America's Fastest Spy Plane May Be Back -- And Hypersonic (bloomberg.com) 301
A Lockheed Skunk Works executive implied last week at an aerospace conference that the successor to one of the fastest aircraft the world has seen, the SR-71 Blackbird, might already exist. Previously, Lockheed officials have said the successor, the SR-72, could fly by 2030. Bloomberg reports: Referring to detailed specifics of company design and manufacturing, Jack O'Banion, a Lockheed vice president, said a "digital transformation" arising from recent computing capabilities and design tools had made hypersonic development possible. Then -- assuming O'Banion chose his verb tense purposely -- came the surprise. "Without the digital transformation, the aircraft you see there could not have been made," O'Banion said, standing by an artist's rendering of the hypersonic aircraft. "In fact, five years ago, it could not have been made." Hypersonic applies to speeds above Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound. The SR-71 cruised at Mach 3.2, more than 2,000 mph, around 85,000 feet.
"We couldn't have made the engine itself -- it would have melted down into slag if we had tried to produce it five years ago," O'Banion said. "But now we can digitally print that engine with an incredibly sophisticated cooling system integral into the material of the engine itself and have that engine survive for multiple firings for routine operation." The aircraft is also agile at hypersonic speeds, with reliable engine starts, he said. A half-decade before, he added, developers "could not have even built it even if we conceived of it."
"We couldn't have made the engine itself -- it would have melted down into slag if we had tried to produce it five years ago," O'Banion said. "But now we can digitally print that engine with an incredibly sophisticated cooling system integral into the material of the engine itself and have that engine survive for multiple firings for routine operation." The aircraft is also agile at hypersonic speeds, with reliable engine starts, he said. A half-decade before, he added, developers "could not have even built it even if we conceived of it."
Speed wasn't SR-71's problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
The programme was killed because they were a pain to maintain. Advancing needs meant that they would have on top of that had to spend money on a tech upgrade (such as adding a realtime data link). Meanwhile, there were programmes hungry for its budget, including stealth aircraft (B2) and drones (Global Hawk).
That said, in today's threat environment, I'm sure mach 5 would be appreciated ;)
Re:Speed wasn't SR-71's problem. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Speed wasn't SR-71's problem. (Score:5, Informative)
If you really need a surprise inspection of a specific place at a specific time the gap isn't really filled; but having satellite sensors to work with keeps you from being in the dark; and you can use drones or less capable aircraft in places where adversary air defenses aren't all that interesting.
Nothing quite fills the niche; but filling the niche is an expensive specialty operation; and one that might become quite risky if anyone is capable of pumping out SAMs of similar tech level; since they don't have to support a pilot or a bunch of cameras; just have to hit you; which makes outrunning them without being substantially more advanced a bit nerve-wracking.
Re:Speed wasn't SR-71's problem. (Score:4, Informative)
In part. Satellites are conveniently cheap(when amortized across the amount of area they cover; and how long they cover it; they are not 'cheap' in terms of sticker price); but don't fly any lower than earth orbit and are predictable against any vaguely competent adversary(tracking satellite launches is a hobbyist thing; and downloading their conclusions to know when you are being over-flown is easier still); and continuous coverage requires either lots of satellites to blanket one of the lower orbits; or satellites in geostationary orbits which are quite distant and have the accompanying challenges to getting good image quality.
Satellites were also hard to detect and shoot down. ASAT weapons are relatively expensive.
The SR-72 was not undetectable, quite the contrary, anything travelling at Mach 5 will show up on weather radar (even if it's just the wake turbulence). Its main defence was that it flew so fast that by the time you've targeted and launched your fastest missile at it, the SR-72 was out of range. This can be countered in the same way they've countered stealth bombers, by launching missiles into its flight path in advance. Any modern integrated defence system can do this with ground or air based missiles.
Manoeuvring whilst travelling at 1,500m/s isn't easy either.
Re:Speed wasn't SR-71's problem. (Score:4, Interesting)
Satellites were also hard to detect and shoot down. ASAT weapons are relatively expensive.
Now that the work on satellite-to-satellite communications has been done, that's not true any more, since the difference between a satellite with that technology and a satellite-killing satellite is one of laser power. Now it's relatively inexpensive to kill satellites, as long as you can afford to launch satellites. I'd bet money that at least the US and Russia already have satellite-killing satellites in orbit, masquerading as something else. It would be frankly irresponsible not to.
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Hopefully, if such satellite killers exist, they capture and drag their targets out of orbit instead of blowing them up, that would be truly irresponsible.
Why go to all that trouble? Just burn their sensors and communications equipment, and let their orbit decay. Actually blowing them up would take more energy, so it would cost more.
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In part. Satellites are conveniently cheap(when amortized across the amount of area they cover; and how long they cover it; they are not 'cheap' in terms of sticker price); but don't fly any lower than earth orbit and are predictable against any vaguely competent adversary
Against a highly competent adversary they're sitting ducks, tracking nice, predictable orbits and completely defenseless against a canister of ball bearings in their path. Given that, there may be value in having a more survivable and harder-to-stop camera platform. It may even be worth telling potential adversaries about your hypersonic spyplane in order to deter them from building anti-satellite capabilities. Though if they're sufficiently competent they may respond by building anti-satellite capabilities
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SAMS are not a big worry. A hypersonic plane travels at least a mile a second, if the time it takes from initial detection to firing is 3 minutes, the SAM will have to chase down the plane, it would need to have a range of 500 miles to catch it.
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the SAM will have to chase down the plane
Why? Chasing it means you're already too late. You absolutely need to strike it as it is approaching. It's also very helpful in terms of using the vehicle's own kinetic energy against it.
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The latest version of the S-300 might be able to go Mach-6.
However, there were SAMs that could match the SR-71's top speed during its day. The problem is that it took them so long to get up to altitude and speed that the SR-71 was long gone by the time they arrived. Same story for air launched missiles from the Mig-25.
SAMs were a threat, they could not simply ignore them. But, as the track record proves, the SR-71 and its pilots were just better than any defense thrown at them.
but this one goes to 11... (Score:3)
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The military has their own satellites, they neither have to wait a long time, nor hand over briefcases full of cash.
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You have to wait until it's over an antenna to send it instructions and then wait until it's over another antenna to get its images.
I'm pretty sure this in particular has been eliminated by modern satellite-based communication networks. I mean, NASA has had TDRS for decades; you think the military is less advanced in this respect? (The other issues remain, of course.)
Re:Speed wasn't SR-71's problem. (Score:4, Interesting)
That doesn't take into account technologies which penetrate cloud cover, like infrared and high resolution terrain mapping radar. Your argument about "chunky" images may have been true a few decades ago, but I'd be willing to bet that modern military spy sats have excellent optics, given how good even civilian ones are these days. And since when do military services need to bribe each other with a briefcase full of cash to get up-to-date satellite intelligence? You just need to have enough stars on your uniform, or be placed highly enough in the government.
That being said, I think you hit on the correct answer, if not via the correct line of reasoning. The dominant feature of a spyplane is its flexibility in deployment. Any competent enemy will know exactly when spy satellites are passing overhead, being easily observed and predictable in motion. A spyplane can provide very focused reconnaissance whenever and however military planners want.
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Spy satellites had optics good enough to read billboards back in the 80s, I wouldn't be surprised if they could read license plates today.
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Spy satellites had optics good enough to read billboards back in the 80s
Very large billboards, perhaps.
I wouldn't be surprised if they could read license plates today.
Well, I for one would be because that would violate the diffraction limit for practical optics.
Re: Speed wasn't SR-71's problem. (Score:2)
Very large billboards, perhaps.
KH11's were known for picking up details much smaller than that.
Re: Speed wasn't SR-71's problem. (Score:4, Informative)
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And since when do military services need to bribe each other with a briefcase full of cash to get up-to-date satellite intelligence?
All the time! Services and agencies are not only constantly competing with each other for limited resources, they also like to try and undermine each other by deliberately not sharing intelligence.
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The SR 71 support was coveted by other agencies wanting space budgets.
e.g. Manned Orbiting Laboratory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] and the later unmanned reconnaissance satellites.
Nothing was going to be allowed to take away from the prestige of the new unmanned reconnaissance satellites.
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Foxhound is the MiG-31, the R-33 is a missile fired by the MiG.
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And because improvements in satellite tech made its spying role obsolete. But good hypersonic engines have all kinds of other uses.
Re: Speed wasn't SR-71's problem. (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a story from one of the SR-71 crews about being shot at with a Russian SAM. It missed, but came close. If the SR-71 hadn't been retired one would have been shot down eventually.
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There were over 1000 recorded attempts to shoot them down. None came particularly close. Among other problems, most antiaircraft missiles (particularly air-to-air) rely on flight surfaces designed for maneuvering in the denser air at lower altitudes and become poor at tracking at SR-71 flight altitudes. Most missiles couldn't win in a tail chase either. And they weren't designed to deal with the high net velocity of closing head-on (more similar to those for ABM defenses). The low radar cross section ma
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i figured it was killed because spy satellites were faster, cheaper, and safer to operate?
kinda like how subs supplanted ICBM's.
Re: Speed wasn't SR-71's problem. (Score:2)
Meanwhile, there were programmes hungry for its budget
Lol! Like its direct replacement??
Re: Speed wasn't SR-71's problem. (Score:3)
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Re:Speed wasn't SR-71's problem. (Score:5, Informative)
I believe you're thinking of the U-2, which was shot down twice. On 1 May, 1960, over the Soviet Union, and 14 October, 1062, over Cuba.
No SR-71s were ever lost to enemy fire, although they were certainly shot at. The North Vietnamese shot over 800 missiles at it, without scoring a hit.
Re:Speed wasn't SR-71's problem. (Score:5, Funny)
over the Soviet Union, and 14 October, 1062, over Cuba
And just like that, four years later, the Battle Of Hastings.
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And it was William's use of air power to overfly Harold's armies that proved decisive!
Thanks for catching that stupid typo, though. Didn't catch that in Preview even!
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And just like that, four years later, the Battle Of Hastings.
No need to haste things, right?
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Yes, thanks for the correction.
Re: Speed wasn't SR-71's problem. (Score:3)
Now, none of these actually shot down an SR-71, because the U.S. had the good sense not to put an SR-71 within range of one while over-flying Soviet territory.
I've never beat the shit out of Mike Tyson because he had the good sense to avoid me. But I like totally could.
No need for it any more (Score:5, Interesting)
The SR-71 was developed (like all military programs) to serve a specific need: the Communist nations were closed off to the world and their secret police did an enthusiastic and effective job catching traitors. America was simply cut off from intelligence on the ground. Hence, the super-fast spy plane was developed, capable of violating borders guaranteed by international law, racing in to take photos, and racing back out again before the outraged victim country could defend itself. Moreover this was when the space program was in its infancy, satellite photography was unreliable and took a long time from photo to print. There's simply no need today for a spy plane like this.
The Communists never developed a similar plane because if they wanted intelligence, they just sent out a man from their embassy with a camera and a pencil. There was also no shortage of Americans who either believed in Communism or who were easily bought off. At one point, the head of the FBI's counterintelligence agency was a foreign spy.
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The SR-71 was developed (like all military programs) to serve a specific need: the Communist nations were closed off to the world and their secret police did an enthusiastic and effective job catching traitors. America was simply cut off from intelligence on the ground. Hence, the super-fast spy plane was developed, capable of violating borders guaranteed by international law, racing in to take photos, and racing back out again before the outraged victim country could defend itself. Moreover this was when the space program was in its infancy, satellite photography was unreliable and took a long time from photo to print. There's simply no need today for a spy plane like this.
Or, to put it more succinctly, to do the same job as the U2,but while travelling fast enough not to get shot down by a Soviet missile.
I agree with you though, given state of the art in space-based imagery, I don't really see a need for this - certainly not at the cost it is likely to carry.,
Re:No need for it any more (Score:5, Interesting)
With anti-satellite weapons as demonstrated by china a few years back a threat, possibly they're thinking that the days of LEO spy satellites may be numbered in a war scenario.
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Flexibility.
Satellites have known orbits and are easily predicted and even countered. They are basically like security cameras. They can easily be dealt with in one way or another, either by only letting them see what you want them to see, or if what you want to hide is on such a scale it can't really be hidden, simply blind or destroy them.
Spy planes are more like a patrol. They show up unpredictably with short notice, are a lot more manoeuvrable and on the whole quite a bit more difficult to deal with.
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Moreover this was when the space program was in its infancy, satellite photography was unreliable and took a long time from photo to print. There's simply no need today for a spy plane like this.
What good is your satellite ground station, mister anderson, without any satellites? Nations have been developing satellite-to-satellite weapons. If your spy satellites are getting taken out, then it's back to drones and planes.
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Maybe if you were dirt poor you wouldn't have to worry about theft and could leave your door open at night.
No, someone would always want what little you have. And so it is in geopolitical relations. So you lock the doors and either engage security forces credible enough to deter overt theft, or you maintain your own deterrent, overt or not, and expect your external security to make preventative efforts, wither at the local/individual level, or internationally.
And yes, the US government is and has been a su
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Maybe if America stopped being such a global dick, it wouldn't have to worry about hostile nations.
"Don't be a dick" is a good strategy for getting along, certainly. It doesn't really eliminate the need for having powerful armed forces, though, because your decision not to be a dick doesn't mean others won't be dicks. Having a powerful military is a good way to ensure they don't decide to be a dick to you, and being willing to use your military to stop them from being dicks to others is a good way to reduce global dickishness (actions, at least, not attitudes), which increases global stability and aids g
Re: No need for it any more (Score:4, Funny)
"Don't be a dick" is a good strategy for getting along, certainly. It doesn't really eliminate the need for having powerful armed forces, though, because your decision not to be a dick doesn't mean others won't be dicks. Having a powerful military is a good way to ensure they don't decide to be a dick to you, and being willing to use your military to stop them from being dicks to others is a good way to reduce global dickishness (actions, at least, not attitudes), which increases global stability and aids global economic development.
Obligatory Team America: Pussies don't like dicks, because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes - assholes who just want to shit on everything. Pussies may think they can deal with assholes their way, but the only thing that can fuck an asshole is a dick, with some balls. The problem with dicks is that sometimes they fuck too much, or fuck when it isn't appropriate - and it takes a pussy to show 'em that. But sometimes pussies get so full of shit that they become assholes themselves, because pussies are only an inch-and-a-half away from assholes. I don't know much in this crazy, crazy world, but I do know that if you don't let us fuck this asshole, we are going to have our dicks and our pussies all covered in shit.
Matt Damon! (Score:3)
Matt Damon! Matt Damon!
Re: No need for it any more (Score:5, Interesting)
Poor Uncle Sam , the global cop that's damned if he does, or does not...
Of course US gets a lot of well-deserved stick for fuckups like Iraq and Vietnam, but don't forget that in most of these operations he was accompanied by more-or-less enthusiastic allies such as Canada, UK, Australia...and for Iraq 1 nearly everybody...
Also, how is the USA less of a dick that Russia and China? Do you really think that Putin would not be laying Europe to waste right now if he had the military might of the USA? What about Syria? You think it was Father Xmas bombing the hospitals and the aid convoys?
Face it, AC, a large section of the world is going to hate "The West" (and especially the USA), always, forever, and whatever they do...
Of course, that does not excuse illegal "police" actions or extrajudicial killings, but the USA is by no means the only - or worse - offender in this. (Yeah, I know, a liberal western democracy should be held to a high standard, but life ain't fair...)
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Anglo-American hegemony
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Syria used chemical weapons against its own pop. and had Russia's support. Together they spawned a new crop of terrorists that will never accept Assad or his Russian lackeys.
Re: No need for it any more (Score:2)
Syria used chemical weapons against its own pop
That one simply wasn't put together well enough to be convincing (I guess shilling's like anything else; you win some, lose some).
Re: No need for it any more (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe if America stopped being such a global dick, it wouldn't have to worry about hostile nations. Maybe try not being a dick? Not bombing the shit out of countries? You'd be surprised how angry and hostile people get when American drones are killing innocent civilians in the pursuit of terrorists that American policies created in the first place. I'm just saying, maybe give it a try.
So Syria and Russia aren't an issue? Plus they don't break down which countries in the international coalition actually did the killing. The US leads to coalition but other countries are involved.
http://www.iamsyria.org/syrian... [iamsyria.org]
So ISIS wasn't an issue.
ISIS was forced out of Syria by Russian involvement. The correct choice was not choosing a side in that conflict because we had the choice between supporting Assad's despotic but somewhat stable regime and ISIS's unstable and completely batshit insane desire for an Islamic state.
Unfortunately Trump couldn't keep his limp dick out of it.
The Russians are also prime examples of not sticking your dick in when it's not wanted. Because of Syria, Russia is facing a much increased risk of terrorist attacks (and it's not like they had a shortage of pissed off extremist enemies before Syria either).
Re: No need for it any more (Score:4)
I am pretty hard pressed to come up with any country that is not somewhat dickish to at least a couple other countries. Even Sweden and Switzerland have a few dickish things about them, but generally more in commerce.
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"There is a very short list of warmongering dick countries and the USA is at the top of that list."
But the only thing that can fuck an "asshole" country is a "dick" country.
I assume you are from one of those "pussy" nations. Pussies think that everyone can get along. Pussies hate dicks because they get fucked by dicks.
Re: No need for it any more (Score:3)
the SR-71 was a reconnaissance plane, not a spy plane.
Um...
Much more interested to know... (Score:3, Insightful)
... whatever happened or is happening with the Lockheedâ(TM)s nuclear fusion project?
For those of you who didnâ(TM)t hear, 3 years ago (2014) they claimed theyâ(TM)d be able to make a nuclear fusion power plant capable of fitting in a box car/shipping container IN FIVE YEARS. I presume they mean a power plant that generates substantially more amount of electricity than it requires (Iâ(TM)ve heard that you can âoeeasilyâ make nuclear fusion happen, getting more energy out than in is the trick).
https://lppfusion.com/lockheed... [lppfusion.com]
Anyway whatever happened to this game changing (civilization changing?) technology? The only reason why I didnâ(TM)t dismiss it out of hand was because it was supposedly being developed by their âoeSkunk Worksâ, makers of the F-117, SR-71 amongst other things.
So where is it?
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Isn't there also that German group with the twisty-wisty-timey-wimey-torus which is also meant to be a huge deal?
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Hey, don't you know? Fusion power is only 20 years away, and *always* will be...
https://www.newstatesman.com/s... [newstatesman.com]
Re:Much more interested to know... (Score:5, Funny)
What is with all the "â(TM)t"... is my Firefox broken?
Welcome to Slashdot. Where unicode support is slated to arrive *after* we get nuclear fusion power plants and flying cars.
Re: Much more interested to know... (Score:2)
Yes I did, Iâ(TM)m sorry about the illegibility, I donâ(TM)t know how to fix it (other than not use some punctuation marks)
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There is a browser setting about "smart quotes" which you can disable to make it behave like every other browser on the planet. Sadly, there is no "disable hubris" switch.
Let's face it (Score:2)
SR-71 was cool. SR -72 is a flying blob.
PWDE and other Technologies (Score:2)
For example, there is plenty of evidence and acknowledged testing to show that we have working examples of things like Pulse Wave Detonation Engines, or Pulse Detonation Engines. These leave very characteristic contrails in the sky, which look like a chain of doughnuts connected by a thin central line. We know the technology has bee
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I'm kinda with you, kinda not.
Pretty sure that they have some advanced stuff, which they wouldn't be bragging about if they had any clue about military intelligence.
But I doubt they have anything particularly amazing. The 60's was an era of spacecraft and firsts, compared to the best spyplane the Apollo launch moved much faster (escape velocity is Mach 33?). What was happening in public was infinitely more impressive than what was happening behind closed doors.
However, I'm sure they have some neat stuff.
B
Inconsistency in timeframes? (Score:2)
So the plane is supposed to be flying by 2030 - that's twelve years away. Yet they also say,
"We couldnâ(TM)t have made the engine itselfâ"it would have melted down into slag if we had tried to produce it five years ago,â Oâ(TM)Banion said. âoeBut now we can digitally print that engine with an incredibly sophisticated cooling system integral into the material of the engine itself and have that engine survive for multiple firings for routine operation.â The aircraft is also agil
Don't tell me... (Score:2)
Chinese version (Score:2)
The Chinese version will be available in 2032, they'll just steal the plans and paint a red star on it.
The SR-71 is my all-time favorite jet. (Score:2)
I wish the 72 was as sexy. Looks too boxy to get my juices flowing.
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Re:What's the point? (Score:4, Insightful)
The point is that "let's spend more on the military" always gets you votes, and hypersonic spy planes are extra cool. Whereas if you tried to spend it on dirty ungrateful poor people you'd get booted out of office.
Re:What's the point? (Score:5, Insightful)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The days of spy satellites in low earth orbit may be numbered. Shooting down a plane a 2000+mph that has anti missile defenses and can do active avoidance may be somewhat harder.
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You have to wait until a satellite is in the right part of its orbit to take the images and possibly wait again until it is in position to download. An aircraft can be scrambled, flown over the point of interest and return the imagery at much shorter notice.
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Support contracts over time. Win the profits for the design, win the profits to get the project flying, win the ongoing support and upgrade bids.
Money is on the table. A contractor will take it all.
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A Hubble class telescope is going to take really good photographs pointing down.
With a ~20 cm resolution and advance warning. Sometimes not that useful, especially against irregular opponents.
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The surface of the Earth is whizzing by as Hubble orbits, and the pointing system, designed to track the distant stars, cannot track an object on the Earth. The shortest exposure time on any of the Hubble instruments is 0.1 seconds, and in this time Hubble moves about 700 meters, or almost half a mile. So a picture Hubble took of Earth would be all streaks.
http://hubblesite.org/reference_desk/faq/answer.php.id=78&cat=topten
It should be obvious.
OK except the Hubble is a repurposed Keyhole satellite. Yes, its optics were redesigned for astronomy but the original model was for Earth surveillance.
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'Agile' means that it can turn!
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Agile means able to quickly avoid. Both in aircraft and programming.
Re:Agile at hypersonic speeds? (Score:5, Informative)
Not quite, but it's still quite a lot. At 85,000ft the speed of sound is about 300m/s (690mph) which is about 88% of that at sea level (340m/s). So at 85,000ft and Mach 5 it'll be travelling at about 1,500m/s (3,450mph). Depending on how many g the pilot wants to feel the turn radius might be as high as 343km (213mi) at 1.2g and as low as 47km (29mi) if the airframe can survive a 5g turn (the SR-71 had a limit of about 3g).
Because I like speadsheets, for a given g-force that the pilot feels, the turn radius & time to do a u-turn.
g(pilot) - radius(km) - radius(mi) - time
1.2 - 343 - 213 - 12:02
1.5 - 204 - 127 - 07:08
2.0 - 132 - 82 - 04:36
2.5 - 99 - 62 - 03:29
3.0 - 81 - 50 - 02:49
3.5 - 68 - 42 - 02:23
4.0 - 59 - 37 - 02:04
4.5 - 52 - 32 - 01:49
5.0 - 47 - 29 - 01:38
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I would think though that it's faster to take your foot off the throttle when you initiate such a turn. To use a car metaphor.
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There's only so much speed you can lose when you're flying at and above 80,000ft. Take the SR-71's flight envelope [google.co.uk]. At 70,000ft, you didn't want to be below 2M, and not above 3M, at 80,000ft the range was even less (2.75M to 3.3M). Plus the whole point was to be faster than any threats (or at least be out of range by the time they reacted).
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Wait, wait, since this thing will be understeering like a pig you'll need trailbraking al the way to the apex. Not easy without an apex.
Also you'd be surprised how hard your car will be braking if you just take your foot off the throttle at mach5.
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Nice work, but you can up the loads - building 'planes that can survive +10g is not trivial, but very doable...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
and "modern pilots can typically handle a sustained 9 g"...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Unfortunately, AA missiles can do 30 to 50g (depending on if their rocket motor is still burning or not...), so your best option here is outrunning the buggers at extreme altitude not out-turning them...and good luck with that, since mach 5+ is easy for modern missiles...
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Yeah, humans can handle high g loads, especially with suits and training, and like you say modern aircraft are capable of surviving higher loads than their fleshy inhabitants! Plus, as somebody mentioned it appears that this will be unmanned.
The reason I went with 5g is because of the upper limit of the SR-71 (3g), plus something that's designed to fly at hypersonic speeds is unlikely to be built to deal with the high loading that an F-22 - for instance - can handle (9g x 150%). You also have to keep the ai
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Forget spy stuff, this sounds like a SSTO in the making. Or at worst, a nice 0th stage for quick satellite deployment.
The Brits are handling that end of the research: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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97% speed-of-light capable spacecraft.
It's funny that this kind of energy couldn't solve America's energy crisis and give you vastly superior weaponry on battlefield. So either the people in charge are scientifically ignorant, totally irrational, or outright crazy (on a supertrumpian level) to willingly cripple their own country by not using such a power source to make the US economically unbeatable.
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97% speed-of-light capable spacecraft.
It's funny that this kind of energy couldn't solve America's energy crisis and give you vastly superior weaponry on battlefield. So either the people in charge are scientifically ignorant, totally irrational, or outright crazy (on a supertrumpian level) to willingly cripple their own country by not using such a power source to make the US economically unbeatable.
Capitalism isn't a "crisis" to solve for those profiting the most from it. There's a reason oil companies hold a metric fuckton of patents for alternative fuel tech that would create competition and reduce their profits. Greed will always ensure strategic suppression is a preferred weapon.
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Consider this - the Star Wars program back in the 80's didn't exist. The idea that it might was a major factor leading to the collapse of the USSR. What you're talking about would pull the rug right out from under North Korea and Iran. Hell, it co
Re: (Score:2)
Cute, you know a designation for an aircraft that doesn't have any evidence to support its existence. There is no TR prefix, just T for trainer, surely this should be a X (experimental) or Y (prototype). Not just that, you apparently know it's the 2nd in the series (B).
Re: Im sure they already have something better... (Score:2)