God knows they know how to milk them dry.

Re:More defence pork

[Anonymous Coward]

More defence pork, more hopelessly expensive boondoggles of dubious usefulness for an already outrageously overpowered military.

Totally misconceived as well; something moving that fast is going be as noisy as hell, not to mention the fact that it'll stand out like dog's balls on IR. Undoubtedly, everyone else will be scrambling to develop lots of nasty defensive weapons to counter it.

Guess the spoilt brats in the military industrial complex need another cash cow; God knows they know how to milk them dry.

Terrible comment:

a) Mach 6 is an extremely useful engineering feat. If nothing else, having a vehicle that's going Mach 6 advances the state of the art in engineering for flight. You will probably eventually see some of that technology filtering into the general aviation fleet.

b) Have you ever even read the Wikipedia articles on the U-2 and SR-71 spyplanes? The U-2 was shot down once. The SR-71 was *never* shot down. No regime in existence today probably cares enough about an SR-72 to build weapons to counter it. Additionally, planes that fly at Mach 6 fly at very high altitudes, so even if you can see it on IR (and the precursors to today's stealth technology to HIDE IR were on the original SR-71), you probably wouldn't hear much if anything at all: there's that whole pesky energy dropoff as a function of R^2 and actually having to have more than a handful of molecules for atmosphere to actually conduct sound.

This is not necessarily a bad project. Not nearly as bad as, say, the B-2 or the F-35.

Re:More defence pork

[Anonymous Coward]

Additionally, planes that fly at Mach 6 fly at very high altitudes, so even if you can see it on IR (and the precursors to today's stealth technology to HIDE IR were on the original SR-71)

The work that was done to reduce the infrared signature and RCS of the Blackbird can hardly be called "stealth". The affect of the aircraft was simply huge; Lockheed merely did what they could to make it less egregious.

Ultimately, the largest return generated was from the jet exhaust. The high cruising altitude actually makes this problem worse — the higher the altitude, the earlier the curvature of the earth stops working to hide the approach of the aircraft. Any hypersonic aircraft design that's likely to materialize will have to cope with an even larger exhaust and acoustic profile. I wouldn't bet on any such aircraft being classified as "low observable".

Re:More defence pork

[Richard_at_work]

The U-2 was shot down several times - you are only thinking of the Powers shoot down, while infact there were several shoot downs of Taiwanese U-2s as well.

Re:More defence pork

[tigersha]

More than one U-2 was lost. Except for the obvious Gary Powers case, a U-2 loss also accounted for the only military casualty in the Cuban Missile crisis.

Please

[The Cat]

This country can't build a web site. How the fuck are we going to build an SR-72?

Re:Please

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

This country can't build a web site. How the fuck are we going to build an SR-72?

Hey, be fair, If Obamacare actually had death panels, we probably would have gotten it right...

Re:Please

[sootman]

As long as ten million people don't need to fly it the first day, it'll probably be OK.

Re:Please

[osu-neko]

This country can't build a web site. How the fuck are we going to build an SR-72?

It's a matter of priorities. We can't build a website, but we sure as heck can build a warplane. We have a lot more experience at that, too...

Re:Please

[Anonymous Coward]

The SR-72 will not come with 2700 pages of byzantine regulations and requirements, be held accountable by multiple bureaucracies, or flown first time with a live pilot with no testing or validation of the airframe in a wind-tunnel.

your tax dollars at work

[Gravis Zero]

should we be spending billions to...

1) work toward reducing poverty in our nation?
2) make a faster plane to bomb the shit out of someone faster in a war that hasn't started yet?

Re:your tax dollars at work

[fahrbot-bot]

should we be spending billions to... 1) work toward reducing poverty in our nation? 2) make a faster plane to bomb the shit out of someone faster in a war that hasn't started yet?

Well... Our "war on poverty" obviously needs some help, so can't we simply use the SR-72 to bomb *our* poor people faster?

Re: America... FUCK YAH!

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought we asked for the Good Package not the Big Gun? We must not be Real Men.

INCOMPETENCE

[Anonymous Coward]

That's how that word is spelled.

but this one goes to 72!

[Thud457]

Amazing plane, looks like a fish, moves like a fish, steers like a cow.
Will it be available in the traditional Hotblack Desiato livery?
Will it still leak oil straight off the showroom floor like a '57 Jaguar?

Already exists or cancelled?

[Hobadee]

The fact that they announced this means 1 of 2 things.
1. The SR-72 has been in service for quite a while already.
-or-
2. Lockheed Martin proposed this to the military a while ago and they turned it down.

You really think *this* government would actually tell us about the latest and greatest?

Re:Already exists or cancelled?

[amorsen]

Aircraft development is getting so expensive that it cannot be hidden anymore.

Re:Already exists or cancelled?

[BenSchuarmer]

third option: it's a red herring. They're building it to distract people away from the micro-ornithopters that we're really using to gather intelligence.

Re:Already exists or cancelled?

[osu-neko]

You really think *this* government would actually tell us about the latest and greatest?

They might as well. If they don't do it through official channels, it'll be on Wikileaks shortly anyway.

I think I had a perfectly accurate plastic model of the F-117A, purchased from the model department of a toy store, a few years before it was officially acknowledged. At some point, you just have to live with the fact that some things can't really be kept secret, not matter how much you might want to.

More Overpriced Toys For the Overgrown Kids...

[caogdin3419]

...in the Pentagon.

LIke we don't need to feed our poor, or anything.

Re:More Overpriced Toys For the Overgrown Kids...

[Xenkar]

The poor tend to then breed and create more poor to be fed, which makes the problem worse. If we just fed the poor instead of doing other things we'll never explore the galaxy or fix our bridges. I know it really pulls on your heart strings but sometimes you can't fix the problems in the world with simple gestures such as feeding all of the poor.

No. "war on poverty" 50 years old, zero results

[raymorris]

The war on poverty began over 50 years ago and we've spent trillions of dollars, your dollars. The poverty rate is higher today than it was when the federal government started spending money on it 50 years ago.

So the answer is "no". The government should leave your money with you. You'll spend it, and the stores where you spend it will hire people. More jobs = less poverty.

Re:No. "war on poverty" 50 years old, zero results

[jandrese]

1963 poverty rate: roughly 19%. 2013 rate: 15% Hooray. This is actually impressive given the tremendous increase in inequality between 1963 and today.

Re:No. "war on poverty" 50 years old, zero results

[cusco]

Shame on you, confusing a poor teabagger with facts!

Re:No. "war on poverty" 50 years old, zero results

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and there certainly was not a class of people kept in poverty through inequality in this country in 1963...

Re:No. "war on poverty" 50 years old, zero results

[Anonymous Coward]

Eat a dick, you pedantic sycophant.

Re:No. "war on poverty" 50 years old, zero results

[Anonymous Coward]

Shame on you, confusing a poor teabagger with facts!

Yea, but were there gang warfare, crack babies, and bankrupt cities like Detroit in 1963?

Re:No. "war on poverty" 50 years old, zero results

[Anonymous Coward]

BZZZT. Sorry, but the facts do not support your libertarian rhetoric!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States

After many years of the most painful recession since the 1930s, yes, there are almost as many people, IN ABSOLUTE TERMS, living in poverty in the US. However, as a percentage of the population, the poverty rate has fallen from 22% to 15% over the last 50 years.

Re:No. "war on poverty" 50 years old, zero results

[imikem]

Sure, haven't you seen West Side Story? The crack must have been responsible for all the dancing and singing.

Re:No. "war on poverty" 50 years old, zero results

[Dereck1701]

"22% to 15% over the last 50 years."

Yes and no, yes it has fallen from ~22% but it did that back in 1966, since then it has bounced between 11 & 15%. There seems to be little evidence that the 1964 "war on poverty" did anything but take credit for an already declining poverty rate.

Double whammy

[argStyopa]

Not only are the team of engineers that could have done this work long since retired or dead, so too apparently is anyone that can put out a credible disinformation campaign.

Re:Double whammy

[ebno-10db]

The ghost of Kelly Johnson is said to walk the halls of the Skunk Works.

Re:Double whammy

[osu-neko]

"Be quick, be quiet, and be on time." Clearly a man from a bygone era...

Re:Double whammy

[Anonymous Coward]

now THAT would make an awesome short story!

Skunk Works

[skaralic]

I just started reading the Skunk Works book by Ben Rich. He took over SW after Kelly Johnson stepped down in the 70s. So far it's a good read, enjoyable for any engineer...

How appropriate

[cold fjord]

From the Slashdot fortune on the bottom of the page: When the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the plane, the plane will fly. -- Donald Douglas

I guess the magazine articles are a good start.

AURORA

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, dohnuts-on-a-rope contrails.

High speed scram jets have been active since at least the 90s. Damn I watched video of one of them going faster than anything else in .ram format back then...

So yes, the replacement has been around for a long time...

Re:AURORA

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, saw them myself near Mono Lake, CA back in the mid '80's.

I often camped there to view the Perseid Meteor shower, and late in the afternoon I saw a contrail making aircraft moving as fast as I'd ever seen, it ripped across the horizon N to S at high altitude along the backbone of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in mere seconds and sounded like a cross between a rocket and a jet engine.

The next year in the same area I saw an even stranger aircraft, as before, late in the afternoon, the sun was already below the high peaks of the Sierra's and I first heard a very strange sound and looked up to see a high altitude, high speed, like really high speed, aircraft that was making a very odd doughnut-on-a-rope contrail, and the sound was as described elsewhere, like the sky was ripping, but it didn't coincide with the doughnut puffs it was a steady sound.

I pretty much figured out it was a scramjet engine that I was seeing and hearing, it was gone in seconds towards the South.

Three members of my family worked at the Skunk Works from the 50's to the 80's, and I remember that my father used to talk about taking the red flight from Edwards (to "the Ranch" at Groom Lake) when I was a boy, he'd be gone for days or weeks at a time, so I'm steeped in this stuff and find it fascinating.

Re:America... FUCK YAH!

[citab]

Wish I had an American Mod Point to give you .... right on the nose.

Very Important Point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is the enemy that we need to justify this? I don't suppose it's Afghanistan? It's going to have to be a technologically impressive country a long way away to justify all that cost.

Expect to see American foreign policy starting to make enemies of Japan, Germany or South Korea. Perhaps Switzerland...?

Re:Very Important Point...

[osu-neko]

Who is the enemy that we need to justify this? I don't suppose it's Afghanistan? It's going to have to be a technologically impressive country a long way away to justify all that cost.

Expect to see American foreign policy starting to make enemies of Japan, Germany or South Korea. Perhaps Switzerland...?

Really? "China" didn't even occur to you? Or are you under the delusion that the third country to send men into space isn't "technologically impressive"? From a military technology and manufacturing perspective, it's far more impressive than any of the countries you named. And they even call themselves "Communists" (a bit of untrue propaganda that just happens to work well both for themselves domestically and those who want to demonize them abroad) -- if you were a western military looking for a scary enemy, you couldn't wish for a better one...

model rocketeers had this years ago!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Apogee had the SR-72 Darkbird a long time ago!

http://www.apogeerockets.com/Rocket_Kits/Skill_Level_4_Kits/SR-72_Darkbird

Didn't the Aurora displace the Blackbird?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Area 51 tinfoil hat crowd say that the Aurora was built from UFO technology, and that is why it became so easy to retire the SR-71 virtually overnight.

Re:Didn't the Aurora displace the Blackbird?

[Anonymous Coward]

No alien tech involved but some pretty exotic materials like ceramic latticed titanium parts and some other even more fantastic science stuff.

Think carbon composite turned up to 11...

I always get a little pissed off when people claim aliens did this or that, when the hard work of people is all that is needed. If aliens helped us do anything wouldn't the leaps in tech be a little more aggressive?

There has to be a successor

[ZincFinger]

This aircraft was introduced in 1966. In the context of the times, it makes no sense whatsoever that the team behind the plane just patted themselves on the back and moved on to other projects. A plane that as of today is still 'state of the art'. Simple logic dictates that there was a succesor and most likely by now, incremental iterations of said plane. The SR 71 was not retired because its mission was obsolete nor because of costs, but because the plane itself was obsolete.

Re:There has to be a successor

[dbIII]

it makes no sense whatsoever that the team behind the plane just patted themselves on the back and moved on to other projects

It made no sense for all the people involved with bits of Apollo to do the same as well - however all the money was going into short term things in the war and a lot of things were just left to turn to shit.

Re:There has to be a successor

[tsotha]

And yet the U-2 is still flying. The reality is the SR-71 was retired because it was too expensive to operate.

I wish

[joe_frisch]

I would love to believe that the US could still pull off cutting edge aerospace project, but I'm really skeptical. After 50 years we've lost our manned space program, hard to believe we are building a project that will push the limits beyond existing technology. This looks like NASP (X30), Constellation, manned mars missions and various other ambitious programs that provided some nice pictures and fancy design studies, but never really went anywhere.

I hope I'm wrong and we are still doing cool aerospace stuff.

Re:I wish

[painandgreed]

I would love to believe that the US could still pull off cutting edge aerospace project, but I'm really skeptical. After 50 years we've lost our manned space program, hard to believe we are building a project that will push the limits beyond existing technology. This looks like NASP (X30), Constellation, manned mars missions and various other ambitious programs that provided some nice pictures and fancy design studies, but never really went anywhere.

I hope I'm wrong and we are still doing cool aerospace stuff.

Keep up the hope, because this isn't aerospace, but military. The military is still getting plenty of money to build a first strike hypersonic missiles and planes. Later, if we're lucky, the tech might get repurposed into a space plane.

Re:I wish

[green is the enemy]

I'm cautiously optimistic that hypersonic flight will eventually make it to passenger airlines. It would be really nice to travel to Japan or Australia in 3 hours instead of 15. There are enough oceans over which to fly without worrying about the sonic boom. Reaction Engines is working on an interesting hypersonic engine prototype. That one looks even better than this military scramjet: higher thrust-to-weight ratio and ability to function as a rocket engine. This engine would enable travel by ballistic trajectory .. even faster and way cooler. People would pay crazy money just to ride it for the thrill of it. Maybe these are just dreams.

Re:I wish

[joe_frisch]

I'd certainly like faster international travel!

I'm not sure that hypersonic is a win over sub-orbital ballistic. Using the air for oxidizer is a big win, but the energy loss from drag may more than make up for it. I haven't seen a good side by side comparison of the fuel requirements for the two modes for say a 6000 mile trip.

Re:I wish

[cbhacking]

Well fine, research them both. I don't care which wins, as long as we get *something*!

Skylon

[Anonymous Coward]

It's years behind Skylon, will go over budget like your particle accelerator

Re:Skylon

[Anonymous Coward]

Skylon has a lower top speed (mach 5.4 vs mach 6), can't carry armaments and isn't a stealth craft.

Re:America... FUCK YAH!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh boy, your response is the threat of violence because someone posted something you disagree with.

Why don't you come up with a report on why this is inaccurate?

Q: Which roads are in worse condition?
1) NYC
2) Beijing

Re:America... FUCK YAH!

[TWX]

I don't know. I haven't seen the roads in Beijing.

Though from what I hear, residents of Beijing haven't seen them in awhile either.

Wrong, wrong, wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong, members of the Tea Party are far better versed in science (proven recently by a liberal professor's study -- a guy who believed the propaganda like you do), history, and the Constitution than most. That's why they are in the Tea Party. It's not a place for people who do not know history or the Constitution, i.e. it's not a place for most liberally leaning people who are simply told what to think by the media and dutiful believe the propaganda.

Re:Wrong, wrong, wrong

[dbIII]

Since it's 100% astroturf - they didn't even organise their own transport back when it was all going on - that's barely relevant and they were sadly just a mob there to provide numbers instead of having a voice. Idiots or not they were just deployed as useful idiots by a cynical bunch of manipulators providing the funding that really didn't give a shit about what the tea partiers actually thought.

It's very sad really. All that outrage could have been used to form a useful third party instead of just a bunch of cheerleaders for the batshit insane wing of the Republican party.

It's not a place for people who do not know history or the Constitution

I disagree - one thing I found intensely scary was the people who liked to dress up in period costume that walked around shouting stuff that would have made George Washington want to shoot them as Royalists - that sort of thing showed a profound lack of understanding and indicates some failings due to cutbacks in the US education system.

Re:Wrong, wrong, wrong

[ShoulderOfOrion]

True. But I've never understood the U.S. Liberal tendency to fawn over royalty either. The way the liberal press treats a Kennedy or a Clinton, you'd think they were secretly wishing to restore the Monarchy.

Sadly, the batshit-crazy wings are in control of both parties at the moment.

Re:Wrong, wrong, wrong

[dbIII]

I'd agree with that other than "liberal" used there doesn't match the dictionary anywhere apart from in the Bizzaro world that is US politics where it's mostly just a meaningless insult. Kennedy, Johnson etc were not "liberal" by any sane definition, and I'm not sure you could call their pursuit of an authoritarian agenda secret. It looks very obvious in hindsight.

Re:Wrong, wrong, wrong

[deadweight]

The ones I know are frighteningly divorced from the real world. They imagine a never-ever-existed fantasy land of 1950s Leave-It-To-Beaver combined with no-holds-barred 1800s style robber baron capitalism. Not only do they think climate change is a hoax, evolution is too and for SURE our current president is from Kenya. Many of them see no good reason not to default on the debt. A typical quote is like "Sure they'll be no more DEA, DOE, SSA, DOA, Medicare, or any other part of the federal government that doesn't involve missiles and bombs, but think how great a country this will be then".

NASA R&D made this possible

[dbIII]

I'll add something since I've been following this stuff from 1986 when I first saw a scramjet test.
It wasn't the DoD spending money all over the world with whoever was interested in scramjets since the 1980s - that was NASA. Trickle down had nothing to do with this. It was about direct funding and then the DoD getting interested some time in the last five or ten years - more than thirty years after successful scramjet model tests in shock tunnels.

Kinda waiting for this day, and explanation

[Trax3001BBS]

Just one other question needs to be answered, does it leave string of donut holes as exhaust.

Those are not scramjets

[dbIII]

Replace that with 1960s+ and the Bell rocket stuff as featured in the intro of six million dollar man and you've got the source of those contrails. Wikipedia will help. The huge deal with scramjets is similar speeds with half or less fuel than rockets so long as there is a little bit of atmosphere around.

Didn't you watch TV back then?

[dbIII]

Back then the scramjets were in very early development (I saw one of the models in 1986) but the rocket planes (not scramjets) like the one you saw should have been general knowledge since there was on in the intro of six million dollar man FFS! Shame on you for using your ignorance to confuse the issue.

It was 15% in 1966, 1982, 1993, 2013

[drnb]

1963 poverty rate: roughly 19%. 2013 rate: 15% Hooray. This is actually impressive given the tremendous increase in inequality between 1963 and today.

It was 15% in 1966, 1982, 1993, 2013. From 1966 to today it has been fluctuating between 12% and 15%. Nearly 50 years of massive government spending with no change.

BTW, Johnson introduced the "War on Poverty" legislation in 64 not 63. The programs that implemented this agenda took years more. Poverty had been on a very sharp decline many years before this. This decline essentially stopped as this legislation was implemented.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Number_in_Poverty_and_Poverty_Rate_1959_to_2011._United_States..PNG

Facts are: poverty today is same as in 1966.

[drnb]

Shame on you, confusing a poor teabagger with facts!

What facts are those? The government stats show that poverty has been essentially flat for nearly 50 years, 1966 through 2013. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Number_in_Poverty_and_Poverty_Rate_1959_to_2011._United_States..PNG

It seems you are the confused party in this discussion.

Re:Facts are: poverty today is same as in 1966.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah? It may seems that way to you, but to anyone living in poverty, it's a different story. Aside from which you'll have to do a little better with your armchair economics. I see you've only sighted one (government) source that uses variable definitions for its variables and different calculations now than it did in 1966 in order to determine what the poverty level is and who qualifies for inclusion. Don't forget that a rising tide was supposed to lift all boats, Mr. Supply Side!

But it's ok. Thomas Hobbes would have been proud that you've denied reality within the parameters of his grand philosophical tradition.

Politics schmolitics..

[maseo126]

Coolest plane ever. Built a model of this when I was 7 (1982) and thought it was science fiction until I read an article with a picture attached. Amazing that it's still flying and still just as awesome.

Re:America... FUCK YAH!

[Anonymous Coward]

Its a good thing your news is always accurate and unbiased. Not saying the pollution in Beijing isn't bad, but perhaps overblown a bit?

Older Aviation Week Article

[dcw3]

http://www.aviationweek.com/Blogs.aspx?plckBlogId=Blog:27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckPostId=Blog:27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post:6dc7cb4a-39d7-4413-ac07-f145261f0e73

Re: America... FUCK YAH!

[gzuckier]

Yeah, why are they all wasting their time developing things like cheap efficient solar power, what the hell demand will there be for that?

FedEx?

[DarthVain]

NSA: "When it Absolutely, Positively has to be there overnight"

Also SR-72? But what is it going to be called? I mean the 71 was the "Blackbird". Which isn't very fast as far as birds go, so I can only assume they named it for the color. Assuming they haven'y run out of "Sinister Spy Black" at the Skunkworks, what are they going to name it? Presumably "Black" something or other. I also presume that it will be something that flies. I also presume something that isn't in current use. Given the popularity of Game of Thrones, my vote would be for the SR-72 Raven... (also makes kind of sense since ravens are in a sense used for surveillance more less in the game of thrones world) of course that doesn't have the word "black" in it, which might be a requirement.

Maybe "Black Fly", but that would insinuate that it is small, which even if a drone, fuel consumption and range would likely mean that it is not. Though if Canada every comes up with a done, that is totally going to be the name!

Re:America... FUCK YAH!

[citab]

Not a threat of violence at all... I should have said "Spot on ... ".

I can see how it sounded that way tho.