Skunk Works Reveals Proposed SR-71 Successor: the Hypersonic SR-72 216
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.'"
Finally (Score:5, Funny)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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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.
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Global Hawk [wikipedia.org] also works reasonably well on this role.
The X-Men ... (Score:4, Funny)
... can finally replace their old beater with something a little more hip and modern. Party at the mansion!
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http://marvel.wikia.com/X-Men_Blackbird [wikia.com]
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Mo money, mo money (Score:5, Funny)
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"
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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 [heritage.org] of the budget.
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Re:Mo money, mo money (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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It's very sad really. All that outrage could have been used to form a useful third party instead of just a bu
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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.
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incompitence
oh, the ironing is delicious!
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incompitence
oh, the ironing is delicious!
That is too crewl.
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Two straw man arguments and a spelling mistake all in one line. Expert trolling. (golf clap)
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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!
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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 [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, Il
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So which two of Alaska, N. Dakota and S. Dakota were in the old Confederacy?
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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.
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I knew there was a reason I came to slashdot: noone else does strawmen quite the same way.
Why isn't it built, and w do we know about it? (Score:2)
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!
aviationweek.com down (Score:2)
Affordable? (Score:3)
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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
Re:Affordable? (Score:5, Informative)
Of course the cost of WWII to the US was very small compared to the costs to nations where it was actually fought.
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Please (Score:5, Insightful)
This country can't build a web site. How the fuck are we going to build an SR-72?
but this one goes to 72! (Score:3)
Will it be available in the traditional Hotblack Desiato livery?
Will it still leak oil straight off the showroom floor like a '57 Jaguar?
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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...
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As long as ten million people don't need to fly it the first day, it'll probably be OK.
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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...
Already exists or cancelled? (Score:3)
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?
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Aircraft development is getting so expensive that it cannot be hidden anymore.
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Double whammy (Score:2)
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.
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The ghost of Kelly Johnson is said to walk the halls of the Skunk Works.
How appropriate (Score:2)
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.
I wish (Score:2)
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 st
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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 (Score:5, Interesting)
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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.
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Well fine, research them both. I don't care which wins, as long as we get *something*!
Kinda waiting for this day, and explanation (Score:2)
Just one other question needs to be answered, does it leave string of donut holes as exhaust.
Older Aviation Week Article (Score:3)
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 [aviationweek.com]
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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.
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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 (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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).
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Also if you
Re:SR-71 needed replacing (Score:4, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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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 developm
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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,
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Re:SR-71 needed replacing (Score:4, Insightful)
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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
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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.
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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.
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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 [wikipedia.org] bombing attacks including the AA-9 missile system [wikipedia.org] used in the Mig-31. The XB-70 Valkyrie had similar specs in terms of speed and performance compared to the SR-71 IIRC.
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> 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.
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It doesn't look like it to me. It's a pity.
Re:Broken window fallacy (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
NASA R&D made this possible (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Ter
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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.
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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.
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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?
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Shame on you, confusing a poor teabagger with facts!
Facts are: poverty today is same as in 1966. (Score:3)
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 [wikimedia.org]
It seems you are the confused party in this discussion.
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Sure, haven't you seen West Side Story [imdb.com]? The crack must have been responsible for all the dancing and singing.
It was 15% in 1966, 1982, 1993, 2013 (Score:3)
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_Pover [wikimedia.org]
Those are not scramjets (Score:2)
Didn't you watch TV back then? (Score:2)
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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.
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