Space exploration may be possible in these.
SR-72
41–50 of 60 posts
Re: SR-72
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or heat its skin. A laser defense weapon, coupled with the black titanium skin, likely already close to its thermal limits, might produce results of interest to a defender.
In the meantime, its going to take a lot of time and money to develop those weapons as well. I mean, you're talking about hypothetical countermeasures that don't even exist as a solid concept yet.
True, but we have 16 years to figure it out.
Re: SR-72
#43What would be the key advantage of a Mach 6 drone? At that speed, it's hardly stealth (it'll be very hot) and its payload is not exactly remarkable. At best, it's a reusable missile booster stage.
I get there are political problems on putting conventional precision warheads on top of ICBMs (a conventional attack would look exactly like a nuclear one) but I can't see what this drone brings to the table compared to a missile launch. An adversary would still have little to no time to react before being hit. The only difference is that with an ICBM, if you know about the launch, you know about the arrival time and, with this plane, you'll have to see its IR signature (shouldn't be hard if you can already detect an ICBM launch) and guess it's about to attack (which isn't hard either because I doubt the SR-72 can maintain Mach 6 for long periods).
It would, perhaps, be smarter to use B-52's to launch sub-orbital missiles with precision conventional warheads. They should be far less conspicuous than a drone doing Mach 6.
Re: SR-72
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I read that I was not so sure what the person who wrote that actually wanted to say. Cause it sounds a bit like: The SR-71 was built with solid engineering and hard work, this on the other hand is a pice of shit.
You only think that because you're(I assume) a programmer, which is how most programmers feel about their code.
I think it is not an unreasonable observation that when a project encompases the state of the art of a wide variety of engineering disciplines, code is not given the same treatment or respect that hardware is. On one hand you have every single metal part being x-rayed to verify internal consistency; on the other hand the software development is a shitshow that needs to be whipped into shape in order to be done on time, let alone work well.
Look at the history of the development of the AGC as an example. And which part of the LEM gave Armstrong and Aldrin trouble during the descent? And that is a success story, in the end it mostly worked.
Re: SR-72
#45What's the deal with all the SR-71 posts in the past few days? They're a cool relic of the cold war age but what has happened recently with them that's warranted all the attention? Also if you're really enamored with them you should definitely check out the national airforce museum in Dayton, OH: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/ You can see one up close, along with all kinds of other planes, jets, and missiles. Admi…
I'm amazed there are so many people interested in military equipment. Is this a USA thing? Would love someone to explain the appeal.
The SR-71 is a major milestone in human engineering that hasn't been matched in 4 decades. It's like we landed on the moon and stopped all progress. The plane carries no weapons and it's only purpose was to take pictures.
Re: SR-72
#46Re: SR-72
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm amazed there are so many people interested in military equipment. Is this a USA thing? Would love someone to explain the appeal.
The SR-71 is a major milestone in human engineering that hasn't been matched in 4 decades. It's like we landed on the moon and stopped all progress. The plane carries no weapons and it's only purpose was to take pictures.
Nitpick, the SR-72, which this article is about, apparently would carry weapons.
Re: SR-72
#48I'm not that familiar with military aircraft development timelines, but this stuck out as my favorite part: A hypersonic plane does not have to be an expensive, distant possibility. In fact, an SR-72 could be operational by 2030.
By comparison, the SR-71 was first proposed around 1960 and operational by 1966. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR-71_Blackbird
This is one of the most perplexing things about our modern world - the seemingly exponential increase in the length of time it takes to get anything done, especially large, technically complex projects. This is true for the Saturn V, for the World Trade Center, dams, highways, high speed rail, etc. It makes me wonder where these "productivity improvements" really are, especially the ones that computers presumably give us. Perhaps AutoCAD and MS Word and email make us feel more productive, but are actually slowing us down. Or perhaps all of it just increases the velocity of money through the economy, which particularly helps those whose income is proportional to transaction rate (banks, brokers, and governments).
Re: SR-72
#49What's the deal with all the SR-71 posts in the past few days? They're a cool relic of the cold war age but what has happened recently with them that's warranted all the attention? Also if you're really enamored with them you should definitely check out the national airforce museum in Dayton, OH: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/ You can see one up close, along with all kinds of other planes, jets, and missiles. Admi…
I'm amazed there are so many people interested in military equipment. Is this a USA thing? Would love someone to explain the appeal.
People's interest is roughly proportional to the energy level involved. Energy is proportional to v^2, so fast things are extraordinarily interesting.
Re: SR-72
#50So given Lockheed's track record on the F-35, we'll see this finally cancelled around 2040 (the first $1 trillion aircraft program) when everyone else has built similar planes better, faster, and more reliably.
How many other planes have they built? Saying other companies have built equivalent planes is incorrect. Trying to build one plane for everyone was probably not the wisest thing to do.
Almost like the story of commercial operating systems.