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Lockheed Martin Developing Successor To the SR-71 Blackbird
Zothecula writes "When the last SR-71 Blackbird was grounded in 1998 it was a double blow. Not only did aviation lose one of the most advanced aircraft ever built, but also one of the most beautiful. Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works has now revealed that it is building a successor to the Blackbird: the SR-72. Using a new hypersonic engine design that combines turbines and ramjets, the company says that the unmanned SR-72 will be twice as fast as its predecessor with a cruising speed of Mach 6."
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/11/01/1911249/skunk-works-reveals-proposed-sr-71-successor-the-hypersonic-sr-72
Don't worry samzenpus - you're not as bad as timothy.
I suppose this is the suckcessor to Friday's submission.
This is a correct assumption.
Basically, the automatic cutbacks coming up mean all military spending will be cut in half.
All of it.
Lockheed Martin (which I used to own, and even bought and sold option in - yes, made tons of cash) has frequently had the Cheneys on their board, and other individuals determined to drag the US into the Two Permanent Wars Always era, when the correct response is to end overseas wars of foreign aggression and let the Middle East rot.
Solve that and there is no budget deficit.
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... but how many successors does it need?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
too bad slashdot can't develop some dupe detection.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I agree, I wish they would just take the military budget for Air Conditioning and give it directly to NASA. it would triple our space research funding.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I think we all have one big question:
With that kind of thrust, can we just add-on an extra oxygen tank, and convert it into the space-plane we've been promised for so long?
Perhaps this could be the proving grounds for a space shuttle replacement, powered by ramjets instead of solid rocket boosters?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
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?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I agree, I wish they would just take the military budget for Air Conditioning and give it directly to NASA. it would triple our space research funding.
As a former soldier, I don't want them to cut funding for air conditioning. Operating in climates with 120 F for months at a time is pretty hard, and the computers and equipment starts failing.
But I get your point.
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Cutting anything just to cut is stupid. DO you think just random cutting will get rid of pork? It will not, pork is always the last to go.
What we need is targeted and precise cuts on a project basis.
But no, lets just leave all our allies dangling, and leave our defense wide open. Cause that's what happens when you just slash and burn.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
With that kind of thrust, can we just add-on an extra oxygen tank, and convert it into the space-plane we've been promised for so long?
No. Orbital velocity is about Mach 25. This plane cruises at Mach 6. So you have another 19 to go.
Still, it's a step. One small step for a plane...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
lets just leave all our allies dangling,
Maybe our allies should start picking up their portion of their defense tab rather than relying on the U.S. taxpayer to constantly foot the bill.
and leave our defense wide open.
Like what, goatse? The danger now is rarely military in nature but electronic. The military industrial complex even admits this. They are more worried about state-sponsored electronic infiltration than they are about some nation developing jets or missiles.
Take a look at the 2011 proposed budget and how much national defense gets. You mean to tell me we couldn't cut that budget by 10% and still be secure?
Considering that is 20% of our total expenditure, and is nothing but a money sink since we get almost nothing in return, I think we can cut the fat a bit and still have a juicy steak.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Even if you are worried about invasions, keep the Navy and Air Force more or less intact and encourage more civilians to develop sound marksmanship skills. Don't discourage anyone from becoming proficient with either the standard infantry rifles or some high powered 50cal sniper rifle.
Make the US a hard target to get to and a nightmare to hold onto.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I wonder how bad or frequent an unstart will be with a mach 6 aircraft.
I don't know how frequent they might be, but seeing as the proposed SR-72 aircraft is using a common inlet, the severity might be reduced. One of the problems of unstarts on the SR-71 was the sudden intake of supersonic air caused "loss of air flow to the engine, an enormous increase in drag, and a significant yaw to the side with the affected inlet." The common inlet would mean both engines would be effected, so - while there would probably be a severe loss of power due to compressor stall and drag - the violent yawing effects might be mitigated.
But I'm not an aeronautic engineer or even a licensed pilot, so what do I know. But I bet the gurus at Lockheed have given it a lot of consideration.
the correct response is to end overseas wars of foreign aggression and let the Middle East rot.
Are you a parent? Many parents intervene to stop their kids from squabbling, and think they are reducing conflict. But if they just stay out of it, the kids will figure out how to resolve the conflicts on their own. Their resolution may not be what you, as a parent, would have imposed, but it is still an end to the conflict.
The same would likely happen in the Middle East. If we were no longer there to impose our will, the squabbling would likely stop as the countries in the region realized that they really had to deal directly with each other, and had to live with the consequences of their actions.
American power is not the solution to the Middle East's problems. To a large extent, it is the cause of the problems.
=As a former soldier, I don't want them to cut funding for air conditioning. Operating in climates with 120 F for months at a time is pretty hard, and the computers and equipment starts failing.
If US soldiers were not deployed in places they have no business being in the
first place, the need for air conditioning would drop drastically.
You mean places like California?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I was going to point out this was a dupe, but a bazillion people beat me to it.
But I also wanted to say, this is pretty cool, and we'll discover some practical solutions getting this thing operational. My one regret is that it is unmanned. Someone should be able to climb in, take off from a runway, and fly it to Mach 6, just to be able to say we could do it.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Aren't some of them -- namely, the ones like Japan and Germany which double as our defeated foes -- mostly disallowed from having their own military by treaty?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
You mean like the money borrowed from Social Security to pay for all these wars?
Easy fix - get rid of the earnings cap and disallow "carried interest". Problem solved.
That's what 2/3 of old people want, anyway.
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As for the military being able to take and hold things, does Somolia ring a bell?...Black Hawk Down? We couldn't even handle that little piece of shit, so don't be so sure about our capabilities.
We weren't trying to take anything. We were trying to shoot the bad guys in a limited conflict. We've always done poorly in those.
Learn to love Alaska
We dont need a war in california. Yes I disagree with everything California stands for but that is no reason to go to war there.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Well said. Why is it that we get angry when some poor people collect welfare and food stamps, but nobody seems to care about corporate welfare, which is orders of magnitude greater in cost?
The perpetual-war syndrome needs to be stopped. We seem to think that because we succeeded in WW2 that we have some mandate to step in and solve all the worlds problems, despite repeated failures. Meanwhile, Haliburton and other quasi-military mega-corps are laughing all the way to the bank.
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
Oh sorry, we can't afford to keep funding food stamps but a mach 6 unmanned jet is no problem.
See the violence inherent in the system?