NASA appears to be pulling its SR-71 Blackbird, the fastest production plane ever made, out of retirement as the Trump administration teases its new line of hypersonic surveillance jets — but doubt…
Seeing Blackbird fly again after all these years would be incredible. I’d love to know what NASA has planned for it.
realistically, I don’t know what you’d use it for unless you need extremely high-resolution images.
Well, what does NASA do?
I think it’s a pretty safe bet that NASA wants it to test something about aerodynamics at extremely high speeds. Perhaps they want it to deploy some experiment at mach 3. Sometimes you just don’t know if your simulation models are correct, and you need to try something in the real world.
I suppose it’s also possible they want it to get some close up footage of a rocket during launch or reentry.
But I think the most likely answer is still that they just need something that goes very fast.
Well, what does NASA do?
I think it’s a pretty safe bet that NASA wants it to test something about aerodynamics at extremely high speeds. Perhaps they want it to deploy some experiment at mach 3. Sometimes you just don’t know if your simulation models are correct, and you need to try something in the real world.
I suppose it’s also possible they want it to get some close up footage of a rocket during launch or reentry.
But I think the most likely answer is still that they just need something that goes very fast.