505
NASA mysteriously trying to pull world’s fastest plane, SR-71 Blackbird, out of retirement — and won’t say why (nypost.com)
submitted 1 day ago by Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works to c/technology@lemmy.world
299 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Seeing Blackbird fly again after all these years would be incredible. I'd love to know what NASA has planned for it.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] testaccount372920@piefed.zip 17 points 1 day ago

I can think of a couple of reasons to use the SR-71 again.

  • Concern that a crash in space could lead to a cascade of crashes, disabling all sattellites.
  • (On demand) capacity. I could imagine that the SR-71 can cover an unplanned spot faster than sattellites. Also, with the wars in Ukraine and Iran they're maybe finding out that they don't have enough imaging capacity.
  • The imaging angle, a plane can image almost horizontally, they can look under bridges, through windows etc.
  • A ten times increased resolution could be useful for recognizing details, maybe it's even good enough to recognize people though it might be pushing the limits of facial recognition. It's also the kind of resolution where they can read some text, e.g. identifyers on shipping containers or military vehicles.
[-] lime@feddit.nu 15 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

the sr-71 is definitely not a scramble-able plane:

  • it leaks fuel when on the ground (it shrinks when cold) so it's stored empty,
  • it's as aerodynamic as a brick when subsonic so it needs an insanely long runway, and
  • it has an always-on afterburner so it burns an alarming amount of fuel.

when they were doing surveys of iraq during desert storm they had to field a fleet of eight tanker planes over the indian ocean just so the damn thing would make it from japan to the gulf.

Edit: oh and those are specially designed tanker planes because of course it uses JP-7 so they needed separate tanks for that and their own fuel. they also needed to be able to refuel at like 850km/h or the blackbird would just drop out of the sky.

love that plane.

[-] Redjard@reddthat.com 2 points 18 hours ago

Iirc it starts nearly empty and is only fueled up in the air, so basically no way around tanker planes.

[-] lime@feddit.nu 2 points 17 hours ago

that's apparently not true, it would take off with half fuel because the landing gear could buckle under the full weight.

even with a full tank it could only go for about 90 minutes though so anything nontrivial did indeed require a tanker.

[-] Redjard@reddthat.com 3 points 15 hours ago

nearly empty

half fuel

I'm sure a skilled politician could sell this as being basically the same ;)

[-] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 1 points 17 hours ago

still faster than launching a new satellite

[-] lime@feddit.nu 2 points 17 hours ago

we have over 15 thousand of the things up there now, surely someone must have seen something

[-] Mrkawfee@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

Can't they do all that with drones?

[-] a4ng3l@lemmy.world 2 points 23 hours ago

You need to deliver the drones to the location of interest though. And regularly bring fresh ones I guess. A stealthy and fast as fuck delivery platform would make sense.

[-] CedricWhaley@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 20 hours ago

I don't think the SR-71 has much cargo space if that's what you're suggesting.

[-] teslekova@lemmy.ml 2 points 11 hours ago

Imagining an SR-71 crewmember now opening a little hatch and awkwardly shoving little drones out, to see them instantly torn apart in the winds at the slowest speed it can go, 850 km/h.

this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2026
505 points (97.2% liked)

Technology

88338 readers
3679 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws