Posted on 07/17/2019 9:50:59 PM PDT by bitt
With satellites and other orbital vehicles, why in the world do we need an SR-72? I think it is a waste of money.
Well, OK, just as long as we don’t break into that dimension where the Nazis won.
:)
Saw that same (almost) design in a Buck Rogers comic book back in the 40’s...
Same reason the SR-71 got called out of retirement twice. Satellites and orbital vehicles are tracked by MANY people and organizations on earth (even if you leave governments out of it), there’s no such thing as stealth in space given our current or even reasonably medium term future levels of technology so you can’t ‘sneak up’ on something you want to see on the ground. Literally anyone interested in the matter can go to publicly accessible sites and see where any given satellite is at any time. So you know when to hide your stuff from overhead satellite reconnaissance. Changing a satellite’s orbit is no trivial thing and they use up some of their finite amount of fuel and lifespan every time they do, so it has to be worth the change.
The SR-71 (and any hypothetical successor craft) are not publicly tracked, aren’t where literally every interested party can see them, and can go photo any item of interest without any advance notice, unlike satellites.
And in the event of war, a hypersonic recon bird wouldn’t be shot down in the first 20 minutes by Russian or Chinese anti-satellite weapons. Satellites are horribly vulnerable to being at least mission killed by antisatellite lasers, which the Chinese recently demonstrated their possession of and proficiency in use.
You also missed the part that this craft is (supposedly) more like the A-12 than the SR-71 - it is to be armed and strike capable, unlike the improvised plan to stick a bomb on the D-21 drone carrier pylon on the back of the SR-71 that AFAIK never came to anything. So it can not only go over and take pictures of items, areas and people of interest, it can *do* something about it.
Wow, very cool. Love that they are giving it strike capability. Take that, China! Think you’re catching up to us? You’ve got a loooong way to go.
Disagree... {:-)
When you consider the REAL waste of money by our masters, this one, at least, provides some security to our Nation...
Simply dump the EPA, Dept of Education, and a few others and we can afford hundreds of this kind of expense...
Better yet, stop (absolutely) the invasion of the Nation from the south and kick every single one of the many (30-40) millions of freeloaders already here and the Nation's financial picture is even rosier... Currently, the worthless criminal scum already here are costing $80K apiece... Paid for by those of us paying taxes...
All that's left is to speculate at what replaced it...
I recall hearing a funny story about one of the last flights of the SR-71, from the pilot, Brian Shul's perspective:
"I’ll always remember a certain radio exchange that occurred one day as Walt (my back-seater) and I were screaming across Southern California 13 miles high.
We were monitoring various radio transmissions from other aircraft as we entered Los Angeles airspace.
Though they didn’t really control us, they did monitor our movement across their scope.
I heard a Cessna ask for a readout of its ground speed. ’90 knots’ Center replied.
Moments later,a Twin Beech required the same. ‘120 knots,’ Center answered.
We weren’t the only ones proud of our ground speed that day…as almost instantly an F-18 smugly transmitted, ‘Ah, Center, Dusty 52 requests ground speed readout.’ There was a slight pause, then the response, ‘620 knots on the ground, Dusty.’
Another silent pause.
As I was thinking to myself how ripe a situation this was, I heard a familiar click of a radio transmission coming from my back-seater. It was at that precise moment I realized Walt and I had become a real crew, for we were both thinking in unison.
‘Center, Aspen 20, you got a ground speed readout for us?’ There was a longer than normal pause … ‘Aspen, I show 1,942 knots.’
No further inquiries were heard on that frequency.”
So do the stealth bombers
Back in the 90’s, in PW’s experimental airfoil group, we had a joke. “what’s black and manned and flies Mach 6?”. The answer.. “ I don’t know”.
for later reading and evaluation.
Because the opposition can figure out when satellites and orbitals will go overhead.
A plane can fly over a target at a time of your choosing.
Exhibit A for “why do we need something that’s not a satellite or orbital?”:
That’s EVERY g*dd*mn satellite (civilian, military or other) of significant size in Earth orbit, updated in near real time without the backing of a government, available to literally anyone on the planet.
I wonder if it can release a few mirv nukes.....quite a deterrent...but they will probably develop hypersonic SAMs..
Can a laser equipped satellite knock out a high flying SAM?
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